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How To Build Awesome Habits: James Clear | Rich Roll Podcast

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According to our global study and The Trust OutlookTM, the number one question everyone is asking is “Can I trust you?”. A lack of trust is your biggest expense in business and life. Each of the 8 pillars of trust contribute to demonstrating why trust is the leading indicator.

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The 8 Pillars of Trust

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The Dos and Don'ts of Business Email Etiquette

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Few things can tarnish your professional brand quite like a poorly written, misguided email. One click of the "send" button can be the difference between a successful business exchange and a potential HR issue or coworker conflict. And while Americans send hundreds of thousands of emails a day, it should not be taken for granted.

Whether you're a senior professional or an office newbie, here are 13 must-remember dos and don'ts of business email etiquette.

Do Pay Attention to The Subject Line

Write a clear, concise subject line that reflects the body of the email. Avoid subject lines with general words like, "Hi," "Touching Base," or "FYI," and do not leave the subject line blank.

Do Use a Proper Salutation

"Hi" and "Hey" communicate a lack of professionalism and maturity. Begin your email with phrases such as "Good morning," "Good afternoon," "Good evening," or "Hello." "Good day" or "Greetings" are other phrases used frequently in the international arena.

Do Use an Introduction

In cultures like the U.S., the best practice is for the sender to introduce themselves by first and last name with some background information in the first few lines. For example, "Dear Ms. Mandell: My name is Sharon Schweitzer, founder of Access to Culture. I was referred to you by . . ." or "My name is Sharon Schweitzer and I am an International Business Expert writing to you about . . ." This is especially important when introducing yourself to new contacts, potential customers, clients, and employers who want to know how you received their contact information.

Do Know The Culture

When sending emails to people from indirect cultures, it is proper protocol and a best practice to research country customs. For example, in Japan, it is polite, appropriate, and customary to inquire about the weather in the first sentence of a business email. Contrastingly, it would be inappropriate to send an email introducing yourself to a potential Japanese contact. In indirect cultures, introductions are only made by mutually respected third parties due to custom; cold emails are ignored, deleted, blocked, and/or marked as junk.

Don't Include Humor and Sarcasm

Emails can easily be misinterpreted through text without context. Humor is culture-specific. Avoid both humor and sarcasm in emails as the recipient may be confused, or worse, offended.

Do Double-Check Your Attachments

When you attach a file, be kind enough to take a few extra seconds to paste it into the body of the email as well. This shows consideration to the recipient, by saving them time and risk in opening attachments. Is this more time consuming for you? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes.

Don't Hit "Reply All"

Avoid using "Reply All" unless everyone needs to know. When the C-Suite (CEO/COO) or administrative assistant sends an email to 10 staff members requesting volunteers for a community service project, reply to the admin, not to all 10 members. Why make ten others delete your email? Reply All is a function for ongoing deliberations on a particular subject.

Do Reply Expediently

Replying within 24 hours is common courtesy. Leave someone hanging for any longer and you are not only perceived as rude-it could cost you business in the long run. If you've unintentionally kept someone waiting longer than 24 hours or extenuating circumstances arose, politely explain the situation and express your apologies.

Don't Use Emojis

Those little winking, smiling icons are for text messages. They are inappropriate and unprofessional in a business email. Emoticons may divert emails to a spam filter or junk mailbox, and it can look immature and unprofessional.

Do Protect Privacy

Email is public. Even though an email is deleted, online services and software programs can access messages on the hard drive. Before you click "send," consider what may happen if a business colleague, your competitor, an employer, the FBI, or any unintended recipient reads your email. Think of it this way: How would my email look if it were posted on Facebook?

Don't Be Negative

It's inappropriate to email negative comments. An email in all uppercase letters connotes anger in an email. These antagonistic messages cause awkwardness long after the email has been sent and received. If you must relay bad news via email, use objective words and state the facts. Face-to-face communication is best when relaying bad news.

Do Proofread

Check and recheck for spelling and grammatical errors. These errors make you seem unprofessional and will reduce the likelihood that the email will be taken seriously. Email software comes with many professional tools such as spell check-use them.

Don't Forget the Conversation Closer

By letting the recipient know that a response isn't needed, the email cycle doesn't continue on in perpetuity. Close with "No reply necessary," "Thank you again," "See you at the board meeting Tuesday" or "Please let me know if I may be of further assistance." End your email with a closing such as "Best," "Best Regards," "Sincerely," "Thank you" or another appropriate phrase.

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The Dos and Don'ts of Business Email Etiquette

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Few things can tarnish your professional brand quite like a poorly written, misguided email. One click of the "send" button can be the difference between a successful business exchange and a potential HR issue or coworker conflict. And while Americans send hundreds of thousands of emails a day, it should not be taken for granted.

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15 minutes a day of homework can help build our basic needs of self-esteem and confidence. According to Abraham Maslow, psychiatrist and psychology professor, when we meet our basic human needs, we learn more effectively and learning becomes easier. Read the article below to learn more. Maslow Hierarchy of Basic Human Needs

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ECBA Code of Conduct

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international institute of business analysis

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Certification Levels - IIBA | International Institute of Business Analysis

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International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA), the association for business analysts, offers the BABOK Guide, CBAP and CCBA certifications

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ITIL Foundation Certification

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The ITIL best practices provide a framework for businesses to more effectively manage their IT services. Find out more about ITIL with Axelos.

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Lecture Notes

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iPhone Hacks | #1 iPhone, iPad, iOS Blog

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Google has been moving away from its Drive app for both PCs and Macs, and now the platform has an official end date.

Today, Google officially announced that it will be stopping support for the Google Drive app for both PCs and Macs beginning December 11, 2017. After that, the service will shut down permanently on March 12, 2018. Google notes that users who are still using the app will be notified that it is "going away" beginning in October, giving them plenty of time to use a different service instead. Google will be marketing its own alternative, "Backup and Sync," which it launched for Mac and PCs earlier this year.

"With this launch, Google Drive for Mac/PC is officially deprecated. It will no longer be supported starting on December 11th, 2017, and it will shut down completely on March 12th, 2018. We encourage you to use Drive File Stream. As an alternative to or in addition to installing Drive File Stream, you can upgrade to the new version of Drive for Mac/PC, called Backup and Sync."

Google Drive has been around for quite some time and has been a go-to option for backing up files and what not on computers for many users. It's not too surprising that Google is shifting away from it, though, considering it has been pushing the Backup and Sync app for several months now. It's good to see that Google is officially announcing the changes, and giving a final date for users to be aware of before they'll have to switch.

Are you a fan of Google Drive in general? Have you tried out Backup and Sync yet?

Update: Google is only shutting down the Drive app for Mac and PCs and replacing it with its Backup and Sync app. The service itself is going to stay alive.

[via Google Blog]

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Google is Shutting Down Google Drive App for PC and Mac on March 12, 2018

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Google has been moving away from its Drive app for both PCs and Macs, and now the platform has an official end date. Today, Google officially announced that it will be stopping support for the Google Drive app for bothaaa

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Applying Lean: Implementation of a Rapid Triage and Treatment System

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Applying Lean: Implementation of a Rapid Triage and Treatment System

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• Fromlet, H. (2001). Behavioral Finance-Theory and Practical Application: SYSTEMATIC ANALYSIS OF DEPARTURES FROM THE HOMO OECONOMICUS PARADIGM ARE ESSENTIAL FOR REALISTIC FINANCIAL RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS. Business Economics, 36(3), 63-69. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23488166
• Lapinski, M. K., Kerr, J. M., Zhao, J. and Shupp, R. S. (2017), Social Norms, Behavioral Payment Programs, and Cooperative Behaviors: Toward a Theory of Financial Incentives in Normative Systems. Hum Commun Res, 43: 148–171. doi:10.1111/hcre.12099
• Behavioral Finance: Anomalies

Albert Phung - http://www.investopedia.com/university/behavioral_finance/behavioral3.asp

Let’s examine some of the underlying assumptions of MPT from a behavioral perspective:

All investors aim to maximize economic utility (in other words, to make as much money as possible, regardless of any other considerations).

All investors are rational and risk adverse.

All investors have access to the same information at the same time.

Investors have an accurate conception of possible returns, i.e., the probability beliefs of investors match the true distribution of returns.

All investors are price takers, i.e., their actions do not influence prices.

Risk/Volatility of an asset is known in advance and is constant.

https://www.asppa.org/news/browse-topics/behavioral-finance-%E2%80%94-next-frontier

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AMERICAN SOCIETY OF PENSION PROFESSIONALS & ACTUARIES

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All too often the innovations honored with a Nobel Prize fly under the radar of "regular" Americans. But that wasn't the case recently when the work of University of Chicago's Richard Thaler was acknowledged.

Thaler was, of course, recognized by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, who said that his focus on limited rationality, social preferences and lack of self-control has "built a bridge between the economic and psychological analyses of individual decision-making." More plainly, to my reading, Thaler (finally) managed to prove to economists that human beings don't (always) act rationally and/or in their own self-interest.

Now, anybody who has ever actually interacted with human beings knows this. Indeed, in some ways the most amazing thing about Thaler's insights of this reality is that it is seen as being innovative by economists.1 I still remember reading the report that Thaler and Schlomo Benartzi authored way back in 2004, " Save for Tomorrow: Using Behavioral Economics to Increase Employee Saving." That's where (among other things) I first learned about the concept of what we today call contribution acceleration, based on the premise that people are more likely to act (and act more aggressively) on their good (but painful) intentions in the future than if they had to do so today.

There's no denying that Thaler's work has had a big impact on retirement savings (about $29.6 billion worth, according to one estimate). And if Thaler and Benartzi did not exactly create the notion of automatic enrollment, they at least freed it from the "dark" connotations of "negative election," as it was called at the time.

Today we may wonder at - but no longer question - the notions that human beings rely on heuristics (mental shortcuts) when making complex decisions, that they fear loss more than they value gain, that they tend to diversify across the number of options provided, without regard to what lies within those choices, and that they tend to treat "old" money differently than "new" money. For this, Prof. Thaler and his collaborators over the years deserve our thanks.

That said, it may be worth remembering that while we tend to assume that plan fiduciaries are rational in all their decisions, they too are human beings making complex decisions. Consider that:

Many remain hesitant to "impose" automatic enrollment for concerns about negative response from workers, though multiple surveys suggest workers would appreciate the move.

Many continue to auto-enroll new hires, but not current workers.

Many extend auto-enrollment to eligible workers - once.

Many choose to implement auto-enrollment - and then wait 3 to 4 years to start contribution acceleration.

Long-standing (and probably ill-considered) fund choices are routinely mapped during a recordkeeping conversion. Perhaps through multiple conversions.

Plan committees often seem more worried about the negative reaction to removing a poor-performing fund than the possibility of being sued later on for keeping it on the menu.

That doesn't mean that there aren't any number of positive, rational reasons for those decisions. Indeed, most of us are rightly hesitant to superimpose our imperfect judgments on "other people's" money - even on those on whose behalf fiduciaries are admonished to act.
But as we commemorate - and celebrate - those behavioral finance "nudges" that have done so much to buoy individual retirement security, perhaps some of those fiduciary decisions are worth (re) considering as well.
Footnote
1. And it was no easy or short path, as his 2015 book, Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics recounts in amusing and self-deprecating detail.

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All too often the innovations honored with a Nobel Prize fly under the radar of "regular" Americans. But that wasn't the case recently when the work of University of Chicago's Richard Thaler was acknowledged.

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Narrow-mindedness - It's not Them, It's Us | Maura O'Neill | TEDxRainier

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In this eye-opening talk, Maura O'Neill explores the incredible potential of our united global society if we just opened our minds. learn to recognize and challenge narrow-minded thinking, especially in ourselves. Maura O'Neill places innovation at the center of her work, study, and attitude.

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Why good leaders make you feel safe | Simon Sinek | TED

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TEDxMaastricht - Simon Sinek - "First why and then trust"

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Across 33 rich countries, only 5% of the population has high computer-related abilities, and only a third of people can complete medium-complexity tasks.

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The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think

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Across 33 rich countries, only 5% of the population has high computer-related abilities, and only a third of people can complete medium-complexity tasks.

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• Know your target audience
• Study.com Marketing Myopia: Examples, Definition & Summary

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It's a piece of necessary wisdom that will be shared with countless college students this fall by nervous parents: Tell a story at a party, and it's heard by a handful of people, whose reactions you perhaps have some ability to predict. Tell it on the internet, and it will be heard by the people you know and the people you don't - and the latter outnumber the former by several orders of magnitude. Don't put your picture on Facebook flashing the camera or looking drunk or kissing someone you might later regret kissing.

But for people trying to break into some kind of a creative field, the ability to broadcast your work is a blessing. Perhaps your stand-up video on YouTube will be the one that goes viral, or your blog post will be the one everyone reads. There are a million opportunities to be seen, and the best part is that you don't have to deal with so much "no."

"No, we won't publish your piece." "Okay, I'll put it on my blog."

"No, we won't give you a record deal." "Okay, I'll make YouTube videos."

"No, we won't publish your book." "That's okay; I can do it myself for e-readers."

The development of online writing and performance exposes new voices and lets those voices experiment with provocative, enormously creative content, and there are a thousand good things to say about that. Gatekeepers have traditionally been similar to each other in sensibility and demographics, often to the detriment of diverse content.

But who you are talking to no longer has anything to do with who you think you're talking to. You can tell a story to your narrow circle a hundred times and have nobody bat an eyelash, but the minute you step outside that circle, everything is completely different. And that can underscore the way that a sudden explosion of your audience can give what you say a completely unexpected reception.

At an improv comedy show on August 14, audience members were invited to step up to the microphone and tell a story that would inspire an improv set. Partway through the performance, a man who identifies himself as "Eric" begins to tell his story. He explains that he was working as a host/cook at Second City in Chicago, and a drunk woman from out of town hit on a friend of his, but the friend had a girlfriend, so he effectively passed her number off to Eric. (Like ... a baseball card? If you already find this story creepy, rest assured that it's only getting started.)

In Eric's version of events, he goes to the woman's hotel room, and she tells him he's not the guy she invited. "Yeah," he says, "but I'm the guy who showed up." [Huge audience applause.] She tells him to leave, but he persists (with charming lines like "my friend said this was a sure deal"), and when that doesn't work, he asks to borrow her cell phone, telling her it's so he can get a ride and leave. When she goes into the room to get her phone, she leaves the door open. As he describes it, this made him think, "Bingo." (Be aware before you watch the video, where Eric begins speaking at about the 38-minute mark: It's upsetting and crude.) (And "Yowie.com," which hosts the video and offered it as an embed, has written to us to make sure we tell you that that's where the embedded video came from. So now you know: Get all your incredibly uncomfortable monologues from "Yowie.com.")

So he goes into the room and closes the door behind him. She tells him again that he needs to leave, and at that point - again, quoting Eric - his thought is, "It's now or never." So she asks him to leave again, and he says he doesn't think she really means it, and then they "end up on the bed ... making out." How exactly they "ended up on the bed" when she was just telling him to leave repeatedly is left unstated, but to cut to the chase, he winds up having sex with her, after which she tells him to get out. Asked if she was attractive, he gives a noncommittal "eh."

[I'll wait here while you take a hot shower and wash off that story.]

[EDIT: It's been pointed out to me via e-mail that something I left out because I found it confusing and perhaps unfairly damning if you didn't hear his weirdly ambiguous version of it for yourself actually makes the story less damning to other people, so it would be better to describe it, and I'm happy to do that. Basically, at one point, after they're on the bed, Eric describes the woman pinning him down physically and repeating that he needs to leave. But the next thing he says, without much explanation, is that they continued making out. So on the one hand, he says that she physically resisted, but on the other, he says she was stronger than he was. So take that addition to the story for what you will. Given that he doesn't describe physically overpowering her and that wasn't my objection to the story, I didn't find it enormously significant one way or the other, but perhaps you do.]

Predictably, the question arose pretty quickly, as Jezebel asked it, "Is This Comedy Monologue A Rape Confession?" Since then, there's been extensive discussion in various comment sections of the fine points of consent and law and intoxication, and since The Second City tweeted from its official account that it had "alerted the proper authorities," those questions will have to be answered by people who can figure out what really happened and whether all or any of this story is true, or whether it's just a story - a bit he's doing for the crowd.

Here's the thing, though. In the best case scenario - in the absolute sunniest way you can possibly look at this story - Eric is telling a story that he thinks is really funny about how he used an anonymous woman like a blow-up doll, doing whatever he had to in order to get in the door, ultimately persuading her to go along, caring not at all that she didn't want to have sex with him, having sex with her, and then leaving. He treats her like she's inhuman and valueless and gross and nasty but still fine for having sex with once, and he thinks he's the hero of this story.

What has stuck with me ever since I saw this video - what has really kept me restless and bothered - is that he has no idea it might bother anyone. He has no idea that anybody would object to this at all, while I'm over here barely being able to listen to it because it's so upsetting and it pings every instinct I have about creeps and The Gift Of Fear and RUN RUN RUN YELL FOR HELP. He told this story thinking maybe that it would get on YouTube and everyone would think it was hilarious ("No, but I'm the guy who showed up!"). He had no idea that Second City would wind up saying, in effect, "Uh, yeah, we ... called the cops."

If Eric thought telling this story in public would open up a serious public back-and-forth about whether this is a story of sexually assaulting this woman, he wouldn't have done it. He thinks he looks cool in this story, and indeed, a certain number of people in the audience keep laughing the whole time.

This is the curse and the blessing of the instantly multiplied audience, I suppose. Whoever has heard this story before apparently thought it was funny. They don't seem to have found it creepy, anyway. And it seems to be far from the first time he's told it, considering that at one point he actually says he's speaking "the way I tell this story to my friends."

Maybe it's not true. Maybe it's part-true. That certainly matters to the police, and to the woman, and to him, and presumably to his family and friends. But whether he considers this a true story where everyone will be on his side or a comedy routine that will strike people as some kind of a hooray-for-the-underdog narrative, I find it profoundly upsetting. Having it be true is awful, but having it be something he would invent or embellish, either as comedy or as image management, also crawls across my skin like an entire army of cockroaches.

Certainly, the fact that he told this story may be a good thing if it gets somebody to deal with whatever is going on here, whether there's a crime to prosecute or not. But the idea that somewhere, there is a guy who thinks this story makes him look good, who apparently had no idea that it would make him look to a lot of other people like a criminal or at best a revolting heel, makes me wish the always-on video had never been invented, because part of me just didn't want to know.

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Your Friends Are Not Your Audience: A Disturbing Internet Lesson In Perspective

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A man recently stepped up to a microphone to tell a story he thought was about a really funny thing that happened to him. Others think he confessed to sexually assaulting a woman in a hotel room. Still others suspect the story isn't even true.

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An easy to understand explanation of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

If you wish to use the images or content, cite this URL : http://www.loopa.co.uk/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs as Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs attempts to explain what motivates and drives people. Maslow believed that people were driven by more than simple stimulus responses as suggested by other behavioural theories and he created his now famous hierarchy of needs to explain people's motivation.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is broken down into 5 distinct levels starting from the first ( Physiological needs) and working its way up through safety needs, social needs, self-esteem needs and finally self-actualisation. An individual can only move up the pyramid once they have established or achieved the previous levels needs.

Physiological needs

Physiological needs make up all that is necessary to survive and sustain a persons life and are the minimum requirements of survival itself. Such needs include:

Food: An individual must insure they have enough nutritional food per day to sustain themselves. A lack of this would lead to starvation and ultimately death.

Air: Oxygen is required by humans to breath. A lack of this would lead to asphyxiation and kill within a matter of minutes.

Water: The human body requires on average 8 cups of water per day to maintain hydration. As a large proportion of the body consists of water content which is lost through sweat urine and breath consistently, a lack of water would result in death within days through dehydration.

Shelter: An individual requires protection from the elements such as the cold and heat. Clothing can also help meet this need to a certain extent however prolonged exposure to cold for example can lead to death due to hypothermia or hyperthermia. Prolonged exposure to heat would result in sweat which would increase the need for water which if not met could cause death due to dehydration.

Sleep: Sleep is thought to be essential for adequate functioning. Although research is not conclusive on its actual purpose it is believed to play an essential role in the bodies functioning with an estimated 7-8 hours seen as the minimum requirement. This may vary according to the age of individuals.

Space: People require personal space, indoor living space and outdoor space so as to avoid overcrowding. The amount varies and there is no defined amount for humans.

Safety Needs

Safety needs come into effect once an individual's physiological needs are satisfied. These can include:

Personal safety: Avoiding risk of harm and freedom from danger as well as the elements.

Financial safety: This could be through employment which provides structure, routine and order as well as security.

Health and well-being

Safety nets against possible harm, accidents and their possible impact.

Social Needs

Social needs are also known as love and belonging needs. Once safety needs are met, according to Maslow people need to feel a sense of love and belonging. These needs are especially strong for children and may see them cling to parents who may even be abusive towards them, overriding safety needs. Maslow believed deficiencies in this area could cause individuals to struggle in the formation and maintenance of significant relationships such as:

Friendship

Intimacy

Affection and love from family, friends, work colleagues and even love interests.

Social needs may be met through the involvement of clubs, work colleagues, organisations, sports teams and even gangs. Some social connections may be met through family members and even intimate partners. Lack of social interaction can lead to social anxiety, depression and loneliness.

Esteem Needs

Self-esteem requires an individual to have self-respect as well as respect from those around them. Self-esteem involves being valued and respected by other individuals and this may be through their achievements, social status achieved or mastery within a specific field. This would give individuals a sense of value and contribution. Lack of esteem can lead to people to develop an inferiority complex and a desire to seek glory or fame to compensate for this.

A sense of achievement and accomplishments

Mastery

Status

Maslow believed there were two versions of esteem individuals may have. One was the "lower" version and the other "higher". The "lower" version of esteem would see the individual seek respect from others through status, recognition, prestige, fame and attention. The "higher" version involves the individual seeking self-respect through strength, competence, mastery, independence, freedom and self-confidence. The higher version is believed to take precedence over the lower version as it focuses on inner competence which is achieved through experience.
"What a man can be, he must be."
Self-actualisation has been defined differently by different people.

