Why Atlas Shrugged Caved!

The first time I saw the book, Atlas Shrugged, I gasped. The pages were nearly as much as the Bible, written in small old Times New Roman too! A friend of mine, during one of those introspective conversational banter we usually have, mentioned the book, explaining what a controversial person the author turned out to be.

Instinctively, I knew I had to read it; the sheer size of the book nonetheless. It was the sort of book I knew I would get a kick from.

By the time I finally put down the book, I ‘phewed’ several times. There were moments when I felt the book subsumed me, whipped me, cajoled me, teased me, offended me, provoked me and revitalised me all at once. That is what Atlas Shrug will do to you when you get down to it. It was the sort of book, once completed, you put down with a heavy thud, bang the table and shout “YES!” as a declaration, an anthem and victory for the brilliant mind that penned it down. I couldn’t stop repeating to myself, What A Book - What A Mind - What A Woman!

Atlas Shrugged, written by Ayn Rand is a highly philosophical book that espouses the principles of Objectivism – Ayn Rand’s own epistemology.

Using a love triangle as the intricate plot to all the dimensions the story will take form, Ayn Rand used Dagny as the central person that connected the key heroic characters in the book: Hank Rearden/ Francisco, John Galt and Eddie Willers as well as the key Villain in the story, her brother James Taggart, President, Taggart Transcontinental.

The novel, written in 1957 takes a critical analysis at the factors, conditions, attributes, values and principles that drives, motivates and inspires man’s action to create and trade. It also taps into the internal thinking processes and feelings that steers man’s needs, his abilities, his decision making and choices.

Covering 30 chapters in 1,168 pages, Atlas Shrugs explores great themes, motifs, philosophy, metaphors and a masterpiece plot to drive her resolution home. I find Chapter 1V of Part II, The Sanction of The Victim most poignant; and the speech by John Galt on Chapter VII, page 1009 of Part III – “This is John Galt Speaking”, the most thought provoking.

Imagine reading a phrase such as this on page 419: There are no evil thoughts, except one – the refusal to think.

Pg. 445 states: Man’s Motive Power is his Mind.

Pg. 457: When disaster strikes, one must show the instantaneous refusal to submit to disaster.

And on pg 490, I find Francisco’s Philosophy of Sex refreshingly engrossing: “A man’s sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his evaluation of himself.... Sex is the most profound selfish acts of all, an act which he cannot perform for any motive but his own enjoyment – just try to think of performing it in the spirit of selfless charity! ...It is an act that forces him to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and to accept his real ego as his standard of value. He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience – or fake – a sense of self esteem...[for] he does not seek to gain his value but to express it.”

On page 661 she upturns a wrongful way of thinking by restating it as: ... “from each according to his ability, so to each according to his need.” That you need something doesn’t mean you have to have it at the expense of another. Rather your needs should be equal to the size of your ability.

664 – When all decent pleasure are forbidden, there are always ways to get the rotten ones.

665 – About moral law: the more you tried to live up to it, the more you suffered; the more you cheated it, the bigger rewards you got. Your honesty was like a tool left at the mercy of the next man’s dishonesty.

671 – “I will stop the motor of the world...his name was John Galt.”

678 – Cattles...they will obey anybody who expects obedience. But money inside a man’s pocket had the power to turn confidence into his mind.

Page 709 – Think, create and prosper. Do onto thy neighbour as you wish him to do to you.

720 – When one deals with words, one deals with the mind.

721 – There’s no such thing as a lousy job – only lousy men who don’t care to do it. Any man who’s afraid of hiring the best ability he can find is a cheat who is in the business he doesn’t belong.

760 – Atlantis code: it is against our rules to provide the unearned sustenance of another human being.

Pg. 788 – Rationality, Integrity, Honesty...are all acts of creating that comes from the same source. Pg. 791 – every man builds his world in his own image.

802 – If any part of your uncertainty is a conflict between your heart and mind – follow your mind.

823 - A human harmonizer is a machine with no centre, leader or direction.

A lie is self abdication, page 859.

891 – In whatever situation you find yourself, place nothing – nothing – above the verdict of your mind. Your life is the highest of values; too high to give it up without a fight.

