The Kikwit handshake and culture

Wed, 19 Feb 2020
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(IMAGE: Metro.co.uk)

Some trivia from the Ebola outbreak in 1995:

Outbreaks and the news they create also give the public a chance to see culture being created and transmitted because people invent behaviours and management strategies when they encounter new diseases. One small example of this occurred during the early days of the Ebola virus outbreak in Kitwit, Uganda. Villagers who were deathly afraid of contamination began to stop shaking hands and to start touching elbows in greeting, a gesture that became known as the ‘Kitwit handshake’… Shaking hands in greeting became briefly supplanted by touching elbows as a polite way to greet one another without passing the pathogen” (96).

— In Epidemiology and Culture by James A. Trostle (2005)

I thought I’d share this because of the behaviours manifested in:

  1. The public responses thus far – boomer-tips, panic-buying after the raising of the DORSCON risk, the response to the panic-buying itself, etc.; and
  2. Me, because of my own responses to boomer-tips and hand-shaking.

Boomers and their medical expertise

Tue, 18 Feb 2020
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    (IMAGE: Gregory Grinnell/Northeastern University)
 

I like how, thanks – or no thanks – to the 2019-nCoV, almost every single boomer has become a medical expert on the subject.

Last Saturday morning, my Grab driver told me we can protect ourselves against the coronavirus by eating “a lot of hot stuff: ginger, chili, curry – all these!”

He added that going out into the sun and taking a walk will result in the sunlight “burn[ing] off the virus”.

These pro-tips were in addition to many other pro-tips from other boomers I’ve had the honour and privilege of receiving, such as:

  • Don’t use cheap toilet paper because it’s a possible cause of the infection;
  • Gargle with warm salt water; and
  • Take non-spicy food.

Interestingly, the last tip completely contradicts what my good friend told me today. I guess there are some things boomers still can’t agree on.

What boomer advice in relation to the 2019-nCoV have you received? Please share.

When all this is over, we’ll compile these nuggets of wisdom into a book and give a copy to each boomer during a mass ceremony to confer on them their honorary medical degrees.

Stuff you must read today (Sun, 16 Feb 2020) – The Explaining Incompetence Edition

Sun, 16 Feb 2020
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  • Research: Do People Really Get Promoted to Their Level of Incompetence? | Harvard Business Review
    A confirmation of The Peter Principle and how firms can manage around it: creating a structure in which top performers are rewarded with pay rather than promotion; and promoting, to managerial positions, staff who are above-average in individual contributor roles, but savvy in skillsets of leadership.

  • The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity | Carlo M. Cipolla
    An essay by an Italian economic historian that provides an explanation for human behaviour in the world.

  • The Dunning-Kruger Effect Shows Why Some People Think They’re Great Even When Their Work Is Terrible | Forbes
    “…many people are underperforming simply because they don’t know that they could be doing better or what really great performance looks like. It’s not that they’re necessarily being defensive, rather they just lack the knowledge. In fact, he told me that research subjects were willing to criticize their own previous poor skills once they were trained up and could see the difference between their previous poor performance and their new improved performance”.

  • If Humble People Make the Best Leaders, Why Do We Fall for Charismatic Narcissists? | Harvard Business Review
    “…narcissistic individuals radiate ‘an image of a prototypically effective leader.’ Narcissistic leaders know how to draw attention toward themselves. They enjoy the visibility. It takes time for people to see that these early signals of competence are not later realized, and that a leader’s narcissism reduces the exchange of information among team members and often negatively affects group performance”.
     
  • Putt’s Law | davewentzel.com
    “I really admire managers who follow the management-by-walking-around (MBWA) principle. This management philosophy is very simple: The best managers are those who leave their offices and observe. By observing they learn what the challenges are for their teams and how to help them better.
     

    So, what I am looking for in a manager?

    1. He knows he is the least qualified person to make a technical decision.
    2. He is a facilitator. He knows how to help his technologists succeed.
    3. MBWA.”