Kurt Goldstein suggested self-actualisation meant for an individual to reach their full potential through expressing their creativity, spiritual enlightenment, their pursuit of knowledge and to give back to society.

Goldstein said: "the tendency to actualize itself as fully as possible is the basic drive... the drive of self-actualization."

Maslow believed this was the final level of psychological development for people and this could be achieved when all the basic and mental needs are fulfilled first. Self-actualisation can also be described as self-discovery, self-realisation, self-exploration and self-reflection. Maslow believed this was a stage of growth rather than a driving force as Goldstein described and people reached this stage once previous stages are completed.

Maslow described self-actualisation as: "the desire for self-fulfillment, namely the tendency for him [the individual] to become actualized in what he is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming."

Self-actualisation is described by Maslow as a desire to accomplish everything an individual can and to be the most they can be. What individuals focus this desire on can vary from one person to another. One individual may desire to become the best in their respective field of work, another may focus on becoming the best parent they can be. Self-actualisation may also be expressed through inventions, pictures or even paintings. To reach this level Maslow believed an individual needed to master the previous levels first.

Maslow believed less than 1% of the adult population actually ever reached this stage with most people hovering in the lower levels.

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Maslow's hierarchy of needs - Loopa Psychology Revision

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Maslow's Hierarchy of needs An easy to understand explanation of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. If you wish to use the images or content, cite this URL : http://www.loopa.co.uk/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs as Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Facebook Twitter Google+ Maslow's hierarchy of needs attempts to explain what motivates and drives people.

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Acknowledgements: This paper has been the result of a collaborative writing process. We would like to thank Dr Priscilla Adoyo (Centre for Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation, Kenya); Amira Armenta (Transnational Institute); Aryaman Bhatnaga; Abdul Ebrahim Haro (Practical Action); Dr Mallika Joseph (Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, India); Professor Gilbert Khadiagala (University of Witswatersrand, South Africa); Antionia Porter (Centre for Conflict Resolution, South Africa); for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Any errors or inadequacies are the authors' own.

Marginalisation of the Majority World: Drivers of Insecurity and the Global South

The current security paradigm adopted by most governments and their defence forces is based on the premise that insecurity can be controlled through military force or containment, thus maintaining the status quo. This has been termed the 'control paradigm' and is 'self-defeating in the long-term' (Abbott et al, 2006). Oxford Research Group (ORG) argues that a new way of approaching security is needed, one that addresses the drivers of conflict: 'curing the disease' rather than 'fighting the symptoms'.

One alternative is the concept of 'sustainable security'. The sustainable security approach is inherently preventative (where the 'control paradigm' is reactive), in that it addresses the likely causes of conflict and instability well before their effects are felt.

Oxford Research Group aims to encourage in-depth, original thinking amongst decision-makers and civil society around sustainable responses to long-term trends in global security that we have identified as likely to cause unprecedented international tension and loss of life in the coming decades. Perhaps the four most important underlying drivers of insecurity are:

Climate change

Increasing competition over resources

Global militarisation

Marginalisation across much of the 'majority world'[1]

The sustainable security framework aims particularly to highlight the interconnected nature of these triggers of insecurity.[2]

This is the second in a series of four papers[3] (see respective links at the bottom of this publication), each of which examines one of these four potential drivers of insecurity, and the ways in which each trend (in this case, marginalisation) may engender local and international discord.

Each paper is the result of long-term collaboration between Oxford Research Group and partners across the 'Global South'.[4] This collaborative network - made up of activists, analysts and academics from a range of think tanks, civil society organisation and research institutes - have recommended background reading, provided expert review and written illuminating case studies commissioned for this paper.

The Importance of North-South Engagement

The likely future drivers of insecurity do not respect national boundaries, and will not be sustainably addressed by unilateral approaches. For example, as competition over energy resources increases with depleting supplies of fossil fuels, it will become more vital that positive collaboration between consumer nations in the West and resource-rich nations in the South occurs.[5]

In a globalised world, in which no nation's security is independent of their region or of the wider international community, the opinions of the majority world can no longer be neglected by the major powers, who seek to dictate global security policies.

The sustainable security approach posits global justice and equity as key requirements of any effective response to global insecurity. Voices from the Global South remain on the periphery of discussions around global political and security issues, and particularly at the negotiating tables of international institutions.[6] The implementation of a newly egalitarian approach to international relations can begin with a close engagement in Western organisations with majority world thinking. Security analysts and policy-makers must continue to engage and collaborate with counterparts in the Global South, ensuring that the sustainable security project puts into practice the idea of a truly inclusive global politics.

Many future security problems, and also the solutions, will be found in the Global South, within the very populations whose marginalisation has resulted in much contemporary insecurity. Whilst climate change, for example, will hit the poorest communities hardest,[7] it is with emerging economies like China, India and Brazil that the West must engage, if mitigating climate chaos is to have any success at all. These non-Western perspectives must be recognised and addressed in concrete policies in the powerful countries of the Global North. Such policies should be focused on transforming tensions at their root rather than solely attempting to control violent conflicts once they have already broken out.

Our hope is that this series of research papers will contribute towards 'North-South' communication, giving Western decision-makers greater reasons and resources with which to engage with their colleagues in the majority world to build a genuinely sustainable global system.

The Pressing Threats to Global Security in the Twenty First Century: Marginalisation of the Majority World

Divisions between the rich industrialised North and the 'majority world' are a key and intensifying driver of global insecurity. While overall global wealth has increased, the benefits of this economic growth have not been equally shared. The rich-poor divide is growing, with a heavy concentration of growth in regions of North America and Europe in particular, and the 'majority world' of Asia, Africa and Latin America (UNDP, 2009: 35). These Western states, and small elites in Southern states, are attempting to maintain political, cultural, economic and military dominance in a world where emerging economies are gaining power.

Deepening oppression and political exclusion amongst communities in the South combine with poverty and discrimination to present an increasingly dynamic threat to national and international stability. The sense of increasing marginalisation is more keenly felt as improvements in education and modern technologies allow those 'at the margins' to witness the wealth and opportunities of elites (both in the North and in their own Southern nations). This leads to an increased likelihood of radicalisation and political violence.

Current responses to this radicalisation are in line with the control paradigm's approach (dealing mainly with publically visible and immediate threats such as the al-Qaida movement), and sometimes actually work to increase support for extremist and violent groups.

This paper will explore the latest thinking on the relationship between poverty, political and social exclusion, the political marginalisation of Southern states, and insecurity. We will also examine a number of policy changes that could address these concerns.

Poverty and Inequality

Poverty and the 'Control Paradigm'

Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not having access to school and not knowing how to read. Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time. Poverty is losing a child to illness brought about by unclean water. It is powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom. It is inability to exercise democratic rights and being unable to voice concerns.' (Bett and Kimuyu, 2008: 2)

Poverty, inequality and the consequent scarcity of resources have a combined destabilising impact on political stability (Draman, 2003). Marginalisation from mainstream political society and frustration at inequality render such radical solutions increasingly appealing. For example, in Pakistan, those regions most economically and socially depressed have witnessed a rise in extremism (Akhtar, 2009) [see Marginalisation Cultivating Radical Ideologies, below]. Whilst this extremism partially impacts upon local security, it is also designed to make waves in the wider international community. For example, chronic food insecurity in Baluchistan (Pakistan) has 'aggravated the sense of marginalisation', encouraging the rise of insurgency groups. In 2009, the Baluchistan Liberation Union Front[8] kidnapped John Solecki, Head of the Local Office of the UN High Commissioner of Refugees. On his release he was given a message from his kidnappers saying they had intended to 'highlight the miseries of their people to the international community' (Suleri, 2010: 81).

Security policies have responded with attempts to control such threats, for example through the 'war on terror'. Both the rhetoric and the strategy of this campaign have often been counterproductive, actually increasing support for movements such as the al-Qaida network (Rogers, 2003). Traditional methods aiming to control threats with military force have been used; these traditional methods of counterterrorism ignore the underlying socio-economic realities that encourage support for radical movements.

Communicating Marginalisation

While there is a 'transglobal elite' spread across the 'West' (primarily in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Oceania), as well as many nations in the South (particularly Brazil, China, India and pockets in Africa), the world's poor are principally located in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. In these nations, there has recently been a significant increase in literacy, alongside growing access to radio, television, mobile phones, and the Internet. Even if many parts of the South are still data poor, some areas have 'leap-frogged': halting the development of nation-wide traditional telephone infrastructure, and instead investing in and facilitating private companies in internet and mobile phone networks (Nyabiage, 2011). For example, cable-optic provider Seacom have installed a high-speed internet capability covering Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda and Djibouti, which is soon to be expanded to Somalia, Southern Sudan and Burundi (ibid.).

One of the impacts of access to such networks of communication, along with welcome improvements in education and literacy, is that far more people have an awareness of their own marginalisation.

The access to new media will inevitably affect the young most, in their schools and social networks. Children and the young are also predominant in the poorest income groups: Every second child is living below the poverty line (UNICEF, 2005). The number of children and young people, particularly in Africa, is also growing. The average fertility rate for the developed world is 1.5, with 5.5 for the developing world and about 6.0 for Africa (Draman, 2003: 10). Draman calls this a "youth bulge" with 'serious social and security implications' (ibid.).

In Pakistan, half the population are under the age of twenty, and 66% under the age of thirty (Akhtar, 2009). In the Federally Administered Territorial Area in Pakistan, employment opportunities are severely limited, with 60% of its population living below the poverty line. This low economic development has allowed the Taliban to 'exploit' the youth (ibid.).

Many under-25s across the Global South face 'lifetimes of unemployment, underemployment or low pay' (Rogers, 2009: 11), and at the same time have a growing awareness of 'the far more comfortable lifestyles and prospects of the elites' through the media, for example, making an inclination towards radicalisation not unpredictable (ibid.). This, we have seen with the 'Arab spring' [see Young People and the Arab Spring, below].

Disparities of Wealth and Opportunity

Despite improvements in development in a number of areas, this has not equated to a reduction in relative inequality. Although poverty in itself can be a security concern, inequality can also be 'socially inefficient and divisive' (Bett and Kimuyu, 2008: 14), increasing involvement in radical movements [see Marginalisation Cultivating Radical Ideologies, below], crime [see Crime and Local Security, below], political dissent that may become violent, competition over economic assets, and labour disputes.

The global financial crisis since 2008 has driven inequality further,[9] and the economic policy responses from some governments threaten to worsen this (Bornay-Bomassi, 2009). For example, many Asia-Pacific countries were on course to meet the Millennium Development Goals, but following the economic crisis this is no longer the case. Fewer employment opportunities worldwide mean less remittances[10] and deeper local poverty that primarily affects the vulnerable, landless and dispossessed, contributing to insecurity (ibid.). When economic recession combines with population stresses, leading to competition over access to resources, there is worrying historical evidence pointing to a high likelihood of violent conflict, e.g. in Liberia, East Timor and Sierra Leone. This risk is particularly enhanced when combined with resentment towards corrupt governments (ibid.).

Crime and Local Security

Visible inequality can encourage criminal activity; firstly as a result of need (poverty), secondly through the visibility of wealth, making targeting easy, and finally, through increased anger and resentment at the disparity in security, opportunities and wealth between elite and deprived communities. This is particularly true where poverty and wealth sit side by side in close proximity, which is increasingly the case in 'mega-cities' such as Rio de Janeiro and Lagos.

In some areas, the response to high crime rates and fear of crime has encouraged the foundation of 'gated communities' (sometimes known as 'fortified enclaves' or 'enclosed neighbourhoods'). These communities are becoming increasingly common in East Africa - Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania - and also in South Africa and Brazil - nations with acute inequality issues (Landman and Schonteich, 2002:72). Caldiera calls this a form of 'spatial segregation' (1999: 114); communities are 'privatised, enclosed, and monitored' - and one could conduct most of one's life in them, as they provide for 'residence, consumption, leisure and work' needs (ibid.).

In Brazil, the risk of violent crime is unequally distributed over geographical areas and social groups, with a concentration in urban and metropolitan areas, and within groups who are living in poverty. It is in these areas that the 'problems of poverty, unemployment and the lack of adequate housing and basic services, including health, education, transport, security and judicial services, are most acute' (Landman and Schonteich, 2002: 76). This is partly a result of rapid urbanisation, occurring in Brazil from the 1960s onwards, where communities transferred themselves "en masse to the cities", creating conditions of "deprivation, exploitation and poverty" (former Security Secretary Luiz Eduardo Soares, quoted in Phillips, 2007: 58).

In these contexts, it can be tempting to withdraw into situations of 'total security'. However, the danger is that residents embrace stereotypes, automatically labelling different social groups as 'dangerous, to be avoided and to be targeted by the police and private security officers' (ibid., p. 82). This behaviour will only further embed the feelings of resentment that drive crime and insecurity.

Frustration at inequality can be acute in situations where the income from visible natural resources is not shared amongst the surrounding communities. This has been particularly the case in Nigeria, where the Niger Delta region has been subject over the last decade to internal tension - sometimes labelled 'fighting for freedom', sometimes as 'criminality' (Nwozor, 2010: 32) - as a result of the exploitation of their oil reserves by large multi-national corporations.

Dissatisfaction is engendered particularly where valuable local resources serve only the 'privileged elites (...), companies and their shareholders and Western industrialised countries' (Bainomugisha et al, 2006: 3). In Nigeria, despite a ballooning of revenues from oil, poverty more than doubled between 1970 and 2006,[11] rising to 70% (Akpan, 2009), and environmental degradation alienated people from their traditional livelihoods - farming, fishing and hunting (Nwozor, 2010). Such inequities have led to the foundation of a range of insurgent and splinter groups in the affected Niger Delta region, e.g. the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). MEND has been linked to attacks on extraction operations, theft, property destruction, and the capturing of many foreign oil workers, demanding ransom for their freedom. Support for MEND comes primarily from young people and 'impoverished peasants', whose farm lands and fishing creeks - their sole source of livelihood - have been destroyed (Okonta, 2006).

In Urabá, Colombia, crime and conflict have arisen where poverty, landlessness, a weak state, and a new 'resource-rush' combine. Amira Armenta explores the case of Curvaradó and Jiguamiandó in the following case study.

Marginalisation of the Majority World: Crime and Insecurity in Colombia

In Colombia, there are many regions where poverty and the absence, or weak presence, of the state has facilitated the emergence of violent armed groups. Among these, are the Afro-Colombian communities of the Curvaradó and Jiguamiandó in the Urabá region.

The Urabá is located in the Northwest of Colombia, near the border with Panama. It is a region of great biodiversity, rich in minerals, oil, water, and timber, amongst other natural resources. Urabá is also one of the regions with the highest poverty rates, and lowest rates of schooling in the country. Many indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombians, who are the traditional owners of hundreds of thousands of hectares of land, inhabit the region. Collective ownership of these territories is supported by Colombian Law 70 of 1993.

With the rise of drug trafficking in the country in the 1980s, the region became a point of export of illegal narcotic drugs. At the same time, the illegal import of weapons soared to meet the growing demand of Colombian armed groups. Various increasingly powerful criminal groups (known as 'paramilitaries') began to invest money earned from their illegal activities in profitable lawful sectors such as the agribusiness - palm oil, bananas and cattle. In a few years, Urabá went from being a marginal and sparsely populated region to a place where settlers converged, and multinational corporations and armed groups of all stripes were vying for control of territory and a stake in the business.

In this context, poor rural communities such as Curvaradó and Jiguamiandó were sucked into the violence unleashed between the different armed groups. As the collective ownership of land was an obstacle to the economic interests of the new sectors (farmers and landowners whose fundsoften had an illicit origin), these groups used threats and harassment to banish the native people and appropriate their land. This violence and banishment was possible given the state of marginalisation of the population, totally unprotected by the central government. Large palm oil plantations installed since then in the area have been financed largely with the laundered drug money. They use land violently obtained by the forced displacement.

Since the 1990s, the Curvaradó and Jiguamiandó communities have specifically been the target of violence and subsequent displacement. They have lost their few belongings and have helplessly seen the powerful economic groups systematically seize their land.

The Colombian government has recently begun a process of returning land to the inhabitants of the river basins of Curvaradó and Jiguamiandó and reparation for victims of violence. The move is encouraging, but it might not be enough to solve the problems. The history of violence can repeat itself any moment, as long as the causes that led to the banishment and violence are not addressed and those responsible are not punished. Justice should be done, not just to those still operating outside the law, but also to those who now operate legally but whose past is murky.

Whilst the Colombian government fails to bring social development programs (including education, health and infrastructure) and sustainable economic development policies to communities, the people of Curvaradó and Jiguamiandó will remain poor, uneducated, vulnerable, and at risk of losing their territories once again.
Amira Armenta, Transnational Institute

Migration, Health and Poverty

Poverty impacts upon all parts of life. In the Niger Delta, the collapse of the rural agrarian economy results in food and employment shortages. This has triggered rural-to-urban migration, providing the context for an increase in sex work that increases peoples' vulnerability to HIV (Udoh et al, 2009: 567). Labour migration is a key driver of the spread of HIV, with the movement of predominantly male unemployed adolescents and adults, and similarly unemployed women and girls, being more likely to use prostitution as a form of income (ibid, p. 568). 'HIV follows poverty, infiltrating regions where hunger, unemployment, and conflict prevail' (ibid).

The economic destruction rendered likely by the continuing spread of HIV/AIDS and the large number of expected deaths (including primarily the generation who work and who parent families) may overwhelm social and medical structures in many African countries. The orphaned children may be more vulnerable to recruitment by rebels, terrorists and criminal gangs; furthermore, in some African countries as many as 50% of new military recruits are HIV positive (Sarin, 2003: 17). This has implications for 'military readiness', as some states have been hesitant to engage in peacekeeping missions for fear that soldiers deployed may further spread the virus, or bring it back to their local communities when demobilised (ibid., p. 17).

Economic migration has been greatly affected by the global economic downturn. More people find it necessary to move for work, and conversely, people who have moved for work are more at risk of losing their jobs (Bornay-Bomassi, 2009). In 2009, it was estimated that Singapore repatriated up to 200,000 foreign nationals, Indonesia up to 400,000, and Bangladesh up to 70,000 (ibid.). This will seriously affect those families reliant upon remittances, and those nations who have an influx of returning workers, now looking for work in their home states.

Urban and rural divisions can be strata along which national and regional hierarchies and insecurities are drawn. Sometimes urban areas can be seen as sites of affluence, but likewise rural areas may be the places where the elite withdraws to secure safety and seclusion [see Crime and Local Security, above]. Resentment has precipitated conflicts in Angola and Mozambique, for example, where rural communities' anger at the urban elites' control of political and economic power structures was a factor in the conflict (Bett and Kimuyu, 2009: 24). Urban and rural separation is also drawn along ethnic lines; for example, in Angola and Mozambique some of the urban elites were mixed race. In a number of Latin American countries, for example, the mestiso (mixed ethnicity) populations, are often confined to cities e.g. La Paz, while the indigenous populations lives in rural, and often underdeveloped, areas.

Marginalisation Cultivating Radical Ideologies

Both local and international marginalisation feed into dissatisfaction at the vast inequities of power and wealth at a global and regional level. Such dissatisfaction can be channelled into positive community development and campaigning, and can also lead individuals into a deeper analysis of the economic and social paradigms under which they live. This, coupled with economic poverty and political marginalisation, has, over recent decades, led to support for ideologically driven counter-culture movements, and the election of pro-poor and pro-indigenous parties in some nations. Such disenchantment is at its height during a global economic downturn (such as we are currently experiencing), as perceptions of unfairness, and the feeling there is 'nothing to lose' has repeatedly triggered social and political violence (Bornay-Bomassi, 2009).

Latin American nations have expressed their disenchantment with neo-liberalism at the ballot box: electing populist parties in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia[12] (Bello, 2011). In a number of Global South nations, local uprisings, sometimes militant, have been sustained in their opposition to the establishment over decades - most notably the Naxalite revolts in India and the Zapatistas in Mexico.

Naxalite uprisings, which originated as a communist peasant uprising in the West Bengal village of Naxalbari in 1967, have recently evolved into 'an insurgency across much of India' (Rogers, 2009), driven by the experience of deprivation and exacerbated by the expropriation of land for new industrial or mining projects (ibid.). Since the 1960s, the movement has been taking hold in areas of 'weak central-state control' (Rees, 2009), kidnapping Indian security personnel, 'maintaining authority in rural areas by setting up parallel administrations, administering summary justice and extorting money and resources from local businesses' (ibid.).

The radical Maoist group was described by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2006 as "the biggest security challenge ever faced by our country" (Ramana, 2008). The group's mainstay of recruits has come from 'literate and poverty stricken tribals' (Rao, 2010) for whom 'the struggle for existence is acute' (ibid.). As Indian National Congress President Sonia Gandhi put it: "What is most worrying is the high degree of convergence between areas that are mineral and forest-rich and areas that are the arenas of tribal deprivation and left-wing extremist violence (ibid.)." The following case study explores the movement more deeply.

Marginalisation of the Majority World: Naxalite Rebellions

'Naxalism' is the broad term used to describe the militant agrarian and tribal movements in India, which are based on the Maoist ideology and seek power through armed resistance. The Naxalites, initially launched as an anti-landlord movement, call for a complete transformation of the political system and the creation of a new social order that would put an end to what they see as an exploitation of the most vulnerable communities. Named after the village of Naxalbari, where the first of such movements had emerged in 1967, it has since assumed the status of India's biggest internal security challenge, affecting nearly 200 districts spread over 18 Indian states - an area known as the 'Red Corridor'.