1012 – Man’s mind is his basic tool of survival.

1015-1016: Existence Exists. A is A. EXISTENCE IS IDENTITY. CONSCIOUSNESS is Identification. To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality. All thinking is the process of identification and integration.

1017 – A process of reason is a process of constant choice in answer to the question: True or False; Right or Wrong.

1018 – To live, man must hold three things as supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason-Purpose-Self Esteem. And that the alleged shortcut to knowledge is faith.

1096 – You cannot force a mind.

1101-1109: The exact definition of an Egoist; not its connotation but what it denotes.

1022 – Happiness is a state of the man, a contradictory joy.

Page 1022 – A Trader is the symbol of the relationship among men.

1027 – Explores the constant struggle between God and Society; Spirit and Muscle.

By page 1061, it is so clear how a country’s political system is based on its code of morality.

If you’ve not read this book, go get yours now, if not for anything else but to have your mind thorougly engaged in some real thinking.

The Stories We Tell, Matters

A mindset is about a way of thinking and reading, and in many ways helps the wiring of the mind in a way so powerful one begins to actually enact that life which one has seen in his mind’s eyes. That was the conclusion I drew after reading the long dialogue in the book titled Ishmael.

In creating our own illusions, sometimes we should be careful not to feed on it to the point of obesity else, it will consume us and the reality we face will become so stark we can no longer tell what is true or false anymore. This is why the book titled Ishmael written by Daniel Quinn matters.

Stories are who we are. People can’t just give up a STORY. When you do, one is bound to fail. Because you can’t just stop being in a story, you have to have another story to be in. Ishmael, pg 128, pp9.

Stop. Pause. Yes, it’s good to be in a story. Everybody loves a good story. It is why there are many ways to tell stories. Which kind of story appeals to you more: rags to riches, stranger comes to town, the quest like an Odyssey? Or perhaps overcoming the monster kind of story? Whichever story you prefer, it does tell something about a core value inside you that wants to express itself in that manner. 

Daniel Quinn, in his book helps us take a deeper look at the stories that you and I have been told through ‘Holy Books’ which have survived thousands of years to our time begging us to for once question them. Not because you feel a need to desecrate, but because you are blessed with a mind that naturally questions even what it believes. Why bother, you ask? Because these stories have not only tried to shape us, they may have actually helped to wipe out any cultural identity or story that was once originally yours; and even perhaps create a dangerous monster in place of it.

Daniel Quinn calls the story tellers of these ancient stories The Leavers and The Takers. Who are they?

Are you familiar with the story of Cain and Abel? What images conjure up in your mind? Is there more to that story than meet the eyes? Or perhaps you feel we should NEVER question what has been written or said by a HIGHER AUTHORITY? Hold that thought in your head. Don’t say anything until you’ve read these words: “And Cain went on to kill Abel because he had found favour in God’s eyes.” Gen. Chapter 4:8. 

Here, Cain is identified as the agriculturist and Abel the animal husbandry man. Yet the Question begs: what was really wrong with Cain’s offering? Too little? Not enough? Or because they were ‘lifeless’? Is that enough to reject his offering? Are vegetables actually lifeless than an animal about to be slaughtered? 

Now imagine yourself, suppose you were Cain, and agriculture is all you knew, where else will your offerings come from? Is it not from what you have? Will you steal someone else’s so you can give a ‘better’ offering? Remember, Cain’s offering was not rejected because it was stolen. So why reject his effort? Perhaps someone is actually telling a story in METAPHORS? Think about it.

Ishmael, Pg 152 pp8, says, “The story of Genesis must be reversed. First, Cain must stop murdering Abel. This is essential if you’re to survive... – there is no one right way to live... You must absolutely and forever relinquish the idea that you know who should live and who should die on this planet.” 

So if we try telling a story about ourselves as a war mongering, vengeance-pay-back kind of people or a country, then essentially that is what we shall become both in the short and long run and so will our future generations. Even the nature of our constitution, jurisprudence, law, customs and culture will reflect the kind of story we are telling. And it is from these perceived nuances that people extract the content of our character, our values, ethics, M.O. and vision. Same thing happens if we say we are a docile, laidback, content and subservient people. So shall our people and country become; what we say we are by the stories we tell and how we tell it becomes who we are. You are your own story. 

