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Groups never admit failure

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Re: Groups never admit failure

#161

Post by dahart »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #134
dahart wrote: post #81

> A group will never admit they were wrong. A group will never admit, “We made a mistake,” because a group that tries to change its mind falls apart. I’m hard pressed to find examples in history of large groups that said, “We thought A, but the answer’s actually B.” Germany openly regrets Nazis and Hitler. In the US we admit that letting McCarthy run amok was a huge mistake. Globally billions of people admit that we…

> In the US we admit that letting McCarthy run amok was a huge mistake. Who is this "we" ? I strongly suspect that a large number of those who voted to re-elect the previous president likely incline a little bit in McCarthy's favor. He was anti-commie, anti-leftie, pro-america, and really a model for some parts of contemporary conservatism. Yeah, ok, so a few innocents got hurt, but look ... with all those people in…

You make a good point. In my defense, I was thinking of McCarthyism and the feature that it conducted mock trials, committed character assassinations, and accused people of being guilty by association. A lot of that has been quite roundly condemned by “us”, by which I mean the courts (including the Supreme Court), governments, historians, and the public. Even if some of the politics live on, and even if there are splinter groups who would do it again, I feel like it’s fair to say a solid majority of our group does admit the tactics of McCarthyism were an error, no?

Re: Groups never admit failure

#162

Post by dstick »

madaxe_again wrote: post #102
derbOac wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the essay is strongly written — never is a strong word — but it resonated with me because of a personal experience. In that experience part of the problem was that those who disagreed with the group were purged out of the group one way or another, either because they chose to exit out of disgust or because they were driven away, or something in between. So there was a "survivorship bias" in the group, where "…

Indeed - my personal experience of this was at my business - I would admit my and our mistakes to the extent that the perception became that I was the source of all of our failures. My partner was and is a person who is never wrong, never fails, never makes a mistake - it’s always someone else who stymied his ambitions, or circumstance, or just bad luck. Never an error. I left, after a decade. It was partly of my own…

You sound like a great person to work with and for. And I applaud your healthy look on the situation. Which can’t always have been / be, easy. But you’re wearing that scapegoat mantle with pride, and a touch of compassion. Some people just never learn. Best to stay clear of them and accept the way they think of you. You know better. You did the right thing.

Re: Groups never admit failure

#163

Post by AussieWog93 »

whatshisface wrote: post #144
jjoonathan wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I accidentally killed a very promising project this way. I gave a pitch demonstrating how it could stand up brilliantly to multiple avenues of ruthless investigation and criticism. People didn't listen to the words, they listened to the emotion of the ruthless investigation, and they discarded the idea in favor of one which would have tipped over if someone had brought a similar magnifying glass to within a mile. Onc…

It's a very painful moment in everyone's career when they realize that, no, they're not the only one that has noticed that powerpoints are usually full of fluff, and no, they're not going to get anywhere by changing that, because yes, they got that way for a reason.

I don't think it's just presentations or even corporate culture in general. I sell second-hand goods online, and have found that explicitly describing any defect completely torpedoes the sales process.

Having a photograph that shows it off clearly but saying nothing doesn't have that effect, though.

Re: Groups never admit failure

#164

Post by kartman »

My guess is whenever the return to the prime investor is in a different form from their input ( a donor gets "did good" happiness return for $ put in) all sorts of ineffieciencies will come in.

In for profit it is $ return for $ input.

A good test of this is if fully volunteer labor non profits achieve outcomes better than those accepting $ - I dont know the answer but wonder.

Re: Groups never admit failure

#166

Post by lumost »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #163
whatshisface wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very painful moment in everyone's career when they realize that, no, they're not the only one that has noticed that powerpoints are usually full of fluff, and no, they're not going to get anywhere by changing that, because yes, they got that way for a reason.

I don't think it's just presentations or even corporate culture in general. I sell second-hand goods online, and have found that explicitly describing any defect completely torpedoes the sales process. Having a photograph that shows it off clearly but saying nothing doesn't have that effect, though.

It’s the same bias, we’re so accustomed to sales pitches proclaiming perfection that an honest pitch sounds like the top of a disaster.

Re: Groups never admit failure

#168

Post by robocat »

jseliger wrote: post #2

I was on the board of a foundation that was charged with giving out money for a cause, and I found it very disillusioning because what I learned was that no matter what the foundation did, they would declare victory. Every project was victorious. Every project was a success. There was a lot of back slapping. There were a lot of high-sounding mission statements and vision statements, a lot of congratulations, a lot of…

Quote from reviewed book in link: “a bedrock and simplistic assumption that has long shackled the charitable world: that money spent on direct services is the only worthy use of charitable funds, while money invested in organizational effectiveness is to be kept as close to zero as possible. It is an equation widely accepted by the donating public, by the press, by charity watchdogs, by government regulators, and by most charities themselves. To keep overhead costs down, charities forgo necessary investments with devastating and sometimes deadly results.”

There are a lot of parasitic organisations that provide shitty expensive advice/consultancy services to crappy charities. A sort of web of symbiotic parasites, helping charities to provide no value. It is no surprise that crappy charities can spend a ton of money on “organisational effectiveness” that only return negative value overall.

Re: Groups never admit failure

#169

Post by listless »

jschveibinz wrote: post #50
tehjoker wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results. It's useful to remember what Friedman's advice did to Chile when he supported the Pinochet regime. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-chicago-boys-i... https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/ma...

Just to clarify, Milton Friedman most likely did not “support” the Pinochet regime. Here is another article on the topic: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2008/07/milton-... Nevertheless, Friedman’s words stand on their own, and I thought that the addition of the quotes worked well with the post. I am not making political statements, because I don’t find them to be appropriate for HN. Peace.

Nothing like a little ad hominem to get the blood flowing
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