The goals and demographic nature of the Naxalite movement clearly highlights the underlying causes behind the genesis of this movement. The gross economic inequality and the concentration of wealth in a few hands, lack of economic development in these areas, and the denial of access to farmers and tribals to common resources like water and land, which are necessary for their livelihood and survival, has naturally caused a great deal of resentment, anger and a feeling of isolation among a large section of people. Economic development, which is insensitive to the needs of such sections of society, has led to a great deal of displacement and the reduction of the populace to a sub-human

existence. In the case of tribes in particular, it has ended up in destroying their social organisation, cultural identity and resource base, which cumulatively makes them increasingly vulnerable to exploitation. The pattern of development and its implementation has increased corrupt practices of a rent seeking bureaucracy and rapacious exploitation by the contractors, middlemen, traders, and the greedy sections of the larger society, intent on grabbing their resources and violating their dignity.

Such a situation and populace, naturally, acts as a breeding ground for Naxalism. This has been accepted even by the Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, who admitted that the Naxalite problem was "directly linked to problems of underdevelopment, exploitation, lack of access to resources, underdeveloped agriculture, lack of employment opportunities, and other factors." The marginalised and affected groups, who perceive themselves as victims of injustice and came to believe that the government was doing nothing to redress their grievances, naturally supported and joined the movement with the hope that it would bring a significant improvement in their condition. Moreover, the Naxalites were seen as the only ones talking about their needs, rights and interests. It is the fact that the Naxalites are waging a "Peoples' War", which can explain the reasons behind the massive support of the populace. Their agenda includes struggles for tribal rights to land, common property resources, better wages, health care, education and housing. Many observers believe that Naxalite initiatives resulted in improved living and economic conditions for many tribal communities.

It is evident that the threat posed by the Naxalite movement cannot be resolved effectively as long as it is seen merely as a law and order problem. It is essential that the government seeks to address the socio-economic issues underlying the Naxalite movement in order to reduce the resentment, isolation and marginalisation of large sections of people.
Aryaman Bhatnagar

The Naxalite activities have had some success in terms of dissuading companies from investing (ibid.). While this could be seen as arresting economic development, author and prominent Indian activist Arundhati Roy describes the Maoist group's struggle against mining companies as an epic battle between the powerful and powerless: "the poorest, most malnourished, waging a war against the corporates supported by all the institutions of the world's biggest democracy" (Deccan Herald, 2010). "To a large extent, they have won in stopping the mighty corporates in their tracks," she said (ibid.).

In India and surrounding states, rebellions stemming from socio-economic divisions[13] have been dealt with primarily through 'police control and military confrontation' (Abbott and Marsden, 2008). These efforts are unlikely to succeed in isolation. As Sonia Gandhi argued, "protecting the rights of tribals and ensuring their livelihood are central to bringing about an end to their exploitation and sense of alienation" (Rao, 2010). Repressive and controlling policies must be complemented with diplomacy, dialogue and genuine attempts to address the root causes of the problem (Abbott and Marsden, 2008).

Even if it has been the 'war on terror' that has dominated international security conversations over recent years, it may be that these developments across Asia provide a more telling story with which to predict further developments. What is today a national security problem could be emulated on a scale that would make it a global security problem in the years ahead. The Chief of the UK Defence Staff, General Sir David Richards, has described the Naxalite rebellion as an example of an insurgency that 'has a sense of hopelessness and economic envy at its core. These are powerful instincts that today can be inflamed and communicated to other similarly dispossessed groups across the world at the touch of a button' (Richards, 2011).

Religious Extremists

More prominent in the international policy arena has been the popularity of radical Islamist groups in the Persian Gulf and Middle East. In addition, the "Talibanisation" of Pakistan, for example, warrants particular media attention. They are portrayed as Islamic hard-liners, often linked to al-Qaida, who want to 'implement a rigid version of Islam' (Suleri, 2010: 79). However, many who join the Taliban are those 'outraged by chronic hunger, endemic corruption, unfair courts, and the government's inability to supply basic education or other services' (ibid.). "Robin Hood" tactics such as land redistribution (including in the Swat valley) have earned the sympathy of the local community, making it easy for militant groups (religious, ethnic or nationalist), to build 'parallel states' within Pakistan (ibid.).

Religious groups have often been among those providing parallel services in the event of state absence. Provision of services, e.g. schools, hospitals, sports clubs, places of worship, from militant religious groups can provide direct access to young people, who may be impressionable. Moreover, it naturally builds sympathy for the political and militant aims of the radical religious groups.

Religious extremism may be provoked particularly in situations where 'traditional' values, considered intrinsic to the preservation of the faith, are disrupted. In recent decades this has led to the criticism of globalisation, and the concurrent spread of the 'Western' liberal values, particularly through the media. Ismail Abu Shanab, a former Hamas leader (killed by an Israeli missile in 2003), called globalisation "a new colonial system. It's America's attempt to dominate the rest of the world economically rather than militarily (...). America is trying to spread its consumer culture. These values are not good for human beings" (Stern, 2003: 40).

Finally, the Western incursions into the Arab world, and the discrimination (for example, a rise in Islamophobia in the US and UK), may lead many Muslims and the Arab diaspora to feel humiliated. Ayman al-Zawahiri, now a leading figure in the al-Qaida movement, then second-in-command, wrote in 2001 that the current world order is generally "humiliating" to Muslims, as Western forces attempt to dominate Islamic societies in a "new crusade" (quoted in Stern, 2003: xviii).

Stern argues, this humiliation is a major factor in the current wave of transnational Islamist terrorism. Therefore, until Western 'counter-terrorism policies and practices avoid producing gratuitous humiliation in the Arab and Muslim world', Islamic violent extremism is likely to persist (Porter, 2011).

The Impacts of Political Oppression and Corruption

The post-election violence in Kenya in the winter of 2007/08 is one recent example of the way, in which a public (or a section of it) that feels politically disenfranchised can regard violence and disruption as the only avenue for expressing discontent. Following the December 2007 election, large groups amongst the Kenya electorate, reinforced by media accounts of vote rigging, claimed that the incumbent's supporters had committed electoral fraud.

Reports suggest that up to 1, 300 people were killed, and up to 650,000 people displaced (IDMC, 2010), in the riots, massacres and violent demonstrations that ensued. Some of the displaced households were still living in refugee camps in 2010 (ibid.).

The violence, triggered by the injustices of the election process, were driven by longer-term concerns that intersected in Kenya to provide an ominously 'conflict-inducing' atmosphere; these included inequality, '[inter-] ethnic hatred, perceived denial of political rights and the government's incompetence in delivering economic growth' (Bett and Kimuyu, 2008: 1).

The inter-ethic aspect of the conflict was part of an ongoing but latent tension between tribal groups. From the first independent President of Kenya - Jomo Kenyatta - there has been a perception that political power brings tangible advantages, through nepotism and corruption, to the premier's tribe, and particularly their clan (Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence, 2008: viii). Much of this resentment is directed at the Kikuyu (the largest tribal group in Kenya), of whom Jomo Kenyatta, and also Mwai Kibaki (President of Kenya from 2002 - to date), is a member. The feeling amongst some Kenyans that the best way to access Kenya's wealth and resources is for their tribe to win the Presidency, has led to a 'deliberate denudation of the authority and legitimacy of (...) oversight institutions' that could manage abuses of power, and promote accountability (ibid, 22).

The violence was most prominent in impoverished areas, including Coast province, and informal settlements in Nairobi; therefore the brunt of the suffering was also borne by 'poor people, living in low income neighbourhoods' (Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence, 2008: 203).

At the time of writing, the International Criminal Court (ICC) is proceeding with the prosecution of six people, it alleges, organised the campaigns of post-election violence. Kenya's government have appealed to try the six men in Nairobi, rather than through the ICC in The Hague; this appeal was unsuccessful. Kenya's parliament has also voted to withdraw Kenya from the Statute of Rome - the treaty that established the ICC (Shiunda and Mathenge, 2010). The Chair of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights said that Parliament is 'telling the international community "Kenya is not serious" about fighting impunity' (ibid.).

Although the violence of 2007/8 was particularly grave, it is not unheard of. Since the early 1990s, violence has been used as a tool by politicians hoping to gain power in Kenya (ibid, p. 22). Such struggles will not be prevented until corruption is eliminated in free and fair elections, which are publicly accountable and visible.

Nigeria also witnessed post-election violence after the April 2011 Presidential elections, when Goodluck Jonathan (the existing President) was re-elected. The success of Jonathan, a Christian candidate from the South, prompted violence in the North, where the President is unpopular. The governor of Nasarawa state claimed that the violence was primarily the result of 'poverty and unemployment' (Joseph, 2011), and triggered by dissatisfaction of the result.

Minorities: Gender, Youth, Indigenous and Separatist Movements

The exclusion of minority groups (who are not necessarily small in number, but marginalised in terms of power relations, hence the inclusion of women in this category) is both damaging in terms of human welfare, and likely to inspire struggles, affecting internal and regional instability, in the future. This is by no means a new phenomenon; minorities have often been excluded from economic, social and political structures along ethnic, religions, cultural, tribal and political lines. Recently, however, we have seen one such minority - youth movements across the Arab world - acting as the driving force behind the 'Arab uprising', the wave of political uprisings that have thus far affected Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, Algeria, Jordan, Iraq, Morocco and Oman.

Young People and the Arab Uprisings

Whilst the main factors underlying these revolts are familiar - 'dictatorship, oppression, nepotism, social inequality, structural poverty and demographic changes' (Adib-Moghaddam, 2011) - a new characteristic was that it has been primarily young people who have filled the streets in these nations, 'demanding freedom and democracy' (Alpay, 2011). They had reached a stage of fury at which some felt it was "better to die for a cause than to live without dignity" (Egyptian activist Wael Ghonim, quoted in Bello, 2011).

The Arab world's demonstrations of popular opinion have been largely nonviolent in their tactics (with Libya being the main exception), though many have been met with repressive resistance from governments.

Even though more hard-line forms of Islam have often been seen as embracing authoritarianism, and stifling pluralist democratic culture, analyst Arshin Adib-Moghaddam argues: The myth that a 'hybrid religion can be reduced to a monolithic political ideology' is coming to an end, with 'massive demonstrations (...) held after Friday prayers, prayer-rugs (...) laid out in front of tanks [and] nationalist sentiments and slogans (...) permeated by Islamic symbols' (2011). He contends that support for the radical Islamism espoused by al-Qaida is failing. If accurate, this moment could be a key one in building more trusting relations between America and its allies in the 'war on terror', and the Arab world (Alpay, 2011).

There have also been protests in Iraq, amongst people disappointed by the unfilled expectations of the government - with mismanagement of the country's significant oil revenues (Iraq is said to have the second largest oil reserves in the world), corruption, 1 in 6 living in poverty, and almost 40 per cent of the 30 million strong population under the age of 15 (Arraf, 2011).[14]

The large and diverse 'Arab Spring' movements have been aided by the use of new communications technologies, social networking sites in particular. These innovative media tools have been utilised by young people in particular as an immediate way of spreading campaign messages. Cyber-activism, which is primarily grassroots and unrestricted, has met with repression. Iran, in some ways the 'homeland of cyber-activism' (Alavi, 2011), has seen the foundation of a 'vast internet-police system, whose rigorous censorship and surveillance of cyberspace has led to harassment, imprisonment and even executions' (ibid.). The government attempts to hold back the flood of popular feeling, reacting with authoritarian censorship at the wave of opposition.

Dissent is not confined to the young, however; repressive and undemocratic rule can meet resistance in many spheres of the population - not just the marginalised. In Iran for example, Nasrin Alavi describes a dissenting mood being shared not just by those on the streets, or the young, or those in the capital Tehran, but also by more moderate religious leaders; as Alam al-Hoda's recent sermon put it, after the disputed 2009 elections, the "movement of sedition" is evident "in the seminaries" (2011).

Gender Justice

Gender inequality is a real and urgent issue. While the political and social marginalisation of women has not often resulted in violent rebellion, in many nations, movements are building to challenge exclusion and discrimination. Should responses to such movements be reactionary, rather than dialogue-based, deeper and more complete marginalisation is likely.

Such discrimination feeds into other socio-economic issues such as health (particularly HIV/AIDS[15]), poverty (for example, where widows and single women are unable to work), and female infanticide. Where women suffer, so often do female-headed households and female children.

Sonia Gandhi, President of the Indian National Congress, asserted women's relative vulnerability and invisibility in contemporary social problems in a recent lecture, claiming that topical climate change debates have been "gender-blind", i.e. that women have less access to "resource technology and credit in the global economic downturn" and that inattentive urban planning is a factor in women's vulnerability on the streets (2011).

There are areas of backlash against sexism however; Shadi Sadr, an Iranian publisher, lawyer and journalist, under arrest after a protest in 2004, wrote: "Today Iranian women (...) have imposed themselves on a male-dominated society which still believes women should stay at home. Perhaps nobody sees us, but we exist and we make our mark on the world around us. I assure you that if you look around carefully, everywhere you will see our footsteps" (quoted in Alavi, 2007). The challenge for those women now is to make an impact upon the Iranian majlis (parliament) that they often protest outside (ibid.).

Women played a major role in the recent Arab revolts[16]; Lilia Labidi, Tunisia's minister of women's affairs, said that in the demonstrations "women were not side-lined but marched amongst men" (Rostad, 2011). There have since been calls for a new 'parity resolution', which would guarantee 'an equal number of male and female candidates for each party in Tunisia's...elections' (ibid.). Progressive steps such as this may be more possible in an increased public spirit of 'political pluralism' (ibid.). However, such participation will not be productive or liberating if it is merely an add-on ('add women and stir', as Harding has put it [Beneria, 1995: 1840]). It must represent a substantial shift in political and economic power relations. Moushira Khattab, former Minister of Family and Population for Egypt, has made this point relating to Egypt; arguing that 'women's participation in public demonstrations and disseminating information to the media "has set the stage for a paradigm shift in the rights of citizens"' (ibid.).

Separatist Movements and Ethnic Minorities

The exclusion of ethnic minorities, for example indigenous or state-less peoples, has triggered the launch of 'insider' civil groups, such as separatist movements (some of which are militant), that can be a threat to internal stability. In Asia, these have included the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in the Southern Philippines, the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) in India, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka, and in Eurasia, militant Chechen separatists, fighting for independence from the Russian Federation. Of the groups that utilise violence as a tactic, many are contained to nationally-based attacks; however, some have attacked international targets, and have links with global security issues, e.g. the suggested links between Chechen militants, Pakistani intelligence forces and Saudi financiers (Raman, 2010).

In Sri Lanka, the state has been accused of marginalising Tamil communities since the 1940s. Poverty and frustration have been the fruits of policies that neglect and discriminate against Tamil language, religion and identity as Sri Lankans. Whilst there have been many youth groups prepared to use violent means to gain equal opportunities and recognition, the LTTE were particularly critical in proposing a separate Tamil state. Anti-terrorism policies designed to counter the LTTE's militarism have been repressive and often counter-productive, affecting the Tamil minority and building support for the extremist tactics of the LTTE.[17]

Marginalisation of the Majority World: Human Security in the Mandera Triangle

'Human security can be said to have two main aspects. It means, first, safety from such chronic threats as hunger, disease and repression. Secondly, it means protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the patterns of daily life - whether in homes, in jobs or in communities.

The "Mandera Triangle" is a tri-border region of Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya that exemplifies, in a microcosm, a complex and chronic humanitarian crisis that transcends national boundaries. The resident Somali pastoral population is highly vulnerable to periodic droughts and floods, high levels of poverty, long-term disruption to the traditional systems of livelihood, ongoing inter-clan conflicts and border tensions between states.

Violence in the Mandera triangle is often viewed purely as a symptom of inter-tribal conflict over cattle and other common property resources. This line of thinking is questionable, given that an important issue in understanding insecurity among pastoralist groups is their distant and often oppositional relationship to the state. As with other peripheral groups, pastoralists in the region have suffered systematic marginalisation by central authorities and have a history of rejecting the authority of the state, which they view as threatening to their distinct nomadic way of life. Pastoralist violence must therefore be situated in terms of mutual opposition and exclusion, as well as the struggle for control of resources. Pastoralists do not partake in nations' so-called 'public goods'. They are often denied government services and the state seldom plays a role in guaranteeing their security. When they do become an object of state interest and intervention, it often involves forced settlement and other coercive efforts that only strengthen their resolve to remain apart.

The human security dimensions of the pastoralist plight are now more clearly understood as being attributable to a combination of population growth, immigration, conflict and specific government policies. An adequate conceptualisation of human security for Mandera triangle states and other states in Africa must 'link human security with human development'. Economic development will have to be at the top of the institutional agenda, since development and security are 'two sides of the same coin' (Mandaza, 1995).'
Adbul Ebrahim Haro, Practical Action

Abeyratne argues that the ethnic tensions in Sri Lankan society have been an important 'mobilisation device' in 'gaining momentum and continuity in one facet of the conflict' (2004: 24), but that the 'fertile ground for political conflict' was provided by the exclusion of individuals and groups from the development process. In the following case study, Abdul Haro explores the condition of pastoralists in the Mandera triangle, who are similarly excluded from national priorities.

In the case of the Kenya/Uganda border, while pastoral conflicts have always been assumed to be purely arising from competition over scarce resources, Mwaura argues there are broader social, economic and political exclusion issues that are neglected in most analysis (Mwaura, 2005: 2). With the state largely absent from remote border areas, the main experience pastoral communities have of state intervention is the 'indiscriminate and aggressive military response' to conflicts (ibid.), further alienating tribal groups from identification with the state. Consequently, their own capabilities in protection, particularly through arms, becomes extremely important (ibid.).

Discrimination against ethnic groups can be particularly apparent in emergencies, such as natural disasters. For example, during India's severe monsoon floods in 2007, three minority groups - Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims - were hit worst. There were many reasons for this. Firstly, many Dalits live in vulnerable homes outside main villages, leaving them particularly exposed. In some cases relief workers were not aware of their presence, and in others, dominant groups took control of aid distribution and did not give these groups priority (Baird, 2008). As climate change develops, more 'climate crises' can be expected; in these situations it is vital that relief be non-discriminatory.

Environmental Limits, Resource Competition and Marginalisation

Climate Change and Climate Justice

The worst effects of climate change will fall first and foremost on the majority world (Adow, 2009). Climate change will further entrench the multiple-index poverty of the 'bottom billion'. For example, developing nations with extensive coastlines such as Bangladesh, and island states like the Maldives, are most likely to be devastated as sea level rises. Many people therefore perceive climate change as principally an issue of justice. As Kofi Annan has put it "the countries most vulnerable (...) contribute least to the global emissions of greenhouse gases. Without action, they will pay a high price for the actions of others" (quoted in Patwary, 2011). President Museveni of Uganda went as far as calling climate change 'an act of aggression by the rich against the poor' (Masood, 2007).

With women being more likely to live in poverty than men, climate change is also not gender blind. Women represent 70% of those people living in poverty, and generally have less access to resources, technology and credit (Gandhi, 2011). In families living in poverty, adaptation to a changed climate will drain money away from other priorities, such as the education of children. As with these families, so will governments be forced to reallocate funds from other fields as a response to climate change adaptation measures.

Social and economic deprivation enhanced by climate change may trigger radicalisation. The extra pressure that climate change puts on already fragile states may mean that the government can no longer deliver services to its people. In such cases, militant and insurgent groups often fill the vacuum, as has already occurred in Lebanon (Patwary, 2011).

Finally, the groups most vulnerable to climate change are also not necessarily those at the most risk in terms of direct physical impacts. Vulnerability is actually largely 'determined by poverty'; not just income poverty, but a poverty of power, where countries are marginalised from policy debates and therefore from the ability to influence decisions (Tacoli, 2011). Hence, the way environmental change impacts on communities is not automatically and proportionally determined by the degree of environmental change, but via their level of resilience, which in turn is a result of power structures. To put it simply, even if, for example, Western countries were hit harder by climate change than poorer Southern countries, citizens in the West would still be likely to be less affected due to a far greater capacity to adapt to climate change. For citizens in poorer countries, already a smaller impact could mean life or death. It is non-environmental factors, therefore, which really determine the level to which communities will be affected by climate change.

While climate change will hit the poorest hardest, it will also affect minority indigenous groups disproportionately. These groups are often amongst the poorest, because many indigenous groups have such a close relationship with the environment (Baird, 2008); for example in the Niger Delta, those 'already marginalised by their social status' are the most disadvantaged by environmental degradation, as they are dependent for their immediate survival on local ecologies and nature-related trades, e.g. fishing, forestry, farming and hunting (Wapmuk, 2010).

Competition over Natural Resources

Communities in the South that face income poverty are those most vulnerable to resource scarcity. Increasing competition over natural resources is expected as supplies of energy deplete, and as the effects of climate change impact on food and water insecurity.[19]

In regions where natural resources are widely available, frustration has resulted in crime and regional insecurity in areas where the economic benefits of these resources have not been shared (see Crime section, above). This is particularly true where there is not adequate space for 'civil political opposition as a means of changing or influencing society' (Von Kemedi, 2006). For instance, the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force has found recruitment to their armed force easier as the 'disaffected' feel unrepresented. As the economy in the Niger Delta is not expanding, an army of youths are simply gathering every day on the streets or at the jetties waiting for something to do. Unfortunately, what they are offered these days is membership of an armed group. Some join to improve their self-image, as a response to perceived injustice or simply to survive' (ibid.).

Competition over resources increases marginalisation and deprivation in ways likely to engender radicalisation and militancy. In some areas of Pakistan, the 'anti-elite' feelings of food insecure people have been used by 'religious forces' to incite violence, including suicide bombings (Suleri, 2010: 80). According to the Pakistani Interior Minister, suicide bombers can expect to be remunerated before their deaths, leaving their families up to $12,000 (Suleri, 2010: 82). This is enough to give all their dependents a decent life and be freed from water and food insecurity, as they now have the assets with which to acquire increasingly scarce supplies. In such circumstances, terrorism might seem like the economically expedient path.