But how can we 'retell' our stories?

Ishmael, Pg 152, pp12, says, “You must change people’s minds. And you can’t just root out a harmful complex of ideas and leave a void behind; you have to give people something that is as meaningful as what they’ve lost—something that makes better sense than the old horror of Man Supreme...”

What I like About AMERICANAH

Each time I pick up and read Chimamanda’s books: Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun, a smile always hover around the corner of my mouth. Actually, it’s more like an extended grin that is slim always taking too long for it to disappear. Her book is like eating very tasty Jollofrice – you know that special recipe only grandmamma knows how to concoct (wink!) – that is how I look forward to reading her books. It is also how I savour them.

So when I read Americanah – First Editions – the very same day it arrived at the bookstore in Abuja, I knew I was reading a juggernaut. I rolled in laughter, jumped on my bed numerous times and ran in and out of the kitchen severally times still clutching the book. I was hooked!

I loved how she weaved the story of Emenike the wannabe Nigeria-turn-oyibo-by-force who craved for everything class, wealth, royalty, and Western semblance in his life; the baptism by fire fresh students who go abroad to school face when it comes to which ‘African’ society they ought to belong at the University – a deciding factor that reveals their Africanness or dilution thereof; I loved the honest introspection of how she narrated Obinze’s dual internal conflicts – the story of many honest Nigerians who desire to earn their keep by merit, hard work, honesty and sheer pursuit in that for which they have dreams and so desperately want to make real in a society that stifles such.

And each time I reflected back and forth at how sincerely she told Ifemelu’s story with such candour and unpretentious: her love life, her misjudgement during a long period of calamity after calamity which brought to focus her own weakness, her personal desires and vision of herself, her values and goals, and Aunty Uju’s love quest in ‘wrong’ places, I kissed the book a thousand times!

In between all these narratives, Chimamanda made us understand that our hair is an identity of who you are and your roots. A political statement if you will.

I did not want to put the novel down and when I finally did, the book had stains all over it that should have come with years of reading a book over and again. Chimamanda knows how to yarn tori well well, no be small. And today, in many Nigerian salons you’ll see women going in their small but regular numbers lending their voices to the hair movement she’s promoting: back to your hair roots people!

Finally, I was sated. And then it hit me!

I realise that for me Americanah exposes all of our pretentious identities. It looks at the sometimes vague and all too poignant reflection of the images we all tend to conjure up in different circumstances.

The expert way she talked about Race in America – the land of many a Nigerian’s dream; the symbol of all that is the best – using her blog as a tool of narration was a masterpiece. She told it like it is so that if you’ve never been to America before, you will definitely have a buffer around you after reading her book to absorb the culture shock you are bound to experience when you get there.

But most importantly, for me this book hits home. While Race is open warfare in America as it can be seen in the Michael Brown and Eric Garner case, ethnicity and tribalism in Nigeria is similar – an open warfare embroiled and interplayed with post colonial politics even today.

Tribalism in Nigeria is the equivalent of race in America. And that is because Nigeria too is a mismatch of various countries lumped into one dishomogenous entity just as the British and France did with the Arab world. And tribalism is been fanned today by how we refer to ourselves with anecdote, one-liners or a passing remark. One ethnic group calls the other ‘the human eating people’; another calls the other ‘people who shit inside their homes’, and so on. Would you call that racist? Forget they are all blacks with different skin tone and shades. They are all Africans.

So what makes a tribe, an ethnic group what they are? It is called IDENTITY. Identity covers their culture and how this culture is interpreted into norms, beliefs, laws, lifestyles, education, values, skills, business and politics.

But is it wrong that we are different? Even nature abounds with infinite differences. So what makes fanatical racism, ethnicism and tribalism a bile in one’s mouth?