Political Marginalisation of Southern Nations

Voices from the Global South are often found on the periphery of global political and economic dialogue, particularly at the negotiating tables of international institutions. This has already been subject to debate over many decades.

Though many African and Asian colonies gained independence from the 1940s onwards, their political and economic relationship with former colonial powers, managed by the 'Bretton Woods institutions' (the World Bank (WB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)), was often one of dependency. This resulted in the adoption of policies that many people now perceive as damaging to the welfare of the poor of the poorest nations; for example, through reducing the amount of money a state can spend on health, education and development, as debt repayment has to be made the priority (Shah, 2010). Most prominently, the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) - loans offered on the condition of the enforcement of free-market policies, such as the reduction of trade barriers.

Since the 1990s, these have been superseded by Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs),[20] designed to be more participatory and driven by national governments (rather than the IMF/WB).

Such measures have still attracted criticism from more radical voices, including the Jubilee-Zambia campaigner, Jack Jones Zulu, who asks 'is it possible for governments to be accountable to their own people rather than the IMF and World Bank when the whole process was initiated and is to be largely funded by the [World] Bank and [International Monetary] Fund?' (2003: 1).[21]

In political terms, the United Nations is also a source of considerable tension around the issue of representation. No nation from Latin America, the Middle East or Africa, are permanent members of the UN Security Council. Country delegations (both for UN meetings, and the conferences of all other significant international bodies) can also vary in size dramatically, with Northern nations bringing a large group of dedicated diplomats and legal advisors, compared to the one or two-person teams representing a Southern state's interests. Moreover, multilateral blocs such as NATO and the G8, represent exclusively Northern interest groups, who exert enormous control over international affairs.

This disparity in capacity and influence makes the efforts of groups that bring together, or speak on behalf of, a collection of Southern states, all the more important. These include the South Centre's Global Governance for Development programme and more informal and reactive mechanisms such as the Global Governance Group (3G). 3G are an informal group of small and medium-sized non-G-20 member states that have recently come together to assert the need for 'more effective global governance mechanisms' that recognise the impact of G-20 decisions outside of G-20 countries, and engage all nations in decision-marking on issues of global concern (Statement by Ambassador Vanu Gopala Menon Strengthening the Role of the UN in Global Economic Governance, June 2010).

The sense of powerlessness experienced by Southern states, in comparison with their Northern counterparts, can frustrate governments in the Global South, hampering cooperation, and resulting in policies fashioned exclusively by those who already hold power.

The examples of the COP15 and COP16 climate change negotiations in Copenhagen and Cancun are noteworthy. The 'Copenhagen Accord' that came out of the December 2009 meeting in Copenhagen has been criticised for being constructed by the major powers without any genuine engagement with key voices from the developing world, who will in fact be most affected by climate change (Ranawaka, 2010). At Cancun, there were accusations of 'a catalogue of bribes and bullying tactics used by developed countries to buy the support of developing countries' (Blagojevic, 2010).

The perceived failure of recent climate talks, particularly the 'undemocratic actions' taken by some nations in Copenhagen (Ranawaka, 2010), has contributed in some cases to North-South hostility - even a 'diplomatic freeze' (Patwary, 2011).

Various non-governmental organisations have been established in an attempt to counter the power inequities within the global political and economic institutions. These include Independent Diplomat, the South Centre, and programmes of the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development's (ICTSD).

Independent Diplomat, founded in 2004 by Carne Ross, a former British diplomat, exists to 'promote justice and conflict resolution by enabling governments and political groups disadvantaged or marginalised by lack of diplomatic capacity to engage effectively in diplomatic processes' - achieving this by providing independent and confidential advice, and assistance in diplomatic technique and strategy (ID, 2011).

Similarly, the ICTSD's Dispute Settlement and Legal Aspects of International Trade programme assist those stakeholders with least capacity for legal and diplomatic expertise to engage fruitfully in World Trade Organisation business, particularly by defending their trade rights, advancing their trade objectives (ICTSD, 2011), and in accessing justice through the dispute resolution processes.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Democratic Accountability

2011 has seen a transformation in organising techniques of political activism, exemplified by the use of social networking sites in the 'Arab spring'.[22] Messages spread immediately, which can be used to mobilise communities, but also to activate cyber-activism networks, such as Never before has there been this ability to alert millions of people globally to human rights abuses, corruption, free speech violations and examples of environmental exploitation. Although started in the North, the techniques have spread, through the Arab uprisings, which are an outstanding example of the power of social movements. We now await the results of the political change, to see whether the 'revolutionary democrats of the Arab world' have the vigour to pursue the next stages of the democratic revolution (Bello, 2011).

There are past examples of the end of political marginalisation having a positive impact on radical militancy. In Turkey, the denial of Kurdish identity is slowly coming to an end, providing an environment much more likely to end the terrorism of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), who have for over thirty years been demanding the recognition of Kurdish identity (Alpay, 2011). Now, the option of peacefully pressing for democratic demands, are increasingly open to the Kurdish people in Turkey (ibid.).

Inequality as a Security Concern

Poverty and marginalisation must be put firmly on the agenda of peace and security specialists. There must be a widespread acceptance of inequality as a driver of insecurity and conflict. The defence community must grow to see aid spending, redistribution of wealth and the reconfiguration of trade and political institutions, not merely as 'soft power' and 'conscience-salving' on behalf of old colonial powers, but as a critical step in making the world a safer place. In fact, they need to act as advocates for such steps.

As Suleri points out, in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States gave $11 billion to Pakistan in the form of budgetary support, economic assistance from USAID, military assistance, and Coalition Support Funds from 2002 to 2008. 'This money, if spent judiciously and with political will, could have alleviated the suffering of millions facing extreme poverty and chronic hunger, thereby saving Pakistan from growing militancy. Alas, it was not' (2010: 82). Redistribution of wealth can also mitigate conflict between different ethnic and social groups at a local level (Bett and Kimuyu, 2008: 1).

Resource security, particularly related to food and water access, is a critical part of the picture of poverty and marginalisation. While water-users at a local level are not blind to the social power relations that mediate water security, 'power elites' view water as a resource to be 'deployed toward modernist economic development'; they ignore the ecological and social roles of this crucial resource (Mustafa, 2010: 2). This has to change in order to mitigate the extremism and insecurity that can occur as a result of frustration at growing resource scarcity.

In recent decades, Western governments and their military strategists have often regarded threats as stemming solely from the Global South (or from immigrants or proxies in the North). The South (particularly areas of strongly contrasting ideology) has therefore been seen as an area that needs to be controlled in the interests of Western security. This approach doesn't recognise the ways in which economic and political marginalisation (that Western governments sometimes collude in) drives conflict, nor the interconnected nature of today's world. As Paul Rogers puts it: "The castle gates simply cannot be closed (2009: 6)."

In order to create a more sustainable approach to security, the Western security policy community must lay down the tendency to see the majority world as a collection of weak or failed states that present a challenge to their power and safety from which their citizens need to be protected. Instead, the Global South must become a partner in creating a more peaceful world. This can begin with the reform of international institutions. The UN Security Council, for example, still lacks permanent members from Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. Such partnerships need not be construed as an alliance, but they must be characterised by a genuine dialogue that understands and responds to marginalisation as a driver for criminal and violent activity, and therefore global insecurity.

Notes

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Human Rights in an Information Age: A Philosophical Analysis

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How can we balance new information technology practices with human rights? In Human Rights in an Information Age, Gregory Walters analyses Canadian and global information highway policy and practices regarding the Internet, e-commerce, public health and safety, privacy and security, and informati...

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What Does Identity Have To Do With the Workforce?

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What Does Identity Have To Do With the Workforce?

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Chetan Bhatt: Dare to refuse the origin myths that claim who you are

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We all have origin stories and identity myths, our tribal narratives that give us a sense of security and belonging. But sometimes our small-group identities can keep us from connecting with humanity as a whole -- and even keep us from seeing others as human.

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• "The Consequences of Financial Myopia" Jay Mooreland. The Emotional Investor. Apr 2015.

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Liar Paradox (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

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Lying is a complicated matter, but what's puzzling about sentences like the first one of this essay isn't essentially tied to intentions, social norms, or anything like that. Rather, it seems to have something to do with truth, or at least, some semantic notion related to truth.

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IT Security | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

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Information Security is the ongoing process of exercising due care and diligence to protect information and information systems from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification or destruction. It's main objective is maintaining the information under the principles of Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability.

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APA.org Article About Understanding Terrorism

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APA.org Article About Understanding Terrorism

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"Psychologists are amassing more concrete data on the factors that lead some people to terrorism—and using those insights to develop ways to thwart it."

"Horgan found that people who are more open to terrorist recruitment and radicalization tend to:

Feel angry, alienated or disenfranchised.

Believe that their current political involvement does not give them the power to effect real change.

Identify with perceived victims of the social injustice they are fighting.

Feel the need to take action rather than just talking about the problem.

Believe that engaging in violence against the state is not immoral.

Have friends or family sympathetic to the cause.

Believe that joining a movement offers social and psychological rewards such as adventure, camaraderie and a heightened sense of identity."

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Psychologists are amassing more concrete data on the factors that lead some people to terrorism-and using those insights to develop ways to thwart it.

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Individuals and society | MCAT | Test prep | Khan Academy

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Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

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HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) is United States legislation that provides data privacy and security provisions for safeguarding medical information.

The law has emerged into greater prominence in recent years with the proliferation of health data breaches caused by cyberattacks and ransomware attacks on health insurers and providers.

The act, which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on Aug. 21, 1996, contains five sections, or titles.
Title I: HIPAA Health Insurance Reform
Title I protects health insurance coverage for individuals who lose or change jobs. It also prohibits group health plans from denying coverage to individuals with specific diseases and pre-existing conditions, and from setting lifetime coverage limits.
Title II: HIPAA Administrative Simplification
Title II directs the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to establish national standards for processing electronic healthcare transactions. It also requires healthcare organizations to implement secure electronic access to health data and to remain in compliance with privacy regulations set by HHS.
Title III: HIPAA Tax-Related Health Provisions
Title III includes tax-related provisions and guidelines for medical care.
Title IV: Application and Enforcement of Group Health Plan Requirements
Title IV further defines health insurance reform, including provisions for individuals with pre-existing conditions and those seeking continued coverage.
Title V: Revenue Offsets
Title V includes provisions on company-owned life insurance and the treatment of those who lose their U.S. citizenship for income tax purposes.

In healthcare circles, adhering to HIPAA Title II is what most people mean when they refer to HIPAA compliance. Also known as the Administrative Simplification provisions, Title II includes the following HIPAA compliance requirements:

National Provider Identifier Standard. Each healthcare entity, including individuals, employers, health plans and healthcare providers, must have a unique 10-digit national provider identifier number, or NPI.

Transactions and Code Sets Standard. Healthcare organizations must follow a standardized mechanism for electronic data interchange (EDI) in order to submit and process insurance claims.

HIPAA Privacy Rule. Officially known as the Standards for Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information, this rule establishes national standards to protect patient health information.

HIPAA Security Rule. The Security Standards for the Protection of Electronic Protected Health Information sets standards for patient data security.

HIPAA Enforcement Rule. This rule establishes guidelines for investigations into HIPAA compliance violations.

What is the purpose of HIPAA?

HIPAA, also known as Public Law 104-191, has two main purposes: to provide continuous health insurance coverage for workers who lose or change their job, and to reduce the administrative burdens and cost of healthcare by standardizing the electronic transmission of administrative and financial transactions. Other goals include combating abuse, fraud and waste in health insurance and healthcare delivery and improving access to long-term care services and health insurance.

HHS expanded the act when it put the HIPAA omnibus rule in place in 2013 to implement modifications to HIPAA in accordance with guidelines set in 2009 by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health ( HITECH) Act. These guidelines concern the responsibilities of business associates of covered entities. The omnibus rule also increased penalties for HIPAA compliance violations to a maximum of $1.5 million per incident.

The HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which enforces HIPAA, issued guidance in 2016 clarifying that cloud service providers and other business associates of healthcare organizations are covered by the HIPAA privacy, security and breach notification rules. HIPAA violations can prove quite costly for healthcare organizations.

The HIPAA Breach Notification Rule within the omnibus set of regulations requires covered entities and any affected business associates to notify patients following a data breach.

In addition to the notification costs, healthcare organizations can encounter fines after HIPAA audits mandated by the HITECH Act and conducted by the Office for Civil Rights. Providers could also face criminal penalties stemming from violations of the HIPAA privacy and security rules.

In 2010, the Federal Trade Commission extended the breach notification rule and its enforcement to healthcare organizations not covered by HIPAA, including vendors of electronic health records (EHRs) and EHR-related systems.

OCR undertook its first round of HIPAA audits of healthcare organizations in 2012 and 2013. Those pilot audits carried no fines or penalties.

A considerably wider, formal round of desk and in-person audits of about 200 healthcare-covered entities and business associates began in 2016 and continued into 2017. These audits were expected to carry fines or corrective plans.

OCR further strengthened the HIPAA security rule in 2016 by releasing a crosswalk between aspects of the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Cybersecurity Framework to identify cybersecurity gaps and align HIPAA with national cybersecurity standards.

Organizations can lower their risk of regulatory action through HIPAA compliance training programs. OCR has six educational programs on complying with privacy and security rules. A number of consultancies and training groups offer programs, as well. Healthcare providers may also choose to create their own training programs, which often encompass each organization's current HIPAA privacy and security policies, the HITECH Act, mobile device management processes and other applicable guidelines.

While there is no official HIPAA compliance certification program, training companies offer certification credentials to indicate an understanding of the guidelines and regulations specified by the act.

HIPAA Privacy Rule

The Standards for Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information, commonly known as the HIPAA Privacy Rule, establishes the first national standards in the United States to protect patients' personal or protected health information ( PHI).

HHS issued the rule to limit the use and disclosure of sensitive PHI. It seeks to protect the privacy of patients by requiring doctors to provide patients with an account of each entity to which the doctor discloses PHI for billing and administrative purposes, while still allowing relevant health information to flow through the proper channels.

The privacy rule also guarantees patients the right to receive their own PHI, upon request, from healthcare providers covered by HIPAA.

Who is covered by and must follow HIPAA?

The HIPAA Privacy Rule applies to organizations that are considered HIPAA-covered entities, including health plans, healthcare clearinghouses and healthcare providers. In addition, the HIPAA Privacy Rule requires covered entities that work with a HIPAA business associate to produce a contract that imposes specific safeguards on the PHI that the business associate uses or discloses.

What information is protected?

The HIPAA Privacy Rule protects all individually identifiable health information that is held or transmitted by a covered entity or a business associate. This information can be held in any form, including digital, paper or oral. This individually identifiable health information is also known as PHI under the Privacy Rule.

What is considered protected health information under HIPAA?

PHI includes:

a patient's name, address, birth date and Social Security number;

an individual's physical or mental health condition;

any care provided to an individual; or

information concerning the payment for the care provided to the individual that identifies the patient, or information for which there is a reasonable basis to believe could be used to identify the patient.

The HIPAA Privacy Rule does not consider employment records -- including information about education, as well as other records subject to or defined in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act -- as PHI.

For de-identified data, however, there are no restrictions to its use or disclosure. De-identified data does not identify or provide information that could identify an individual.

Administrative requirements

The Privacy Rule lays out certain administrative requirements that covered entities must have in place.

These requirements include the following:

A privacy official must be appointed who is responsible for developing and implementing policies and procedures at a covered entity.

Employees, including volunteers and trainees, must be trained on policies and procedures.

Appropriate administrative, technical and physical safeguards must be maintained to protect the privacy of PHI in a covered entity.

A process for individuals to make complaints concerning policies and procedures must be in place at a covered entity.

If PHI is disclosed in violation of its policies and procedures, a covered entity must mitigate, to the furthest extent actionable, any harmful effects.

HIPAA penalties

Under the HIPAA Privacy Rule, falling victim to a healthcare data breach, as well as failing to give patients access to their PHI, could result in a fine from OCR.

The minimum penalty for:

Unknowingly violating HIPAA is $100 per violation, with an annual maximum of $25,000 for repeat violations.

Reasonable cause for violating HIPAA is $1,000 per violation, with an annual maximum of $100,000 for repeat violations.

Willful neglect of HIPAA, but the violation is corrected within a given time period, is $10,000 per violation, with an annual maximum of $250,000 for repeat violations.

Willful neglect of HIPAA, and the violation remains uncorrected, is $50,000 per violation, with an annual maximum of $1.5 million for repeat violations.

The maximum penalty for all of these is $50,000 per violation, with an annual maximum of $1.5 million for repeat violations.

Covered entities and individuals who intentionally obtain or disclose PHI in violation of the HIPAA Privacy Rule can be fined up to $50,000 and receive up to one year in prison. If the HIPAA Privacy Rule is violated under false pretenses, the penalties can be increased to a $100,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison.

HIPAA Security Rule

The Security Standards for the Protection of Electronic Protected Health Information, commonly known as the HIPAA Security Rule, establishes national standards for securing patient data that is stored or transferred electronically.

The rule requires the placement of safeguards, both physical and electronic, to ensure the secure passage, maintenance and reception of PHI. When addressing the risks and vulnerabilities associated with PHI and electronic protected health information (ePHI), health care organizations should ask three key questions.

Can you identify the sources of ePHI and PHI within your organization, including all PHI that you create, receive, maintain or transmit?

What are the external sources of PHI?

What are the human, natural and environmental threats to information systems that contain ePHI and PHI?

OCR enforces the HIPAA Security Rule, which aims to protect patient security, while still allowing the health care industry to advance technologically.

Under HHS' meaningful use program for certified health IT, healthcare organizations receiving federal incentive payments must attest to following privacy and security procedures based on HIPAA.

HIPAA omnibus rule

The HIPAA omnibus rule, in a health information technology context, is a rule enacted by OCR to modify the HIPAA Privacy, Security and Enforcement Rules to implement statutory amendments under the HITECH Act.

The HIPAA omnibus rule marked the most extensive changes to the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules since they were first implemented. Changes include the following:

Strengthening the privacy and security protection for individuals' PHI.

Modifying the Breach Notification Rule for unsecured PHI, and putting in place more objective standards for assessing a healthcare provider's liability following a data breach.

Modifying the HIPAA Privacy Rule to strengthen the privacy protections for genetic information.

Outlining OCR's data privacy and security enforcement strategies, as updated for the EHR era and as mandated by the HITECH Act.

Holding HIPAA business associates to the same standards for protecting PHI as covered entities, including subcontractors of business associates, in the compliance sense.

Stipulating that, when patients pay by cash, they can instruct their provider not to share information about their treatment with their health plan.

Setting new limits on how information is used and disclosed for marketing and fundraising purposes.

Prohibiting the sale of an individual's health information without their permission.

Making it easier for parents and others to give permission to share proof of a child's immunization with a school.

Streamlining an individual's ability to authorize the use of his health information for research purposes.

Increasing penalties for noncompliance based on the level of negligence, with a maximum penalty of $1.5 million per violation.

Guaranteeing that organizations can operate with certainty that their privacy and security policies comply with all the applicable regulations.

The 563-page rule, released Jan. 17, 2013, went into effect March 26, 2013.

HIPAA business associate

HIPAA defines a business associate as any organization or person working in association with or providing services to a covered entity who handles or discloses PHI or personal health records ( PHR).

Examples of business associates include accounting or consulting firms that work with covered entities, such as hospitals or doctors, or any number of other organizations that have or could have access to PHI or PHR.

Updates made to the HIPAA regulation by the HITECH Act require business associates to comply with HIPAA mandates regarding the handling and use of PHI.

As of Feb. 18, 2010, the Department of Health and Human Services can audit business associates for HIPAA compliance.

Examples of HIPAA business associates

According to the HHS, examples of HIPAA business associates include:

When a health plan uses a third-party administrator to help with claims processing.

If a certified public accounting firm provides accounting services to a healthcare provider and has access to protected health information.

When a hospital has a consultant perform utilization reviews.

When a healthcare clearinghouse translates a claim from a nonstandard format to a standard format for a healthcare provider, and then sends the process transaction to a payer.

When a physician uses an independent medical transcriptionist's services.

When a pharmacy benefits manager manages a health plan's pharmacist network.

Mobile application developers could also be considered HIPAA business associates because many healthcare mobile applications handle PHI.

HHS gave a scenario where an app developer would be considered a HIPAA business associate: A patient is told by her provider to download a health app to her smartphone. The app developer and the provider have a contract for patient management services that includes remote patient health counseling, patient messaging, monitoring the patient's food and exercise, and EHR integration and application program interfaces. Furthermore, the information the patient inputs into the application is automatically incorporated in the EHR.

Under HIPAA, a HIPAA business associate agreement (BAA) is a contract between a HIPAA-covered entity and a HIPAA business associate (BA). The contract protects PHI in accordance with HIPAA guidelines.

Effective Feb. 18, 2010, in accordance with the HITECH Act, a BA's disclosure, handling and use of PHI must comply with HIPAA Security Rule and HIPAA Privacy Rule mandates. Under the HITECH Act, any HIPAA business associate that serves a healthcare provider or institution is subject to audits by OCR within HHS, and it can be held accountable for a data breach and penalized for noncompliance.

HIPAA business associate contract requirements

According to HHS, HIPAA business associate contracts or other written arrangements should:

Describe how the business associate is permitted and required to use PHI.

Require that the business associate not use or disclose PHI, other than as specified in the contract or as required by law.

Require the business associate to use appropriate safeguards to ensure the PHI is used as detailed in the contract.

Require the covered entity to take reasonable steps to cure any breach by the HIPAA business associate if and when they know of one. If this is unsuccessful, the covered entity is required to terminate the contract with the business associate.

Report the event to the OCR if terminating the contract with the business associate is impossible.

Report to the HHS OCR if there is a problem in terminating the contract with the business associate.

With these new regulations in mind, a HIPAA business associate agreement should explicitly spell out how a BA should report and respond to a data breach, including data breaches that are caused by a business associate's subcontractors. In addition, HIPAA business associate agreements should require a BA to demonstrate how it should respond to an OCR investigation.

HIPAA-covered entity

A HIPAA-covered entity is any organization or corporation that directly handles PHI or PHR. The most common examples of covered entities include hospitals, doctors' offices and health insurance providers.

Covered entities are required to comply with HIPAA and HITECH mandates for the protection of PHI and PHR.

Continue Reading About HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)

Margaret Rouse asks:

What are the biggest HIPAA concerns that your organization faces?

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What is HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) ? - Definition from WhatIs.com

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HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) is United States legislation that provides data privacy and security provisions for safeguarding medical information. The law has emerged into greater prominence in recent years with the proliferation of health data breaches caused by cyberattacks and ransomware attacks on health insurers and providers.

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Why invest in employee training & development? by Rachel Tuller, CEO & Business Coach at Vistage

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http://www.sardertv.com | http://www.russellsarder.com http://www.netcomlearning.com | http://www.learninggg.com Rachel Tuller is a proven leader in high-profile executive roles having served as a 25+ year IT industry entrepreneur primarily in Education, Training and Certification leadership.

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Why is Important to Invest in Employee Training & Development? by Atti Riazi, CIO of United Nations

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http://www.sardertv.com | http://www.russellsarder.com http://www.netcomlearning.com | http://www.learninggg.com Atefeh (Atti) Riazi was appointed by the Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon as the Assistant Secretary General and the new Chief Information Technology Officer of the United Nations. She worked as the EVP and CIO of NYCHA and was later appointed to the Acting General Manager responsible for all aspects of operations managing a $3B operating and capital budgets and 12000 employees.

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Why is employee development important? By Alan Schnurman

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http://www.russellsarder.com/ http://sardertv.com/category/ Alan co-founded the law firm of Zalman Schnurman & Miner in New York City. After four decades as a trial attorney, he retired last year. He has received numerous professional honors, including the "Lifetime Achievement Award" presented by the Hon.

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May McCarthy (Author of Path to Wealth)

May McCarthy explains her beliefs that human behavior is tied to mental equivalence. She talks about how in the brain our neuro-pathways are tied to very strong beliefs and behaviors and that to create a new pathway or belief, it is necessary to use repetitive processes to create a new equivalent.

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Can we build new neuro-pathways? - Sarder TV

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May McCarthy (Author of Path to Wealth) May McCarthy explains her beliefs that human behavior is tied to mental equivalence.

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Benefits of training and development for individuals and teams, organizations, and society. - PubMed - NCBI

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Sometimes you sense that something isn't right at work. You suspect that your finance colleague might be fudging numbers, your boss isn't telling his manager the truth about an important project, or your co-worker is skipping out of the office early but leaving her computer on so it looks like she's just down the hall. How do you know when it's worth speaking up or not? Can you you protect yourself from potential consequences of calling out bad behavior? And when you do decide to say something, what do you say and to whom?

What the Experts Say
"Most of us don't face a billion-dollar fraud or an issue where someone's going to die tomorrow," says James Detert, a management professor at Cornell University's Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management and author of " Why Employees Are Afraid to Speak." But even minor issues can have serious consequences. "Ethical situations at work can be cause for alarm, and are also a normal part of doing business," says Detert. The key is to not let either of those realities prevent you from making a rational decision. "When it comes to ethics, we think it's a test of our moral identity, which makes us more emotional, less effective, and vulnerable to self-deluding," says Mary Gentile, author of Giving Voice to Values and director of a program by the same name at Babson College. That's why it's important to not only know how to recognize an ethical issue but how to raise it - especially one that may be more of a gray area, she says. "There is no one strategy or answer for all situations," she says. "The key is to practice ahead of time, before a situation arrives so you're ready when it does." Here are some tips on what to do if you find yourself in a sticky situation.

Watch for rationalizations
"If something happens and you get that feeling in your gut that something's dodgy, a lot of preemptive rationalizations come in," says Gentile. That's because fear takes over. "Studies show that people are likely to overestimate how awful the confrontation will be, how terrible the retaliation will be, and how long the retaliation will last. You build up all the personal horrible consequences and find ways to avoid the harm or loss," says Detert. The most common rationalizations include: It's not a big deal. I don't have all the information. This is someone else's responsibility. This must be the way these things are done (at our company, in this region, in our industry, etc). "Statements like these allow us to recognize the problem and still feel not feel bad about not doing anything about it," says Detert. "It's not that these statements are false," says Gentile, "they're just not the whole truth." If you find yourself rationalizing in this way, question your underlying assumption. For example, "think about how many times someone says 'no big deal' when it's actually a big deal," says Detert.

Consider what's really at risk
You also want to be clear with yourself about what's happening. If your coworker is leaving early every day, is it worth doing something about? One could make the argument that she's stealing time from the company and therefore taking money that's not hers. But if she gets her work done, does it really matter? Gentile suggests asking yourself: What is the value that's being violated here? Why is this troubling me? Detert says to consider whether it's important to just you personally or to the larger group, either your team or the organization. Being clear about the issue will help you accurately weigh the pros and cons of addressing it.

Understand why people are acting the way they are
A useful skill when it comes to ethical situations is perspective-taking. Rather than casting your colleague as bad, seek to understand the reasons behind her actions. Typically, people have an understandable (if not defensible) motivation. Your finance colleague may be fudging the numbers because he wants to make his boss look good or he's afraid of losing his job. Put yourself in your colleague's shoes and try to understand what she's trying to achieve. Gentile gives the example of someone she knows who was asked by her boss to hide the firm's underperformance over the previous year. "Her boss wanted her to find a different benchmark that would make it look like the firm had done OK," says Gentile. The woman thought about her boss's goal in this scenario and "decided that he wasn't invested in being unethical but he wanted to get through a tough conversation with a client that afternoon." This information helped the woman decide how to respond to his request because she now understood "what was at risk for him" and instead of doing what he asked, she could provide him with information that would help him get through the conversation.

Weigh the pros and cons
"Only each of us individually can decide which issues we're willing to lay it on the line for," says Detert. So consider your situation carefully. What would be the benefit of speaking up? What would the consequences be if you didn't? One of the biggest pros of saying something is that you might help the business, especially if the unethical behavior puts the company at risk of a lawsuit, damaging an important customer relationship, or losing money. You might also feel better about yourself if you don't stay silent. Detert says that research has shown that people regret inaction more than they do actions that didn't go well. The cons will be very situational but might include the fact that the situation is unlikely to change or you are the sole earner in your household and can't risk losing your job. "There may be consequences and there may be times that you don't speak up because the positives don't outweigh the negatives," says Gentile. Detert adds: "We live in a society where most of us are dependent on employers for salary and benefits and we don't have the power that allows us to be free moral agents. None of us will be able to speak up about every problematic ethical issue. We are all compromisers in that regard."

Talk to the perpetrator first
Detert and Gentile agree that when you suspect someone is acting unethically, in most cases, you should talk to him first. You might be tempted to go to your boss or your colleague's boss, but it's often better to give the person the benefit of the doubt and assume that, when he sees how his behavior is perceived, he'll change. Give him the opportunity to correct his ways or to at least explain himself before you escalate. That said, if the violation is a particularly serious one, with potentially grave consequences, you may need to go to your boss, speak to HR, or call your company's ethics hotline immediately.

Rehearse
If you decide to say something to your colleague, don't go in cold. "Spend some time with a trusted peer, your spouse, or a good friend - someone you can talk the situation through with in a non-defensive, open way - to test your reasoning and develop an action plan," advises Gentile. If you build confidence by rehearsing, then you'll have more energy to engage in the conversation. And "you won't have to rehearse as much in the future, when the same type of issues come up over and over," adds Gentile.

Ask questions, don't accuse
Broaching the subject by saying, "I think what you're doing is wrong," or giving a lecture on morality is likely to backfire. "That leads the other person to shut down and get defensive - not because they're unethical but because they're human," says Gentile. "A better place to start would be to ask questions instead of making assertions," Detert explains. Use phrases like: "Can you help me understand..." or "Can you help me see why you're not worried..." Detert points to two reasons why this approach works. First, he says, "there's a possibility that the person isn't aware they're doing something wrong and your questioning might allow them to see the problem." Second, asking questions is "a reasonably safe way to determine if the target is going to be open to discussing this issue or whether you need to pursue another avenue."

In the best-case scenario, your colleague may respond by saying, "Wow, I haven't thought about it that way," and change his behavior. Problem solved. Or he may start to rationalize his actions: "This is always how we've done it." "You're not seeing the big picture." In this case, you want to align yourself so he doesn't feel accused. Detert suggests saying something like "I just asked because I'm concerned about you and I wouldn't want you to get in trouble" Or "I know we share the same overall goals, I just wanted to help make sure we were on track" or "I wanted to be sure we protect the organization's reputation." If your colleague believes you're on his side, he's more likely to be open to changing his mind about his behavior.

Escalate when necessary
It's also possible that your colleague will react negatively to your questioning and say something like "Let's not talk about it anymore" or "Mind your own business." If that happens, the next step is to ask yourself: Do I want to talk to someone else about this? Or do I let it lie? "Only you can decide," says Detert. If you want to pursue it, you might schedule a meeting with your boss and again treat it as information gathering. You can say, "I want to share what I'm seeing. I'm uncomfortable with it and I wanted to get your perspective." If your boss doesn't care, you'll need to decide if it's worth escalating further. At each step of the way, be open to what you're hearing. "You may see that you weren't aware of what was going on and once you have further information, your own perspective might change," says Detert.

Protect yourself
"We know enough about whistleblowers to know that retaliation is real," says Detert. You'll probably never be in a situation where it's 100% safe to speak up so "think about how you might protect yourself," says Gentile. She suggests keeping a record of relevant conversations and enlisting allies to support you if things go sideways.
Principles to Remember
Do:

Seek to understand your colleague's perspective - why is she acting the way she is?

Consider the benefits of speaking up against the potential consequences

Rehearse what you're going to say before calling out unethical behavior

Don't:

Rationalize the behavior just because you're afraid of having a tough conversation

Go straight to your boss or HR unless the situation is severe - try talking directly to your colleague first

Make moral accusations - ask questions and treat the initial conversation as information-gathering

Case Study #1: Test the waters before speaking up
Sharon Fritz* had been in her role as legal counsel at a software company for two months when she suspected a vice president was trying to deceive a new customer. Sharon and the vice president, Kim*, had had a conference call with the customer's lawyer about the terms of a contract. "Because I was new, I didn't follow everything that was said," Sharon recalls. As a result, she followed Kim's suggestions on how to draft the language. But when they were finalizing it, Sharon realized that one of the clauses was vague and open to interpretation, in a way favorable to their company. She decided to email Kim about the issue, then ask her about it at their next meeting. "Is this what you meant to do?" she asked. Kim told her yes; she had wanted the language to be vague. "She said it in a way that made me think she wasn't open to hearing anything more about it," Sharon explains. Afraid that an unpleasant confrontation would harm her new working relationship with Kim, she didn't go any further. "It was clear what she wanted to do, and I didn't think I was going to change her mind."

But Sharon was worried that when the customer got the first invoice, things would blow up, and she was right. A month after the contract was signed, the CEO called her into his office and explained that the customer was upset about the invoice and felt deceived. Sharon explained what had happened. The CEO told her that wasn't how their organization did business and asked her to push back in the future. "He knew that [Kim] was tough and understood why I hadn't stood up to her," Sharon says. But she still felt as if her reputation had been damaged and regretted not saying anything. "It was valuable lesson for me. If the same thing happened now, I would just tell her, 'We can't do that' and give her alternatives," she says.

Case Study #2: Stand your ground when necessary
As an HR director at a large global company, Carla Santos* was often privy to sensitive information about employees. So, when one of the company's executives became severely ill, she wasn't completely surprised when a relative reached out to explain the situation. Unfortunately, however, this put her in a tough position. "I possessed medical information which typically an employer doesn't have access to," she explains. "The executive team realized that the family had confided in me and they were very interested in finding out the extent and gravity of the illness," she says. But she didn't feel comfortable violating the family's trust by sharing the information. She knew that keeping quiet might negatively affect how her bosses perceived her, but that was a risk she felt was worth taking.

"I put my foot down and simply said that I would only share my own observations as a bystander," she says. The decision was driven not only by her personal values but also her concern that the organization could be sued should the private information have any impact on the employee's salary, benefits, promotion potential, or future employment.

As she suspected, her stance did have consequences. Her boss and one member of the executive team "became much more guarded" with her. But she still has no regrets: "I knew I was doing the ethical and legally correct thing."
*Names and details have been changed.

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How to Speak Up About Ethical Issues at Work

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Sometimes you sense that something isn't right at work. You suspect that your finance colleague might be fudging numbers, your boss isn't telling his manager the truth about an important project, or your co-worker is skipping out of the office early but leaving her computer on so it looks like she's just down the hall.

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The Liar Paradox is an argument that arrives at a contradiction by reasoning about a Liar Sentence. The Classical Liar Sentence is the self-referential sentence, "This sentence is false." It leads to the same difficulties as the sentence, "I am lying."

Experts in the field of philosophical logic have never agreed on the way out of the trouble despite 2,300 years of attention. Here is the trouble-a sketch of the paradox, the argument that reveals the contradiction:

Let L be the Classical Liar Sentence. If L is true, then L is false. But we can also establish the converse, as follows. Assume L is false. Because the Liar Sentence is just the sentence "L is false," the Liar Sentence is therefore true, so L is true. We have now shown that L is true if, and only if, it is false. Since L must be one or the other, it is both.

That contradictory result apparently throws us into the lion's den of semantic incoherence. The incoherence is due to the fact that, according to the rules of classical logic, anything follows from a contradiction, even "1 + 1 = 3." This article explores the details and implications of the principal ways out of the Paradox, that is, the ways of preserving or restoring semantic coherence.

Most people, when first encountering the Liar Paradox, react in one of two ways. One reaction is to not take the Paradox seriously and say they won't reason any more about it. The second and more popular reaction is to say the Liar Sentence must be meaningless. Both of these reactions are a way out of the Classical Liar Paradox, but not of the more strengthened versions to be discussed below. The first reaction-not taking it seriously-provides no useful diagnosis of the problem that was caused in the first place. The second is not an adequate solution if it can answer the question, "Why is the Classical Liar Sentence meaningless?" only with the ad hoc remark, "Otherwise we get a paradox." An adequate solution should offer a more systematic treatment. For example, the self-referential English sentence, "This sentence is not in Italian," is very similar to the Classical Liar Sentence. Is it meaningless, too? Apparently not. So, what feature of the Liar Sentence makes it be meaningless while "This sentence is not in Italian," is not meaningless? The questions continue, and an adequate solution should address them systematically.

Table of Contents

1. History of the Paradox

1. Strengthened Liar

2. Why the Paradox is a Serious Problem

3. Tarski's Undefinability Theorem

2. Overview of Ways Out of the Paradox

1. Five Ways Out

2. Sentences, Statements, and Propositions

3. An Ideal Solution to the Paradox

4. Should Classical Logic be Revised?

3. The Main Ways Out

1. Russell's Type Theory

2. Tarski's Hierarchy of Meta-Languages

3. Kripke's Hierarchy of Interpretations

4. Barwise and Etchemendy

5. Paraconsistency

4. Conclusion

5. References and Further Reading

1. History of the Paradox

Zeno's Paradoxes were discovered in the 5th century B.C.E., and the Liar Paradox was discovered later in the middle of the 4th century B.C.E. Both were discovered in ancient Greece. The oldest attribution of the Liar is to Eubulides of Miletus who included it among a list of seven puzzles. He said, "A man says that he is lying. Is what he says true or false?" Eubulides' commentary on his puzzle has not been found. An ancient gravestone on the Greek Island of Kos was reported by Athenaeus to contain this poem about the difficulty of solving the Paradox:

O Stranger: Philetas of Kos am I,

'Twas the Liar who made me die,

And the bad nights caused thereby.

Theophrastus, Aristotle's successor, wrote three papyrus rolls about the Liar Paradox, and the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus wrote six, but their contents are lost in the sands of time. Despite various comments on how to solve the Paradox, no Greek suggested that Greek itself was inconsistent; it was the reasoning within Greek that was considered to be inconsistent.

In the Late Medieval period in Europe, the French philosopher Jean Buridan put the Liar Paradox to devious use with the following proof of the existence of God. It uses the pair of sentences:

God exists.

None of the sentences in this pair is true.

The only consistent way to assign truth values, that is, to have these two sentence be either true or false, requires making "God exists" be true. In this way, Buridan has "proved" that God does exist.

There are many other versions of the Paradox. Some liar paradoxes begin with a chain of sentences, no one of which is self-referential, although the chain as a whole is self-referential or circular:

The following sentence is true.

The following sentence is true.

The following sentence is true.

The first sentence in this list is false.

There are also Contingent Liars which may or may not lead to a paradox depending on what happens in the world beyond the sentence. For example:

It's raining, and this sentence is false.

Paradoxicality now depends on the weather. If it is sunny, then the sentence is simply false, but if it is raining, then we have the beginning of a paradox. These Contingent Liars can be pointed to as a counterexample to the claim that no speaker would seriously assert Liar Sentences.

a. Strengthened Liar

The Strengthened Liar Paradox is called "Strengthened" because some promising solutions to the Classical Liar Paradox fail when faced with the Strengthened Liar Paradox.

The Strengthened Liar Paradox (also called the Strong Liar Paradox) can begin with a Strengthened Liar Sentence, "This sentence is not true," to produce a contradiction. For example, let us stipulate that the strengthened liar sentence L' is a formal object language sentence, and it is informally interpreted as saying of itself that it is not true. If it is not true, then that apparently implies it is true since it was saying it is not true. Yet if it were true, then that implies, just from the meaning of the sentence, that it is not true. So, L' is true if and only if it is not true. Now we have a paradox.

Here is another version of the Strengthened Liar. Suppose you believe a promising way to solve the Classical Liar Paradox is to call the classical liar sentence "meaningless," with the assumption that any declarative sentence is true, false or meaningless. Before you can be content with that way out, you must consider that it is not meaningless to call a sentence "meaningless." If the Classical Liar is apparently solved formally by having an object language that allows a truth predicate and a falsehood predicate and a predicate that says, "is meaningless," then one could form in the object language a strengthened liar sentence L" that informally says:

This sentence is either false or meaningless.

Now we are on the road to a paradox. Surely L" is either true or it's not. Let's examine both disjuncts. (1) Suppose L" were true. If L" is true, then it is false or meaningless. If so, then it is not true. (2) Now for the second disjunct. Suppose L" were not true. Why would a declarative sentence not be true? Because it is false or meaningless. But the sentence's being false or meaningless is precisely the claim being made by L", so it follows that L" is true.

So, L" is true if and only if it is not. We have a contradiction. It is understandable why this reasoning is often called "the revenge of the liar."

We do not want to solve the Classical Liar only to be ensnared by the Strengthened Liar. Therefore, finding one's way out of the Strengthened Liar Paradox is the acid test of a successful solution.

b. Why the Paradox is a Serious Problem

To put the Liar Paradox in perspective, it is essential to appreciate why such an apparently trivial problem is a deep problem. Solving the Liar Paradox is part of the larger project of understanding truth. Understanding truth is a difficult project that involves finding a theory of truth, or a definition of truth, or a proper analysis of the concept of truth. These are distinct projects, but the current article does not distinguish them from each other.

Before we say more about a theory of truth, let's be clear about what a contradiction is. In this article, when we speak of a contradiction, we mean a sentence that is equivalent to a compound sentence that has the logical form of an assertion and its denial. The logical form of a contradiction is "P and not P" where P is some declarative sentence. When a Marxist speaks of the contradiction in capitalism, the Marxist is not referring to a contradiction in the sense of that term that is of interest to this article, but rather to the fact that opposing social forces will clash and produce a restructuring of the society's economic system.

Languages are expected to contain contradictions but not contain paradoxes. The contradictory sentence, "Snow is white, and snow is not white," is just one of the many false sentences in the English language. But languages are not expected to contain or permit paradoxes, namely a good inference in support of a contradiction. At least not in the philosopher's sense of that word. Informally, many speakers will sometimes say of any very surprising sentence or chain of reasoning that it is a paradox, but this is not the sense used in this article. A paradox is an apparently convincing argument leading to the conclusion that one of the language's contradictions is true, that is, that one of its sentences is both true and false.

Why is that conclusion a problem? Well, let L be the Liar sentence, and let it be true and false. Calling a sentence "false" is apparently equivalent to calling its negation "true." So, if "~L" is the formal representation of the negation of L, and if we accept the conclusion of the Liar Paradox, then the compound sentence "L and ~L" will be true. Now the trouble begins. Let Q be some sentence we already know not to be true, say "1 + 1 = 3". Then we can reason this way:

The consequence is outrageous. That is why the paradox is a serious problem. An appropriate reaction to any paradox is to look for some unacceptable assumption made in the apparently convincing argument or else to look for a faulty step in the reasoning. Only very reluctantly would one want to learn to live with the contradiction being true, or ignore the contradiction altogether.

By the way, what this article calls "paradoxes" are called "antinomies" by Quine, Tarski, and some other authors.

Now, let's return to the issue of understanding truth by finding a theory of truth. We naturally want our theory of truth not to allow paradoxes. Aristotle offered what most philosophers consider to be a correct, necessary condition for any adequate theory of truth. Stripped of his overtones suggesting a correspondence theory of truth, Aristotle proposed (in Metaphysics 1011 b26) what is now called a precursor to Alfred Tarski's Convention T:

A sentence is true if, and only if, what it says is so.

In his 1933 article, "The Concept of Truth in formalized Languages," Tarski rephrased the idea this way:

A true sentence is one which says that the state of affairs is so and so, and the state of affairs indeed is so and so.