It is when you begin to feel that you are SUPERIOR over the other person and so therefore can decide whether they live or die, get colonised or not, supply arms to or not, become the next president of Nigeria or not. There are only superior ideas but not necessarily superior races or tribes. A race can be powerful, no doubt but that does not necessarily make them superior. Ask Hitler.

The beauty of different races, ethnic groups and tribes is that it allows us to learn one from the other; today you may have a superior idea, tomorrow it could be my turn. We are after all a community of humans living interdependently with nature.

SO LIVE. STOP THE WAR BECAUSE YOU MATTER TOO.

And that’s what Americanah promotes: Love for differences, even admiration. 

Service Orientation is a Competence Skill

How do you see the term 'service'? What picture comes to your mind?

The other day, I walked into a big supermarket – not a mall – to buy some household needs. As I walked into the shop I nodded at someone I think should be the attendant. You see, I've come to realise that each time I greeted attendants in a number of supermarkets in Nigeria – simply out of courtesy – I realized too often and rather sadly how they ignore your greetings. In order not to feel I have wasted by breathe greeting them, I decided to device the ‘nodding technique’ and believe me it works! They immediately greet me properly. Why, does it work? That will be another discussion for another day or you can drop in your comment after reading this piece. 

As soon as I walked in though I was completely ignored but I noticed they had their eyes fixed on me as I moved from one aisle to another, their eyes also checking to see that my handbag was not bulkier than when I came in. Round and round the aisles I looked for what’s on my list and yet nothing. Almost feeling exasperated not getting what I came the long distance for, I decide to walk up to one of the attendants and asked for what I needed. The first two attendants said, “I don’t know all these products Ma. I don’t think we have them.”

Determined to get what I wanted, I walked up to the cashier and asked politely. She smiled and said, “Common you!” she pointed at one of the attendants, “Go and check that row near that corner. Na there wetin she dey look for dey.” Surprising they were they! 

The quantity I bought from the shop that day so shocked the cashier, I overheard her say to the other attendants, “Chai! See wetin the woman buy! Na so we for lose plenty sales today!” as I stepped out. 

The morale? Service orientation matters.

But what does service orientation mean?

Service Orientation means:

• To Anticipate
• To Recognise
• Meeting Customer’s Needs 

When you have the service orientation mindset, you:

• Understand customers needs and have matched them to services of products
• Seek ways to increase customer’s satisfaction and loyalty
• Gladly offer appropriate assistance
• Grasp a customer’s perspective, acting as a trusted advisor
• Being able to identify a client’s real, underlying – and often unstated – needs, then matching them to one’s products or services.
• It also means taking a long term perspective and so sometimes trading off immediate gains in order to protect and preserve the relationship
• Sales or continued patronage is no longer the sole goal of the relationship, but rather a by-product of servicing the client’s needs
• It also means occasionally letting another person take credit for a job well done
• To shine at service we need to monitor the satisfaction of customers, not waiting to hear complaints.

In service orientation, listening well is the key to empathy – and often winning more customers through word of mouth.

How to Listen Well With Empathy

To listen well with empathy means:

• Asking astute questions
• Being open minded
• Understanding
• Not interrupting
• Seeking suggestions
• Being in control of our own moods is essential to good communication
• How well you handle your emotions determine the degree to which those around you preferred to deal with you
• In dealing with peers and subordinates, calmness and patience are key. Stay cool and collected always, no matter any circumstances
• As an employee, do not be overly aggressive with dealing with your boss. It puts them on the defensive or becomes a turn-off
• Aiming for a neutral mood is the best strategy in anticipating or dealing with someone else, if only because it makes an emotional clean slate and allows you to adapt to whatever situation calls for, for example like a car in neutral can go reverse, low, or high gear, etc.
• A neutral mood leaves us ready to be more fully involved, present rather than emotionally removed.

Have you ever encountered that kind of customer who would not back down no matter what you say unless you hear them out or give them what they want? This is where your negotiating skills comes creates the desired effect you want.

Options and Approach to Negotiation

Problem Solving: in which both parties try to find the solution that works best for each side

Compromise – where both parties gives in more or less equally regardless of how that serves their needs

Aggression: where one party forces unilateral concessions from the other side. In this case, threats and demands poison the waters of negotiation

When conflict arises, as negotiation is ongoing, what do you do?