Here we need to take some care with the use-mention distinction. If pairs of quotation marks serve to name or mention a sentence, then Tarski is requiring that the sentence "Snow is white" be true just in case snow is white. Similarly, if the sentence about snow were named not with quotation marks but with the numeral 88 inside a pair of parentheses, then (88) would be true just in case snow is white. There is another common use of quotation marks; if we use a letter for a variable sentence, such as 'S', then placing the letter in quotes is not naming the letter but rather is a schematic representation of names of arbitrary sentences that might be values of the variable. There is yet another way to refer to sentences. If I say, "This sentence is written in English, not Italian," then the phrase "This sentence" refers to that sentence. This is all straightforward, and a common customary way of doing naming and referring.

What could be less controversial about the nature of truth? Unfortunately, Tarski's informal rephrasing of Aristotle's point is neither obviously correct nor trivial; and the resolution of the difficulty is still an open problem in philosophical logic. Why is that? The brief answer is that Tarski's sentence can be used to produce the Liar Paradox. The longer answer refers to Tarski's Undefinability Theorem of 1936.

c. Tarski's Undefinability Theorem

This article began with a sketch of the Liar Argument using sentence (L). To appreciate the central role in that argument of Tarski's rephrasing of Aristotle's point, we need to examine more than just a sketch of the argument. Alfred Tarski proposed a more formal characterization called Schema T or Convention T:

X is true if, and only if, p,

where " p" is a variable for a grammatical sentence and " X " is a name for that sentence. Tarski was the first person to claim that any theory of truth that could not entail all sentences of this schema would fail to be an adequate theory of truth. Here is what Tarski is requiring. If we want to build a theory of truth for English, and we want to state the theory using English, then the theory must entail the specific T-sentence:

"Snow is white" is true if, and only if, snow is white.

If we want instead to build a theory of truth for German and use English to state the theory, then the theory should, among other things, at least entail the T-sentence:

"Der Schnee ist weiss" is true in German if, and only if, snow is white.

A great many philosophers believe Tarski is correct when he claims his Convention T is a necessary condition on any successful theory of truth for any language. However, do we want all the T-sentences to be entailed and thus come out true? Probably not the T-sentence for the Liar Sentence. That T-sentence is:

Here T is the truth predicate (informally it is the predicate "is a true sentence"), and L is the Liar Sentence, namely ~T` L´. Substituting the latter for L on the right of the above biconditional yields the contradiction:

That is the argument of the Liar Paradox, very briefly.

Tarski added precision to the discussion of the Liar by focusing not on a natural language such as English but on a classical, interpreted, formal language powerful enough to express at least elementary arithmetic, if not also your grocery list and the contents of the day's local newspaper. Here the difficulties produced by the Liar Argument became much clearer; and, very surprisingly, he was able to prove that Convention T, plus the assumption that the language contains its own concept of truth, produces semantic incoherence.

The proof requires the following additional assumptions. Here we quote from (Tarski 1944):

I. We have implicitly assumed that the language in which the antinomy is constructed contains, in addition to its expressions, also the names of these expressions, as well as semantic terms such as the term " true" referring to sentences of this language; we have also assumed that all sentences which determine the adequate usage of this term can be asserted in the language. A language with these properties will be called " semantically closed."

II. We have assumed that in this language the ordinary laws of logic hold.

Tarski pointed out that the crucial, unacceptable assumption of the formal version of the Liar Argument is the self-reference allowed by any semantically closed language because any semantically closed language contains its own global truth predicate.

For there to be a grammatical and meaningful Liar Sentence in a language, there must be a definable notion of "is true" which holds for the true sentences and fails to hold for the other sentences. If there were such a global truth predicate, then the predicate "is a false sentence" would also be definable; and [here is where we need the power of elementary number theory] a Liar Sentence would exist, namely a complex sentence ∃x(Qx & ~Tx), where Q and T are predicates which are satisfied by names of sentences. More specifically, T is the one-place, global truth predicate satisfied by all and only the names [that is, numerals for the Gödel numbers] of the true sentences, and Q is a one-place predicate that is satisfied only by the name of ∃x(Qx & ~Tx). But if so, then one can eventually deduce a contradiction. This deduction of Tarski's is a formal analog of the informal argument of the Liar Paradox. The contradictory result tells us that the argument began with a false assumption. According to Tarski, the error that causes the contradiction is the assumption that the global truth predicate can be well-defined. Therefore, Tarski asserts that truth is not definable within a classical formal language that is classically interpreted-thus the name "Undefinability Theorem." Tarski's Theorem establishes that classically interpreted languages capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot contain their own global truth predicate, and so cannot be semantically closed.

There is no special difficulty in giving a careful definition of truth for a classical formal language, provided we do it outside the language; and Tarski himself was the first person to do this. In 1933, he created the first formal semantics for quantified predicate logic. Here are two imperfect examples of how he partly defines truth. First, the simple sentence ' Fa' is true if, and only if, a is F. For example, we might formalize the English sentence, "Alfred is fat", by translating it is Fa; then Tarski is telling us that Alfred is fat just in case Alfred is a member of the set of all things that are fat.

For a second example of partly defining truth, Tarski says the universally quantified sentence ' ∀xFx' is true if, and only if, all the objects in the domain are members of the set of objects that are

To repeat, a little more precisely but still imperfectly, Tarski's theory implies that, if we have a simple, formal sentence ` Fa´ in our formal language, in which 'a' is the name of some object in the domain of discourse (that is, what we can talk about) and if 'F' is a predicate designating a property that perhaps some of those objects have, then ' Fa' is true in the object language if, and only if, a is a member of the set of all things having property F. That set is called the extension of 'F'. Tarski also spoke of a satisfying 'F'. For the more complex sentence ' ∀xFx' in our language, it is true just in case every object in the domain is in the extension of F.

These two definitions are still imprecise because the appeal to the concept of property should be eliminated, and the definitions should appeal to the notion of formulas being satisfied by sequences of objects. However, ignoring those details, what we have here are two examples of partially defining truth for the formal object language, say language 0, but doing it from outside language 0, in a meta-language, say language 1, namely English that contains some arithmetic and set theory and that might or might not contain language 0 itself. Tarski was able to show that in language 1 we do satisfy Convention T for the object language 0, because the equivalences

` Fa´ is true in language 0 if, and only if, Fa

` ∀xFx´ is true in language 0 if, and only if, ∀xFx

are both deducible in language 1, as are the other T-sentences.

Despite Tarski's having this success with defining truth for an object language in its meta-language, Tarski's Undefinability Theorem establishes that there is apparently no hope of defining truth within the object language itself.

Tarski then took on the project of discovering how close he could come to having a well-defined truth predicate within a classical formal language without actually having one. That project, his hierarchy of meta-languages, is also his key idea for solving the Liar Paradox. The idea is discussed below.

2. Overview of Ways Out of the Paradox

a. Five Ways Out

We should avoid solving the Liar Paradox merely by declaring that our logic obeys the principle, "Avoid paradoxes." That gives us no guidance about how to avoid them. Since the Liar Paradox depends crucially upon our ideas about how to make inferences and how to understand the key semantic concepts of truth, reference, and negation, one might reasonably suppose that one of these needs revision. No one wants to solve the Paradox by being heavy-handed and jettisoning more than necessary-but any changes we do make may have their own drawbacks.

Where should we make the changes? If we adopt the metaphor of a paradox as being an argument which starts from the home of seemingly true assumptions and which travels down the garden path of seemingly valid steps into the den of a contradiction, then a solution to the Liar Paradox has to find something wrong with the home, find something wrong with the garden path, or find a way to live within the den. Less metaphorically, the main ways out of the Paradox are the following:

1. The Liar Sentence is ungrammatical and so has no truth value (yet the argument of the Liar Paradox depends on it having a truth value).

2. The Liar Sentence is grammatical but meaningless and so has no truth value.

3. The Liar Sentence is grammatical and meaningful but still it has no truth value; it falls into the "truth gap."

4. The Liar Sentence is grammatical, meaningful and has a truth value, but one other step in the argument of the Liar Paradox is faulty.

5. The argument of the Liar Paradox is acceptable, and we need to learn how to live with the Liar Sentence being both true and false.

Two philosophers might take the same way out, but for different reasons.

In presenting any of these five proposed solutions to the Paradox, it is helpful to explore the details and the implications. For example, do they accept or revise the Law of Addition that was appealed to in step 3 of the Liar Argument back in Section 1 of this article? A solution is unacceptably vague if it cannot answer this question and give it a principled justification of some sort.

There are many suggestions for how to deal with the Liar Paradox, but most are never developed to the point of giving a formal, detailed theory that can speak of its own syntax and semantics with precision. Some give philosophical arguments for why this or that conceptual reform is plausible as a way out of paradox, but then don't show that their ideas can be carried through in a rigorous way. Other attempts at solutions will take the formal route and then require changes in standard formalisms so that a formal analog of the Liar Paradox's argument fails, but then the attempted solution offers no philosophical argument to back up these formal changes or than "It is successful in avoiding paradoxes so far." A decent theory of truth showing the way out of the Liar Paradox requires both a coherent formalism (or at least a systematic theory of some sort) and a philosophical justification backing it up. The point of the philosophical justification is an unveiling of some hitherto unnoticed or unaccepted rule of language for all sentences of some category which has been violated by the argument of the Paradox.

And it is not at all obvious that we must seek a single way out. Perhaps the best we can do is to have a variety of ways out, some of which are better than some others. That point should be kept in mind when this article cavalierly speaks of "the" way out.

The leading solutions to the Liar Paradox, that is, the influential proposed solutions, all have a common approach, the "systematic approach." The developers of these solutions agree that the Liar Paradox represents a serious challenge to our understanding the concepts, rules, and logic of natural language; and they agree that we must go back and systematically reform or clarify some of our original beliefs, and provide a motivation for doing so other than that doing so blocks the Paradox.

This need to have a systematic approach has been seriously challenged by Ludwig Wittgenstein (in 1938 in a discussion group with Alan Turing on the foundations of mathematics). Wittgenstein says one should try to overcome "the superstitious fear and dread of mathematicians in the face of a contradiction." The proper way to respond to any paradox, he says, is by an ad hoc reaction and not by any systematic treatment designed to cure both it and any future ills. Symptomatic relief is sufficient. He says it may appear legitimate, at first, to admit that the Liar Sentence is meaningful and also that it is true or false, but the Liar Paradox shows that one should retract this admission and either just not use the Liar Sentence in any arguments, or say it is not really a sentence, or at least say it is not one that is either true or false. Wittgenstein is not particularly concerned with which choice is made. And, whichever choice is made, he believes it need not be backed up by any theory that shows how to systematically incorporate the choice. He treats the whole situation cavalierly and unsystematically. After all, he says, the language can't really be incoherent because we have been successfully using it all along, so why all this "fear and dread"? Most logicians want systematic removal of the Paradox.

Disagreeing with Wittgenstein, P. F. Strawson has promoted the performative theory of truth as a way out of the Liar Paradox. Strawson has argued that the proper way out of the Liar Paradox is to carefully re-examine how the term "truth" is really used by speakers. He says such an investigation will reveal that the Liar Sentence is meaningful but fails to express a proposition. To explore this response more deeply, notice that Strawson's proposed solution depends on the distinction between a proposition and the declarative sentence used to express that proposition. The next section explores what a proposition is, but let's agree for now that a sentence, when uttered, either expresses a true proposition, expresses a false proposition, or fails to express any proposition. According to Strawson, when we say some proposition is true, we are not making a statement about the proposition. We are not ascribing a property to the proposition such as the property of correspondence to the facts, or coherence, or usefulness. Rather, when we call a proposition "true," we are only approving it, or praising it, or admitting it, or condoning it. We are performing an action of that sort. Similarly, when we say to our friend, "I promise to pay you fifty dollars," we are not ascribing some property to the proposition, "I pay you fifty dollars." Rather, we are performing the act of promising the $50. For Strawson, when speakers utter the Liar Sentence, they are attempting to praise a proposition that is not there, as if they were saying "Ditto" when no one has spoken. The person who utters the Liar Sentence is making a pointless utterance. According to this performative theory, the Liar Sentence is grammatical, but it is not being used to express a proposition and so is not something from which a contradiction can be derived.

Some proponents of their own favorite solution to the paradox agree that a formal, systematic approach to the paradox is valuable, and they point out that in some formalism, say first-order arithmetic, the Liar argument cannot be reconstructed. For one example, perhaps the proponents will argue that the prong of the argument from the Liar sentence being true to its being false is acceptable, but the prong from the Liar sentence being false to its being true cannot be reconstructed in the formalism. From this they conclude that the Liar sentence is simply false and paradox-free. This may be the key to solving the Paradox, but it is not successful if there is no satisfactory response to the complaint that perhaps their reconstruction using that formalism shows more about the inadequacy of the formalism than the proper way out of the paradox.

b. Sentences, Statements, and Propositions

The Liar Paradox can be expressed in terms of sentences, statements, or propositions. We appropriately speak of the Classical Liar Sentence, "This sentence is false," and of the statement that this statement is false, and of the proposition that this proposition is false. Sentences are linguistic expressions whereas statements and propositions are not. When speaking about sentences, we are nearly always speaking about sentence types, not tokens. A token is the sound waves or the ink marks; these are specific collections of molecules. Philosophers do not agree on what a sentence is, but they disagree more about what a statement is, and they disagree even more about what a proposition is.

The Strengthened Liar is differently expressed as

This sentence is not true.

This statement does not state a truth.

This proposition does not express a true proposition.

A proponent of sentences over propositions is likely to say that the remark, "L does not express a true proposition," is essentially saying "L is not true, i.e., L is either a false sentence or a sentence lacking a truth value."

Despite Quine's famous complaint that there are no propositions because there can be no precise criteria for deciding whether two different sentences are being used to express identical propositions, there are some interesting reasons why researchers who work on the Liar Paradox should focus on propositions rather than on either sentences or statements, but those reasons will not be explored here. For a discussion of the need for propositions, see (Barwise and Etchemendy 1987). The present article will continue to speak primarily of sentences rather than propositions, though only for the purpose of simplicity.

c. An Ideal Solution to the Liar Paradox

A solution which says, "Quit using language" will stop the Liar Paradox; but surely the Liar Paradox can be stopped by making more conservative changes than this radical, ad hoc solution. All other things being equal, adopting simple, intuitive and conservative semantic principles is to be preferred ideally to adopting ad hoc, complicated and less intuitive semantic principles that have many negative consequences. The same goes for revision of a concept or revision of a logic.

Ideally, we would like a proposed solution to the Liar Paradox to provide a solution to all the versions of the Liar Paradox, such as the Strengthened Liar Paradox, the version that led to Buridan's proof of God's existence, and the contingent versions of the Liar Paradoxes. The solution should solve the paradox both for natural languages and formal languages, or provide a good explanation of why the paradox can be treated properly only in a formal language. The contingent versions of the Liar Paradox are going to be troublesome because, if the production of the paradox does not depend only on something intrinsic to the sentence but also depends on what circumstances occur in the world, then there needs to be a detailed description of when those circumstances are troublesome and when they are not, and why.

It would be ideal if we had both a solution to the Liar Paradox and also to Curry's Paradox, another paradox that turns on self-reference. Haskell Curry's Paradox will not be explored in this article.

It would be reasonable to require an ideal solution to the Liar Paradox to tell us how important self-reference is to the Paradox. The Yablo Paradox produces a semantic paradox designed to show that neither self-reference nor circularity is an essential feature of all the Liar-like paradoxes. In Stephen Yablo's paradox, there apparently is no way to coherently assign a truth value to any of the sentences in the countably infinite sequence of sentences of the form, "None of the subsequent sentences are true." Imagine an unending line of people in numerical order who say:

1. Everybody after me is lying.

2. Everybody after me is lying.

3. Everybody after me is lying.

...

Ask yourself whether the first person's sentence in the sequence is true or false. Notice that no sentence overtly refers to itself. To produce the paradox it is crucial that the line of speakers be infinite. There is controversy in the literature about whether the paradox actually contains a hidden appeal to self-reference or circularity. See (Beall 2001) for more discussion.

To summarize, an important goal for the best solution, or solutions, to the Liar Paradox is to offer us a deeper understanding of how our semantic concepts and principles worked to produce the Paradox in the first place, especially if a solution to the Paradox requires changing or at least clarifying them. We want to understand the concepts of truth, reference, and negation that are involved in the Paradox. In addition to these, there are the subsidiary principles and related notions of denial, definability, naming, meaning, predicate, property, presupposition, antecedent, and operating on prior sentences to form newer meaningful ones rather than merely newer grammatical ones. We would like to know what limits there are on all these notions and mechanisms, and how one impacts another.

What are the important differences among the candidates for bearers of truth? The leading candidates are sentences, propositions, statements, claims, and utterances. Is one primary, while the others are secondary or derivative? Ideally, we would like to know a great deal more about truth, but also falsehood, and the related notions of fact, situation and state of affairs. We want to better understand what a language is and what the relationship is between an interpreted formal language and a natural language, relative to different purposes. Finally, it would be instructive to learn how the Liar Paradoxes are related to all the other paradoxes.

That may be quite a lot of ask, but then our civilization does have some time to investigate all this before the Sun expands and vaporizes our little planet.

d. Should Classical Logic be Revised?

An important question regarding the Liar Paradox is: What is the relationship between a solution to the Paradox for (interpreted) formal languages and a solution to the Paradox for natural languages? There is significant disagreement on this issue. Is appeal to a formal language a turn away from the original problem, and so just changing the subject? Can one say we are still on the subject when employing a formal language because a natural language contains implicitly within it some formal language structure? Or should we be in the business of building an ideal language to replace natural language for the purpose of philosophical study?

Is our natural language, for example, English, a semantically closed language? Does English have one or more logics? Should we conclude from the Liar Paradox that the logic of English cannot be standard logic but must be one that restricts the explosion that occurs due to our permitting the deduction of anything whatsoever from a contradiction? Should we say English really has truth gaps or perhaps occasional truth gluts (sentences that are both true and false)?

Or instead can a formal language be defended on the ground that natural language is inconsistent and the formal language is showing the best that can be done rigorously? Can sense even be made of the claim that a natural language is inconsistent, for is not consistency a property only of languages with a rigorous structure, namely formal languages and not natural languages? Should we say people can reason inconsistently in natural language without declaring the natural language itself to be inconsistent? This article raises, but will not resolve, these questions, although some are easier to answer than others.

Many of the most important ways out of the Liar Paradox recommend revising classical formal logic. Classical logic is the formal logic known to introductory logic students as "predicate logic" in which, among other things, (i) all sentences of the formal language have exactly one of two possible truth values (TRUE, FALSE), (ii) the rules of inference allow one to deduce any sentence from an inconsistent set of assumptions, (iii) all predicates are totally defined on the range of the variables, and (iv) the formal semantics is the one invented by Tarski that provided the first precise definition of truth for a formal language in its metalanguage. A few philosophers of logic argue against any revision of classical logic by saying classical logic is the incumbent formalism that should be accepted unless an alternative is required (probably it is believed to be incumbent because of its remarkable success in expressing most of modern mathematical inference). Still, most other philosophers argue that classical logic is not the incumbent which must remain in office unless an opponent can dislodge it. Instead, the office has always been vacant.

Some philosophers object to revising classical logic if the purpose in doing so is merely to find a way out of the Paradox. They say that philosophers shouldn't build their theories by attending to the queer cases. There are more pressing problems in the philosophy of logic and language than finding a solution to the Paradox, so any treatment of it should wait until these problems have a solution. From the future resulting theory which solves those problems, one could hope to deduce a solution to the Liar Paradox. However, for those who believe the Paradox is not a minor problem but is one deserving of immediate attention, there can be no waiting around until the other problems of language are solved. Perhaps the investigation of the Liar Paradox will even affect the solutions to those other problems.

3. The Main Ways Out

There have been many systematic proposals for ways out of the Liar Paradox. Below is a representative sample of five of the main ways out.

a. Russell's Type Theory

Bertrand Russell said natural language is incoherent, but its underlying sensible part is an ideal formal language (such as the applied predicate logic of Principia Mathematica). He agreed with Henri Poincaré that the source of the Liar trouble is its use of self-reference. Russell's way out was to rule out self-referential sentences as being ungrammatical or not well-formed in his ideal language.

In 1908 in his article "Mathematical Logic as Based on the Theory of Types" that is reprinted in (Russell 1956, p. 79), Russell solves the Liar with his ramified theory of types. This is a formal language involving an infinite hierarchy of, among other things, orders of propositions:

If we now revert to the contradictions, we see at once that some of them are solved by the theory of types. Whenever 'all propositions' are mentioned, we must substitute 'all propositions of order n', where it is indifferent what value we give to n, but it is essential that n should have some value. Thus when a man says 'I am lying', we must interpret him as meaning: 'There is a proposition of order n, which I affirm, and which is false'. This is a proposition of order n+1; hence the man is not affirming any propositions of order n; hence his statement is false, and yet its falsehood does not imply, as that of 'I am lying' appeared to do, that he is making a true statement. This solves the liar.

Russell's implication is that the informal Liar Sentence is meaningless because it has no appropriate translation into his formal language since an attempted translation violates his type theory. This theory is one of his formalizations of the Vicious-Circle Principle: Whatever involves all of a collection must not be one of the collection. Russell believed that violations of this principle are the root of all the logical paradoxes.

His solution to the Liar Paradox has the drawback that it places so many subscript restrictions on what can refer to what. It is unfortunate that the Russell hierarchy requires even the apparently harmless self-referential sentences "This sentence is in English" and "This sentence is not in Italian" to be syntactically ill-formed. The type theory also rules out explicitly saying (within his formalism) that legitimate terms must have a unique type, or saying that properties have the property of belonging to exactly one category in the hierarchy of types, which, if we step outside the theory of types, seems to be true about the theory of types. Bothered by this, Tarski took a different approach to the Liar Paradox.

b. Tarski's Hierarchy of Meta-Languages

Reflection on the Liar Paradox suggests that either informal English (or any other natural language) is not semantically closed or, if it is semantically closed as it appears to be, then it is inconsistent-assuming for the moment that it does make sense to apply the term "inconsistent" to a natural language with a vague structure. Because of the vagueness of natural language, Tarski quit trying to find the paradox-free structure within natural languages and concentrated on developing formal languages that did not allow the deduction of a contradiction, but which diverge from natural language "as little as possible."

One virtue of Tarski's way out of the Paradox is that it does permit the concept of truth to be applied to sentences that involve the concept of truth, provided we apply level subscripts to the concept of truth and follow the semantic rule that any subscript inside a pair of quotation marks is smaller than the subscript outside but still within the sentence; any violation of this rule produces a meaningless, ungrammatical formal sentence, but not a false one. The language of level 1 is the meta-language of the object language in level 0. Level 0 sentences don't contain truth or similar terms, but would contain, say, "Paris is the capital of France." The sentence saying this level 0 sentence is true occurs in level 1. It would be: "'Paris is the capital of France' is true ₀." No language is allowed to contain its own truth predicate.

The rule for subscripts stops the formation of both the Classical Liar Sentence and the Strengthened Liar Sentence anywhere within the hierarchy. The subscripting also stops paradoxical chains that start as follows:

The next sentence is true.

The previous sentence is false.

Another virtue of the Tarski way out is that it provides a way out of the Yablo Paradox.

Russell's solution calls "This sentence is in English" ill-formed, but Tarski's solution does not, so that feature is also virtue of Tarski's way out. Tarski allows some self-reference, but not the self-reference involved in the Liar Paradox.

Tarski's clever treatment of the Liar Paradox unfortunately has drawbacks. English has a single word "true," but Tarski is replacing this with an infinite sequence of truth-like formal predicates, each of which is satisfied by the truths only of the language below it in the hierarchy of languages. Intuitively, a more global truth predicate should be expressible in the language it applies to. One hopes to be able to talk truly about one's own semantic theory. The Tarski way out does not allow us even to say that in all languages of the hierarchy, some sentences are true. To use Wittgenstein's phrase from his Tractatus, the character of the hierarchy can be shown but not said.

Despite these restrictions and despite the unintuitive and awkward hierarchy, Quine defends Tarski's way out as the best of the ways. Here is Quine's defense:

Revision of a conceptual scheme is not unprecedented. It happens in a small way with each advance in science, and it happens in a big way with the big advances, such as the Copernican revolution and the shift from Newtonian mechanics to Einstein's theory of relativity. We can hope in time even to get used to the biggest such changes and to find the new schemes natural. There was a time when the doctrine that the earth revolves around the sun was called the Copernican paradox, even by the men who accepted it. And perhaps a time will come when truth locutions without implicit subscripts, or like safeguards, will really sound as nonsensical as the antinomies show them to be. (Quine 1976)

Tarski adds to the defense by stressing that:

The languages (either the formalized languages or-what is more frequently the case-the portions of everyday language) which are used in scientific discourse do not have to be semantically closed. (Tarski, 1944)

One criticism of Quine is that he is asking us to be patient and not to be so bothered by the complexity of the hierarchy, but he is giving no other justification for the hierarchy.

(Kripke 1975) criticized Tarski's way out for its inability to handle contingent versions of the Liar Paradox such as one that begins with

It's raining and this sentence is false

because Tarski cannot describe the contingency. That is, Tarski's solution does not provide a way to specify the circumstances in which a sentence leads to a paradox and the other circumstances in which that same sentence is paradox-free.

Putnam also criticized Tarski's way out for its "quietism" about its own semantics:

The paradoxical aspect of Tarski's theory, indeed of any hierarchical theory, is that one has to stand outside the whole hierarchy even to formulate the statement that the hierarchy exists. But what is this "outside place"-"informal language"-supposed to be? It cannot be "ordinary language," because ordinary language, according to Tarski, is semantically closed and hence inconsistent. But neither can it be a regimented language, for no regimented language can make semantic generalizations about itself or about languages on a higher level than itself. (Putnam 1990, 13)

Within Tarski's hierarchy of formal languages, we cannot say, "Every language has true sentences," even though outside the hierarchy this is clearly a true remark about the hierarchy.

c. Kripke's Hierarchy of Interpretations

Kripke's way out of the Classical Liar requires a revision in our semantic principles but a less radical one than does the Russell solution or the Tarski-Quine solution. Kripke rejects the hierarchy of languages and retains the intuition that there is a single, semantically coherent and meaningful Liar Sentence, but argues that it is neither true nor false and so falls into a "truth value gap." Kriple successfully develops the details using the tools of symbolic logic. Tarski's Undefinability Theorem does not apply to languages having sentences that are neither true nor false. So, it can be argued that Kripke successfully shows that a semantically coherent formal language can contain its own global truth predicate.

Kripke trades Russell's and Tarski's infinite syntactic complexity of languages for infinite semantic complexity of a single formal language. He rejects Tarski's infinite hierarchy of meta-languages in favor of one formal language having an infinite hierarchy of partial interpretations. Consider a single formal language capable of expressing elementary number theory and containing a predicate T for truth (that is, for truth in an interpretation). Kripke assigns to T an elaborate interpretation, namely its extension (the set of sentences it is true of), its anti-extension (the set of sentences it is false of), and its undecideds (the set of sentences it is neither true nor false of). No sentence is allowed to be a member of both the extension and anti-extension of any predicate. Kripke allows the interpretation of T to change throughout the hierarchy. The basic predicates except the T predicate must have their interpretations already fixed in this base level. In the base level of the hierarchy, the predicate T is given a special extension and anti-extension. Specifically, its extension is all the (names of the) true sentences that do not actually contain the predicate symbol 'T', and its anti-extension is all the false sentences that do not contain 'T'. The predicate 'T' is the formal language's only basic partially-interpreted predicate.

As we ascend the hierarchy, distancing ourselves from the basic level, more and more complex sentences involving the symbol 'T' get added into the extension and anti-extension of the intended truth predicate T. Each step up Kripke's semantic hierarchy is another partial interpretation of the language. As we go up a level we add into the extension of T all the true sentences containing T from the lower level. Ditto for the anti-extension.

For example, at the lowest level in the hierarchy we have the (formal equivalent of the) true sentence 7 + 5 = 12. Strictly speaking it is not grammatical in English to say 7 + 5 = 12 is true because we make a use-mention error. More properly we should add quotation marks and say '7 + 5 = 12' is true. In Kripke's formal language, '7 + 5 = 12' is true at the base level of the hierarchy. Meanwhile, the sentence that is the best candidate for saying it is true, namely 'T('7+5=12')', is not true at that level, although it is added to the extension of T and thus is said to be true at the next higher level. Unfortunately at this new level, the even more syntactically complex sentence 'T('T('7+5=12')')' is still not yet true. It will become true at the next higher level. And so goes the hierarchy of interpretations as it attributes truth to more and more sentences involving the concept of truth itself. The extension of T, that is, the class of names of sentences that satisfy T, grows but never contracts as we move up the hierarchy, and it grows by calling more true sentences true. Similarly the anti-extension of T grows but never contracts as more false sentence involving T are correctly said to be false.

Kripke shows that T eventually becomes a truth-like predicate for its own level when the interpretation-building reaches the unique lowest fixed point at a countably infinite height in the hierarchy. At a fixed point, no new sentences are declared true or false, and at this level Kripke shows that the language also satisfies Tarski's Convention T, so for this reason many philosophers are sympathetic to Kripke's controversial claim that T is a truth predicate at that point. At this fixed point, the formal equivalent of the Liar Sentence still is neither true nor false, and so falls into the truth gap, just as Kripke set out to show. In this way, the Liar Paradox is solved, the formal language has a global truth predicate, the formal semantics is coherent, and many of our intuitions about semantics are preserved.

However, there are difficulties with Kripke's way out. His treatment of the Classical Liar stumbles on the Strengthened Liar and reveals why that paradox deserves its name. For a discussion of why, see (Kirkham 1992, pp. 293-4).

Some critics of Kripke's theory say that in the fixed-point the Liar Sentence does not actually contain a global truth predicate but rather only a clever restriction on the truth predicate, and so Kripke's Liar Sentence is not really the Liar Sentence after all; therefore we do not have here a solution to the Liar Paradox. Other philosophers say this is not a fair criticism of Kripke's theory since Tarski's Convention T, or some other intuitive feature of our concept of truth, must be restricted in some way if we are going to have a formal treatment of truth.

What can more easily be agreed upon by the critics is that Kripke's candidate for the Liar sentence falls into the truth gap in Kripke's theory at all levels of his hierarchy, so it is not true in his theory. [We are making this judgment that it is not true from within the meta-language in which sentences are properly said to be true or else not true.] However, in the object language of the theory, one cannot truthfully say the Liar Sentence is not true since the obvious candidate expression for that, namely ~Ts, is not true, but rather falls into the truth gap. Therefore, Kripke's truth-gap theory cannot state its own thesis.

Robert Martin and Peter Woodruff created the same way out as Kripke, though a few months earlier and in less depth.

d. Barwise and Etchemendy

Another way out says the Liar Sentence is meaningful and is true or else false, but one special step of the argument in the Liar Paradox is incorrect. namely, the inference from the Liar Sentence's being false to its being true. Arthur Prior, following the informal suggestions of Jean Buridan and C. S. Peirce, takes this way out and concludes that the Liar Sentence is simply false. So do Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy, but they go on to present a detailed, formal treatment of the Paradox that depends crucially upon using propositions rather than sentences. The details of their treatment will not be sketched here. Their treatment says the Liar Proposition is simply false on one interpretation but simply true on another interpretation, and that the argument of the Paradox improperly exploits this ambiguity. The key ambiguity is to conflate the Liar Proposition's negating itself with its denying itself. Similarly, in ordinary language we are not careful to distinguish asserting that a proposition is false from denying that it is true.

Three positive features of the Barwise-Etchemendy solution are that (i) it applies to the Strengthened Liar, (ii) its propositions are always true or false, but never both, and (iii) it shows the way out of paradox both for natural language and interpreted formal language. Yet there is a price to pay. No proposition in their system can be about the whole world, and this restriction is there for no independent reason but only because otherwise we would get a paradox.

e. Paraconsistency

A more radical way out of the Paradox is to argue that the Liar Sentence is both true and false. This solution, a version of dialethism, embraces the contradiction, then tries to limit the damage that is ordinarily a consequence of that embrace. This way out changes the classical rules of semantics to allow the Liar Sentence to be both true and false, and it changes the syntactic rules of classical logic by revising modus ponens to prevent there being a theorem that everything follows from a contradiction: (p & ~p) ⊢ q.

This way out uses a paraconsistent logic. That solution, which was initially promoted primarily by Graham Priest, will not be developed in this article, but it succeeds in avoiding semantic incoherence while offering a formal, detailed treatment of the Paradox. A principal virtue of this treatment is that, unlike with Barwise and Etchemendy's treatment, a sentence can be about the whole world. Critics of this approach to the Liar have complained that it does not seem to solve the Strengthened Liar Paradox, nor Curry's Paradox; and it does violence to our intuition that sentences can't be both true and false in the same sense in the same situation. See the last paragraph of " Paradoxes of Self-Reference," for more discussion of using paraconsistency as a way out of the Liar Paradox.

4. Conclusion

To summarize, when we treat the Liar Paradox we should provide two things, an informal diagnosis which pinpoints the part of the paradox's argument that has led us astray, and a formalism that prevents the occurrence of the paradox's argument within that formalism.

Russell, Tarski, Kripke, Barwise-Etchemendy, and Priest (among others) deserve credit for providing a philosophical justification for their proposed solutions while also providing a formal treatment in symbolic logic that shows in detail both the character and implications of their proposed solutions. The theories of Russell and of Quine-Tarski do provide a treatment of the Strengthened Liar, but at the cost of assigning complex "levels" to the relevant sentences. On the positive side, their treatment does not take Russell's radical step of ruling out all self-reference. Kripke's elegant and careful treatment of the Classical Liar stumbles on the Strengthened Liar. Barwise and Etchemendy's way out avoids these problems, but requires accepting the idea that no sentence can be used to say anything about the whole world, including the semantics of our language. Priest's way out requires giving up our intuition that no context-free, unambiguous sentence is both true and false.

Perhaps more work needs to be done in finding the best way, or the best ways, out of the Liar Paradox that will preserve the most important intuitions we have about semantics while avoiding semantic incoherence. In this vein, one can draw a pessimistic conclusion and an optimist conclusion. Taking the pessimistic route, Putnam says:

If you want to say something about the liar sentence, in the sense of being able to give final answers to the questions "Is it meaningful or not? And if it is meaningful, is it true or false? Does it express a proposition or not? Does it have a truth value or not? And which one?" then you will always fail. In closing, let me say that even if Tarski was wrong (as I believe he was) in supposing that ordinary language is a theory and hence can be described as "consistent" or "inconsistent," and even if Kripke and others have shown that it is possible to construct languages that contain their own truth-predicates, still, the fact remains that the totality of our desires with respect to how a truth-predicate should behave in a semantically closed language, in particular, our desire to be able to say without paradox of an arbitrary sentence in such a language that it is true, or that it is false, or that it is neither true nor false, cannot be adequately satisfied. The very act of interpreting a language that contains a liar sentence creates a hierarchy of interpretations, and the reflection that this generates does not terminate in an answer to the questions "Is the liar sentence meaningful or meaningless, or if it is meaningful, is it true or false?" (Putnam 2000)

In (Putnam 2012,p. 206), Putnam concluded that "a solution does not seem to be possible" if by a solution, we mean one that makes all appearance of paradox go away.

More optimistically, should there really be so much fear and loathing about limitations on our ability to formally express all the theses of our favored theory? Many fields have learned to live with their limitations. Set theory cannot speak of the set of all its sets.

See also Logical Paradoxes.

5. References and Further Reading

For further reading on the Liar Paradox that provides more of an introduction to it while not presupposing a strong background in symbolic logic, the author recommends reading the article below by Mates, plus the first chapter of the Barwise-Etchemendy book, and then chapter 9 of the Kirkham book. The rest of this bibliography is a list of contributions to research on the Liar Paradox, and all members of the list require the reader to have significant familiarity with the techniques of symbolic logic. In the formal, symbolic tradition, other important researchers in the last quarter of the 20th century when research on the Liar increased dramatically were Burge, Gupta, Herzberger, McGee, Parsons, Putnam, Routley, Skyrms, van Fraassen, and Yablo.

Barwise, Jon and John Etchemendy. The Liar: An Essay in Truth and Circularity, Oxford University Press, 1987.

Beall, J.C. (2001). "Is Yablo's Paradox Non-Circular?" Analysis 61, no. 3, pp. 176-87.

Burge, Tyler. "Semantical Paradox," Journal of Philosophy, 76 (1979), 169-198.

Dowden, Bradley. "Accepting Inconsistencies from the Paradoxes," Journal of Philosophical Logic, 13 (1984), 125-130.

Gupta, Anil. "Truth and Paradox," Journal of Philosophical Logic, 11 (1982), 1-60. Reprinted in Martin (1984), 175-236.

Herzberger, Hans. "Paradoxes of Grounding in Semantics," Journal of Philosophy, 68 (1970), 145-167.

Kirkham, Richard. Theories of Truth: A Critical Introduction, MIT Press, 1992.

Kripke, Saul. "Outline of a Theory of Truth," Journal of Philosophy, 72 (1975), 690-716. Reprinted in (Martin 1984).

Martin, Robert. The Paradox of the Liar, Yale University Press, Ridgeview Press, 1970. 2nd ed. 1978.

Martin, Robert. Recent Essays on Truth and the Liar Paradox, Oxford University Press, 1984.

Martin, Robert and Peter Woodruff. "On Representing 'True-in-L' in L," Philosophia, 5 (1975), 217-221.

Mates, Benson. "Two Antinomies," in Skeptical Essays, The University of Chicago Press, 1981, 15-57.

McGee, Vann. Truth, Vagueness, and Paradox: An Essay on the Logic of Truth, Hackett Publishing, 1991.

Parson, Charles. "The Liar Paradox," Journal of Philosophical Logic 3 (1974): 381-412.

Priest, Graham. "The Logic of Paradox," Journal of Philosophical Logic, 8 (1979), 219-241; and "Logic of Paradox Revisited," Journal of Philosophical Logic, 13 (1984), 153-179.

Priest, Graham, Richard Routley, and J. Norman (eds.). Paraconsistent Logic: Essays on the Inconsistent, Philosophia-Verlag, 1989.

Prior, Arthur. "Epimenides the Cretan," Journal of Symbolic Logic, 23 (1958), 261-266; and "On a Family of Paradoxes," Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 2 (1961), 16-32.

Putnam, Hilary. Realism with a Human Face, Harvard University Press, 1990.

Putnam, Hilary. "Paradox Revisited I: Truth." In Gila Sher and Richard Tieszen, eds., Between Logic and Intuition: Essays in Honor of Charles Parsons, Cambridge University Press, (2000), 3-15.

Putnam, Hilary. Philosophy in an Age of Science: Physics, Mathematics, and Skepticism. Harvard University Press, 2012.

Quine, W. V. O. "The Ways of Paradox," in his The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays, rev. ed., Harvard University Press, 1976.

Russell, Bertrand. "Mathematical Logic as Based on the Theory of Types," American Journal of Mathematics, 30 (1908), 222-262.

Russell, Bertrand. Logic and Knowledge: Essays 1901-1950, ed. by Robert C. Marsh, George Allen & Unwin Ltd. (1956).

Skyrms, Brian. "Return of the Liar: Three-valued Logic and the Concept of Truth," American Philosophical Quarterly, 7 (1970), 153-161.

Strawson, P. F. "Truth," in Analysis, 9, (1949).

Tarski, Alfred. "The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages," in Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics, pp. 152-278, Clarendon Press, 1956.

Tarski, Alfred. "The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics," in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 4, No. 3 (1944), 341-376.

Van Fraassen, Bas. "Truth and Paradoxical Consequences," in (Martin 1970).

Woodruff, Peter. "Paradox, Truth and Logic Part 1: Paradox and Truth," Journal of Philosophical Logic, 13 (1984), 213-231.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, Basil Blackwell, 3rd edition, 1978.

Yablo, Stephen. (1993). "Paradox without Self-Reference." Analysis 53: 251-52.

Author Information

Bradley Dowden
Email: dowden@csus.edu
California State University, Sacramento
U. S. A.

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The Liar Paradox is an argument that arrives at a contradiction by reasoning about a Liar Sentence. The Classical Liar Sentence is the self-referential sentence, "This sentence is false." It leads to the same difficulties as the sentence, "I am lying."

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A small 5 minute video on what is marketing myopia, and IMHO, what people can do to overcome them. WARNING - very generic !

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Moral myopia is a distortion of moral vision that keeps ethical issues from coming clearly into focus. For free teaching and learning resources related to this topic, visit http://bit.ly/1fiD58S. This video is a part of Ethics Unwrapped, a free online educational video series about ethics produced by The University of Texas at Austin.

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The Conformity Bias describes people's tendency to take their behavioral cues from those around them. This video is part of Ethics Defined, an animated library of more than 50 ethics terms and concepts from Ethics Unwrapped. For free videos and teaching resources on ethics and leadership, visit http://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/ Ethics Unwrapped is a free online educational program produced by The University of Texas at Austin.

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Moral muteness is when we communicate in ways that obscure our moral beliefs and commitments, or don't voice moral sentiments at all. For free teaching and learning resources related to this topic, visit http://bit.ly/1n3pKUS. This video is a part of Ethics Unwrapped, a free online educational video series about ethics produced by The University of Texas at Austin.

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Fundamental attribution error describes how, when judging others' actions, we tend to give too much causal weight to their character and not enough to the circumstances in which they acted. For free teaching and learning resources related to this topic, visit http://bit.ly/1fhkSig.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Integrity is an indispensable moral virtue that includes acting with honesty, fairness, and decency. This video is part of Ethics Defined, an animated library of more than 50 ethics terms and concepts from Ethics Unwrapped. For free videos and teaching resources on ethics and leadership, visit http://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/ Ethics Unwrapped is a free online educational program produced by The University of Texas at Austin.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Conformity bias refers to our tendency to take cues for proper behavior in most contexts from the actions of others rather than exercise our own independent judgment. For free teaching and learning resources related to this topic, visit http://bit.ly/1O71Ms8.

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Miner3D - Smart Data Visualization in full 3D

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Data Visualization in 3D for Interactive Data Analysis

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Statistical Analysis Handbook - (c) 2015 Dr M J de Smith

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Statistical Analysis Handbook - (c) 2015 Dr M J de Smith

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If you've worked in a corporate job, you probably know all about Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Large companies use them all the time to measure their progress and make sure they're on track to hit their targets.

But many small businesses are missing a trick: A recent survey by Geckoboard found that nearly half of small and medium-sized business owners have failed to identify any KPIs. The same survey found that those businesses that do track KPIs regularly were about twice as likely to hit their targets.

So in this tutorial, you'll learn how to apply this powerful planning tool to your small business. You'll learn what KPIs are, the benefits of using them, different types of KPIs, and how to set effective KPIs and monitor them.

By the end, you'll be ready to use KPI reporting to take your small business to the next level of success.

What are key performance indicators (KPIs)? (graphic source)

1. What Are KPIs?

Let's start with a quick definition. Here's how business software company Klipfolio defines KPIs:

A Key Performance Indicator is a measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a company is achieving key business objectives.

The term "measurable value" is important here. KPIs are driven by specific data, so that they provide a clear measure of your progress. Instead of just saying, "Our customers love us," you'll be able to say something like: "88% of customers say they would buy from us again, up from 85% last year, and 82% would recommend us to others, up from 80% last year."