How to Handle Conflicts

First calm down, tune into your feelings and express them:

• Show a willingness to work things out by talking over the issue rather than escalating it with more aggression
• State your own point of view in neutral language rather than in an argumentative tone
• Try to find equitable ways to resolve the dispute, working together to find a resolution both sides can embrace.
• To achieve all the above, you need self-awareness, self-confidence, self-control and empathy.

Reference: Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman.

The Art of Critique

When you come across these words: criticize and critique, what definitions does your mind bring forth? To critique means to analyse, comment on, review or state your opinion or reaction to a set of ideas, or work of art. To criticize means to say that you disapprove of something or something or say what you don’t like or think is wrong about something or somebody. Did you notice how many times the word ‘wrong’ is used when you criticize? To criticize focuses more on the wrong and less on the facts and specific issues or ideas. 

And that is why to critique is the best form of correction – with the goal to bring about positive learning. In work and every aspect of human dealings, the need to be specific about the outcome and ways that will encourage the out of that which we want often boils down to how well we employ critique. 

How do you appreciate people while giving them a consistent stream of positive and constructive performance feedback? You can do the following: 

• Praise people for doing a good job
• Send personal notes of commendation
• Don’t fail to let them know when they goof too
• When you evaluate a person’s performance, be honest. You do them a dis-service when you give them praise where they are lacking. Be specific about the specific area you want them to do better
• Constant improvement should be a way of life. You should let them know WHAT they need to improve
• No feedback is bad. But much worse is incorrect or bad feedback

Leadership requires a good dose of coaching. As a helpful coach, give specific information about what is wrong, combined with the corrective feedback and positive expectation of the person’s ability to improve.

The worst way to give feedback, says Daniel Goleman in his book, Emotional Intelligence, is during an amygdala hijack, when the result is inevitably a character attack. Neglecting to give performance feedback is equally bad or has a pernicious effect. When an organisation deprive employees of specific job-related information, they may unwittingly inhibit their performance.

People hunger of honest feedback:

• It is not about giving brutal feedback – it’s a hidden sign for pure competitive aggression – an attack disguised as “helpfulness”.
• Feedback is not a macho game score of one-upmanship. You need to pay attention to the impact on the person receiving it. Being too blunt is not authentic help. This is not a game.

Always expect the best of so-called low performers despite their abominable histories. This however does not mean that you should hire someone who has no talent, capacity, expertise or bare skills needed for a job in the name of being fair. The business is in existence to succeed and make returns. 

• Show you believe in their ability to change
• Treat them more like winners rather than losers you’ve already deemed will fail no matter what.

How to Affect People Positively – The Pygmalion Effect

Pygmalion, a play by George Bernard Shaw presented to the public in 1912 was named after a Greek mythological character. The play is based on the Professor of Phonetics, Henry Higgins where he makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled girl who sells cockney flowers, Elizabeth Doolittle, to pass as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party by teaching her how to assume a veneer of gentility though her command of impeccable speech. And as the story ended, he succeeded spectacularly.

The Pygmalion Effect therefore means expecting the best from people can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. How can you make this happen at work, in the home, with friends and wherever you need people’s skills and abilities?

• Give them a suitable challenge with a vote of confidence. 
• Sometimes let others take the lead in setting their own goals, rather than dictating the terms and manner of their development.
• Communicate the belief in your employees that they have capacity to pilot their destiny – initiative.
• Sometimes use the technique where you point to problems without offering the solutions – this allows your employees to find the solution themselves.
• Use of Socratic Dialogue during ongoing assignment will give the person the needed training, and experience to overcome challenges is another technique. 
• Delegating responsibilities, or putting the person in charge of a project that will call forth new skills, well demands a sensitivity to the readiness of the person being coached – if the assignment is too easy, little will be learned; if it is too difficult, the person may experience a setback.
• Putting too much emphasis on coaching and development at the expense of other needs is a danger. Leadership and management skills are equally important for best performance.

References: Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, Wikipedia and Oxford Advance Learner’s Dictionary.