That's much more powerful than an anecdotal judgment, and it can help you by highlighting issues and allowing you to deal with them quickly. If that customer satisfaction percentage starts heading in the wrong direction, for example, you could run extra surveys to find out exactly why people are less happy with your service.

It could be that you have a particular employee who needs better training, or a competitor who offers something you don't, or something else. Your KPIs are like an early warning system. When you don't hit your targets, you can think of it as a red warning light flashing in your office.

The example I gave is of a customer satisfaction KPI, but you can use KPIs in different areas of your business: you could use financial KPIs, operational KPIs, sales KPIs, and so on. We'll look at the different types in more detail later.

It's also worth highlighting that the Klipfolio definition uses the word "key" twice. What does "key" mean? That depends on your business. A measurement that's important for one business may not be relevant to another. And what's important to your own business may change over time, as you grow and start to come across different problems and opportunities.

We'll look at choosing KPIs in more detail later, but for now, just remember that "key" is a subjective judgment, and it's driven by what you want to focus on in your own business at any particular time.

2. The Benefits of Using KPIs in Your Small Business

So why use KPIs?

Well, the survey data I mentioned in the introduction seems pretty compelling to me. Small businesses that track KPIs regularly are twice as likely to hit their targets. Here's a more detailed look at why KPIs are so effective.

KPIs for Solo Entrepreneurs

If you're a solo entrepreneur, you're probably trying to juggle about a dozen different jobs at once, from accounting to product development to marketing. It can be easy to end up with a to-do list a mile long but no real clarity around which tasks are the most important in moving your business forward.

Setting and tracking KPIs can keep you on track. If you've set them correctly, they reflect the most important elements of your business right now. For each of the tasks on your list, you can ask yourself how it will contribute to hitting one of your KPIs, and prioritise accordingly. You can make sure that you spend the bulk of your time on tasks that will have a direct impact on something that's truly important to your business.

KPIs for Businesses With Employees

If you have employees, KPIs also serve some additional purposes. They not only help you and your employees stay focused on the right things, but also give you the ability to manage your employees more effectively.

If you employ a sales manager, for example, you can agree on some realistic sales KPIs, and then measure that person's performance against the KPIs. It's a more objective measure, and it's easier to keep the person on track. Instead of saying, "I'd like to see you making more sales," you can say, "The KPI we agreed on was to bring in 20 new customers a month, but we've only brought in 12 this month."

That can lead to a much more productive discussion. Without the KPI in place, your sales manager might get defensive about your vague desire for "more sales" and claim that your expectations were unrealistic.

With the KPI, that part is taken out of the equation. The sales manager has already agreed to the target of 20 per month, and the discussion can focus on why that target has not been met. Maybe they need more support from other areas of the business, maybe the pricing is set too high, or maybe there's a competitive disadvantage that's putting off potential customers.

KPIs can also help your employees feel more engaged by setting clear expectations. That same Geckoboard survey found that half of British staff say their overall performance is compromised when they are not made aware of key company information and metrics.

People love to know exactly what's expected of them, and to feel that they are making a real impact. As your business gets bigger, that can be difficult to achieve, but clear KPIs can help.

As you bring on more employees, you can even use "cascading KPIs". For example, if you have several salespeople, you could split that overall KPI of 20 new customers per month, so that each person is responsible for 5 new sales. Their individual KPI clearly fits into an overall KPI.

The Limits of KPIs

KPIs are an important management tool, but like all tools, they also have their limitations. Having a strong focus on a particular target is great, but it can also lead to neglecting other important things that aren't captured in the data.

If you've set your KPIs correctly, they should reflect the most important parts of your business, but still, data viewed in isolation can always be misleading. It's important to keep the overall business context in mind.

Let's return to that sales KPI example. In that case, you're incentivizing your sales team to bring in new customers, but you're not focusing on how valuable each customer is. Your sales team would do better by bringing in five low-value customers than by attracting a single large company that will spend huge amounts over a long period of time, even though the latter would be more valuable for your business.

You could, of course, change the KPI to focus on the lifetime value of each customer as a measure, but then there could still be problems. If your sales team focuses purely on hitting the KPI, they might end up delaying new customer signups once they've hit the monthly number, so that the new business contributes to the following month's numbers instead.

So it's important to remember, both for yourself and for your staff, that doing the right thing for your business is the main criterion for every decision. The KPIs are a means to that end, not the end in themselves. Designing your KPIs correctly will take you a long way, but still be sure to retain some flexibility, and don't let the numbers become an unhealthy obsession.

3. The Different Types of KPIs

So what types of KPIs are there? Really, you can track anything you want to, and the areas will be different for each company, but here are some popular examples:

Financial KPIs

This group of KPIs measures the bottom line of your business: financial success. This could be revenue, net income, cash flow, the health of your balance sheet, or something more specific. For example, if debt is a problem for your business, your overall debt level could be a KPI that you want to track.

For more on the debt example, see my recent tutorial on getting out of debt, and for more examples of financial KPIs, see this tutorial on financial metrics:

Operational KPIs

These ones are about the efficiency of your business operations. How quickly do you ship orders to clients? If you have an inventory of physical products, how long do products stay in that inventory before they're sold? There are plenty of possibilities here: for more, see my tutorial on operational metrics.

Growth KPIs

All businesses need to attract new customers. Even if you don't want to be the next Amazon, a certain amount of growth is healthy-it helps give you more money to invest in your business and provide the best possible service. At the least, you'll need to replace the existing customers that will depart over time for various reasons.

So you could track new customer signups, lead generation, overall revenue growth, or a range of other metrics.

Customer KPIs

As well as bringing in new customers, you need to keep the existing ones happy. This group of KPIs tracks the happiness of your existing customers-usually based on regular surveys, although you could measure it in other ways, such as the number of repeat purchases.

You could use a simple KPI like overall customer satisfaction, or you could look at more detailed metrics like the speed with which problems are resolved, levels of customer engagement with your products or apps, interactions on social media, etc.

Leading/Lagging Indicators

You'll often see KPIs defined as "leading" or "lagging" indicators. "Leading" indicators predict a particular outcome, whereas "lagging" indicators measure what's happened in the past.

Personally, I don't think this distinction is helpful. Measuring the future is logically impossible, so everything you measure has already happened (and so is "lagging"). But many of those past events can also be used to make predictions about the future (and so are "leading").

So I'd recommend focusing more on the areas of your business that you'd like to track, but I mention the "leading"/"lagging" distinction so that you're aware of it.

More KPI Categories

You can see more KPI examples in my series on business metrics, such as:

4. How to Set Effective KPIs

So which KPIs should you use?

First of all, here's what not to do. Don't start by asking yourself what data you have available. Start by identifying the most important things for your business, and then worry about how to collect the data later.

Most businesses these days have a huge amount of data available, so don't collect everything-that can be overwhelming and distracting. Be selective, and make sure you're collecting and tracking only what's most important.

What KPIs should you measure? (graphic source)

Choose KPIs Aligned With Your Strategic Objectives

So begin by referring back to your business plan. (You do have a business plan, don't you? If not, see my business planning tutorial.)

Even the most informal business plan should have a clear list of strategic objectives. Begin with this list, and develop KPIs to reflect each of the areas of most importance.

British higher-education nonprofit Jisc provides a useful list of questions to ask yourself as you're setting KPIs. Here's a condensed version of that list:

What questions are you hoping to answer through your KPIs?

Do these questions link directly to the strategic objectives outlined in your strategic plan?

Are you collecting the data required to answer these questions, or focusing simply on the data you know you can easily collect?

Are you collecting data unnecessarily?

How and how regularly are you going to monitor progress against your KPIs?

See the article linked to above for the full list of questions (but keep in mind that some of them are more appropriate for larger institutions and may need to be customized to your small business goals).

Make the KPIs Effective

When you've identified the right areas to focus on, you need to choose particular KPIs to measure.

The main thing to aim for is specificity. KPIs should be sharply focused and measurable. You're probably familiar with SMART goals, if not, or if you need a quick refresher, see this excellent tutorial by David Masters on setting goals for your small business:

Briefly, SMART goals should be:

KPIs are not exactly like SMART goals. One difference is that whereas SMART goals usually have a target date, KPIs are usually ongoing. But the framework is still helpful to ensure that you set good, specific, measurable KPIs.

Define the Parameters

For each KPI, there should be a specific minimum number that you're aiming for. Think of my simple example of 20 new customers per month.

Some businesses also like to include some extra levels, such as a "traffic light" system. In that case, achieving the target of 20 new customers per month might be green, indicating that you're doing well. Between 12 and 20 might be orange, indicating that you failed to hit the target, but you got close. Less than 12 might be red, indicating that you've got a serious problem to address.

5. How to Monitor Your KPIs

Of course, setting KPIs is a pointless activity unless you actively monitor them on a regular basis and take action as soon as you see a problem.

"How often should I track KPIs?" you may ask.

The answer is: "As often as possible."

If you can, set up some kind of dashboard that collects all of your data in one place and is easy to update. Some accounting software offers this functionality, and there are also plenty of specific "business dashboard" software providers that will pull in data from multiple systems for you and allow you to track it in real time.

It all depends, of course, on what data you're tracking and how much you're willing or able to invest in software solutions. If you prefer to keep things simple, you can just pull together the data yourself into a simple spreadsheet or database. Just be sure that you, or someone in your business, make it a priority to do this frequently.

If you're not meeting targets, it can be tempting to focus on bringing the number higher, but the most important thing is to identify the underlying cause of the problem. This may take time, but if you focus on it consistently for month after month, you should see an improvement.

Over time, you'll probably need to refine your KPIs. You can do this as part of your regular changes to your business plan. If your strategic objectives change, your KPIs should change too.

And, although you may be tempted to change the ones you keep failing to hit, the ones that may actually need to be changed are those that you consistently achieve. If a KPI is "green" for month after month, it may indicate that this area of your business is doing fine and you don't need to focus on it anymore. Or perhaps you can consider setting a more aggressive target.

The bottom line is that you need to track your KPIs regularly, take action when you're not meeting targets, and refine your KPIs to ensure that they reflect progress against your company's most important objectives.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you've learned what KPIs are and how they can help your business. You've seen some examples of different types of KPIs, and you've learned how to set effective KPIs. Finally, you've learned how to monitor your KPIs regularly and how to refine them to ensure they stay relevant.

So you're now ready to set KPIs for your own business. Use the process we've covered today, make sure that you're only tracking what's really important, and then make sure you track it as often as possible and update the KPIs whenever you need to. If you do all that, you should be well on your way to joining that minority of small businesses that successfully achieve all their targets.

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What Are KPIs and How to Use Them in Your Small Business?

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If you've worked in a corporate job, you probably know all about Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Large companies use them all the time to measure their progress and make sure they're on track to hit their targets.

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Welcome to the final part of our four-part series on key business metrics.

We've looked at different aspects of business performance, from profitability to efficiency, and we're going to finish up with the people who generate all the financial numbers we've been measuring-your customers.

Without customers, of course, you have no business. In this tutorial, you'll learn to track the process by which you acquire customers, how much each customer is worth to you, how often customers leave, and their overall satisfaction. You'll get details on calculating each metric, learn how to evaluate the results, and get tips on improving them.

Whereas in the other tutorials we've mostly used numbers from your financial statements, this tutorial is focused on customers, so you'll need access to your company's sales information and customer order history.

Let's dive right in and see how much it's costing you to get customers through the door.

1. Cost of Customer Acquisition

Why It's Important

No matter what kind of business you're in, you need to find people who want what you're selling, and persuade them to buy it. In other words, you need to acquire customers. Generally that costs money, and it's important to track how much. If you're spending too much on sales and marketing to attract new customers, you'll struggle to make a profit.

How to Calculate It

The formula is very simple:
Cost of Customer Acquisition = Total Sales & Marketing Cost / Number of New Customers Added
Let's say you spent $10,000 on an ad campaign, for example, and attracted 50 new customers. Your cost of customer acquisition would be:
Cost of Customer Acquisition = $10,000 / 50 = $200
What you include in "sales and marketing cost" can vary depending on your business model. If your customers need to deal with a salesperson in order to buy from you, then you'd have to include that person's salary in your costs. If you're a web-based business, you might need to take into account money you're spending on jazzing up the site. Use a free calculator for web-based businesses to estimate your costs.

Also keep in mind that even if you use "free" marketing channels like social media, there's still a cost in terms of time. If you have a staff member assigned to blogging and social media, you'll need to include their salary (or a portion of it) in your sales and marketing costs. The idea is to get a comprehensive picture of everything you're spending on attracting new customers.

How to Evaluate It

The cost of customer acquisition can vary widely. According to Entrepreneur magazine, travel company Priceline.com spends just $7 on acquiring a new customer, whereas stockbroker TD Waterhouse spends $175.

It makes sense when you think about it. When someone sets up a brokerage account, it's likely that they'll use it for a long time (assuming they're happy with the service), and TD Waterhouse should be able to recoup that $175 over time. Booking a cheap flight, on the other hand, is not a long-term commitment, so Priceline needs to keep its customer acquisition cost lower. That way, even if the customer just books a single flight, the company should still make a profit.

For your business, evaluate the cost of customer acquisition by comparing it against how much you expect each customer to spend. Don't worry, we'll have more detail on how to work that out later on in this tutorial, in the "Lifetime Value of a Customer" section.

How to Improve It

If your cost of customer acquisition is too high, it means you're not getting good enough value from your sales and marketing efforts. So you either need to cut back, or try a different tactic.

If your company is small, and the products you sell are quite low-value, cutting back may make sense. Although it's important to get the word out, over-spending on top-dollar sales staff and expensive TV ads may be a step too far. Automating the sales process can also cut costs.

On the other hand, it may simply be about trying something different. Maybe you keep the same budget, but try a new slogan, or a different venue, or a special offer to entice people. If you're advertising online, for example through Google AdWords, you can analyze the data to see how many people are clicking on each ad, and tweak the campaign to try to generate more sales.

2. Churn Rate

Why It's Important

After you've spent all that money on acquiring customers, you want them to stick around. The churn rate measures how quickly your customers are leaving or becoming inactive, and a high churn rate can indicate that your customers are unhappy. It also means you'll have to spend a lot of money chasing new customers to replace those who've left, so keeping the churn rate low is important.

How to Calculate It

There are several slightly different formulas for calculating customer churn. Here's a simplified version:
Churn Rate = Number of Customers Who Left / Total Number of Customers
If you run a gym, for example, and 50 of your customers cancelled their contracts during the year, leaving 500 customers at the end, your churn rate would be:
Churn Rate = 50 / 500 = 10%
You can also calculate churn on a monthly or weekly basis, or any other time period that makes sense for your business. If the gym lost 5 of its 500 customers in a month, for example, it would have a 1% monthly churn rate.

A gym is an easy example, because it's clear when a customer cancels. But in other types of business, it can be harder. A customer might still be on your books, but have no intention of buying anything from you again.

In that case, you'll need to develop a set of criteria for deciding when a customer is lost to you. Perhaps if they haven't ordered anything for a year, for example, you could count them as inactive and include them in the churn calculation. The exact definition depends on your own business, and how often people typically order from you.

How to Evaluate It

A lower number is desirable here, of course, because it means fewer customers leaving, and more of them staying for repeat purchases.

Comparative data can be hard to find, because no company wants to advertise how many of its customers are leaving. But this table from 2006 shows annual churn rates for a number of companies in different industries. Although the data is old, it at least gives some point of comparison.

You can also track your own churn rate over time, and make sure it's heading in the right direction. If the rate starts to increase, it's time to take action.

How to Improve It

If you're running a subscription-based business, like our gym example, try to get as much information as you can from the people who cancel. Find out why they're leaving, so that you can fix any problems that are causing a high churn rate. Good customer surveys of your existing clients can also help- more on that later in this tutorial.

Some businesses face a different problem. Maybe your customers are happy with your products or services, but just don't need to buy anything else from you. Examine your offerings, and see if there's a logical progression for your customers. After they've made their first purchase, is there a follow-up offer you can send to them, suggesting possible add-ons? If you're running a service-based business, for example training or education, do you have more advanced courses to offer people after they've finished the basic training?

3. Lifetime Value of a Customer

Why It's Important

We looked at how much it costs to acquire a customer, and now it's time to assess how much each customer is worth. This metric is crucial if you want to know how much you can afford to invest in acquiring and retaining each customer, and still make a profit.

How to Calculate It

This is another formula with several different versions. Again, we'll keep it fairly simple.
Lifetime Value = Average Order Total x Each Customer's Average Number of Purchases Per Year / Churn Rate
Going back to the gym example, we already know the churn rate is 10%. If the membership fee is $50 a month, then the order total is $50 and the number of purchases per year is 12 (12 months in a year), so the calculation would be:
Lifetime Value = $50 x 12 / 10% = $6,000
When you're doing the calculation, it's important to remember that the churn rate is a percentage. So in the above example, you input it as 0.1, not 10.

If you're not sure of your average order total, simply look at your purchase records over the past year. Divide the total revenue by the number of orders, and that'll give you the average size of each order.

To figure out your customers' average number of purchases per year, take the total number of orders and divide it by the number of customers. If you had 250 customers and 1,000 orders, for example, then each customer placed 4 orders on average.

The more complex versions of the formula takes into account things like your business's gross margins, as well as the time value of money. For examples of these formulas and how to calculate them using Starbucks as a case study, take a look at this infographic.

How to Evaluate It

You'll want to compare this with your cost of customer acquisition. Clearly, the Lifetime Value of a Customer needs to be significantly higher than the cost of acquisition. You need to make sure you're getting enough value out of each customer to justify the cost of acquisition, as well as to cover all your other costs and leave you with some profit.

This is a number you want to calculate on a regular basis. Ideally, as your business grows and begins to offer more products and improve customer service, the lifetime value of a customer should increase. If it's going in the other direction, then something's wrong.

How to Improve It

If you can reduce the churn rate and retain your customers for longer, then they'll have a higher lifetime value. You could also explore ways of improving each customer's average number of purchases per year, perhaps by offering special discounts and sales to existing customers, or setting up a loyalty program to reward repeat orders. And finally, customer satisfaction is key-happy customers buy more products, and are more valuable to you. We'll look at satisfaction in the next section.

4. Customer Satisfaction Rate

Why It's Important

This one's simple. Happy customers buy more. Unhappy customers leave and go somewhere else. It's probably the most important of all the metrics we're looking at in this series.

How to Calculate It

Just ask. A good customer satisfaction survey will give you a clear picture of how happy your clients are. There's no complex formula for this one: it's a simple percentage of happy versus unhappy.

Designing an effective survey isn't simple, though. You need to think very carefully about the questions you ask, because you also want to find out why the person is satisfied or dissatisfied. Each question has to be clear and simple, but designed to give you valuable information about your business. And you may need to offer some kind of incentive to get people to spend time giving answers.

It's also important to supplement formal satisfaction surveys with other information. Make sure you're regularly speaking with your customers on an informal basis, as well as paying attention to feedback and complaints.

How to Evaluate It

Comparing your results with those of other companies can be tricky, because each survey may be done in a slightly different way, and the way the questions are asked can affect the results. It's best to set your own target, and track it over time-for example, if your customer satisfaction is currently 75%, you might aim to improve it to 80%.

How to Improve It

While the headline number is important to track, if you want to improve customer satisfaction, you'll need to look beyond it. That's why it's important to ask the right questions in your survey. If you've done that, the data should help you pinpoint areas where you need to improve.

Maybe you need to train your customer service staff, for example, or give them better pay or motivation, so that they start to exceed your customers' expectations. Or maybe the survey revealed that people are frustrated with technical glitches on your website, and you'd be better off investing money in new technology.

The key is to ask your customers good questions, listen very carefully to their answers, and take action. Then run the same survey next year and see if your results improve.

The Big Picture

We've now looked at key metrics to track in four different areas of your business. If you missed any of the previous tutorials, you can access them all on our Key Metrics series page.

When you look at them all together, you'll get a clear, comprehensive picture of how you're performing. As you've seen in this tutorial, the different metrics fit together: the cost of customer acquisition and the churn rate shed light on lifetime customer value, and the customer satisfaction rate is important for all three.

The different types of metric also fit together in the same way. Strong numbers in your customer metrics will likely feed through into better results in your profitability and liquidity metrics, but only if you keep your costs under control and have strong efficiency metrics.

Going all out for success in one area while neglecting others is a recipe for disaster. It's pointless to have happy customers if you're about to run out of cash. Strong profit margins won't last for long if you're letting inefficiencies creep into your business.

The most successful businesses are well balanced, and score highly in all areas. So start tracking, do it consistently, and remember what we said at the start of the series: You are what you measure.

Resources

Graphic Credit: Line Graph designed by Scott Lewis from the Noun Project.

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The 4 Customer Metrics Every Business Should Track

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Welcome to the final part of our four-part series on key business metrics. We've looked at different aspects of business performance, from profitability to efficiency, and we're going to finish up with the people who generate all the financial numbers we've been measuring-your customers. Without customers, of course, you have no business.

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So far in our series on the key metrics every business should track, we've looked at measuring how profitable your company is, and how well it can cover its expenses.

Now we're going to look at how efficient your business is. How quickly do you sell your inventory? How much revenue does each employee contribute, how effective are you at retaining your employees, and how effectively do you use your business's full capacity?

You'll learn how to calculate all of these metrics, why it's important to do so, and what the results tell you about your business. We'll also give you some tips on improving the results in the future.

As with the previous tutorials, we're going to use some numbers from your company's accounts, so if you're not sure where to find them, you can refer to our tutorials on reading an income statement and on reading a balance sheet.

1. Inventory Turns

Why It's Important

This is a measure of how many times you sell through your inventory each year. It's important because maintaining inventory costs money, and it's not a good business model to have piles of goods sitting in your warehouse for a long time. This metric can highlight inefficiencies in your business that are eating into profits.

How to Calculate It

The formula for this metric is quite simple. It uses one line from the income statement and one from the balance sheet.
Inventory Turns = Cost of Goods Sold / Average Inventory
Cost of goods sold (also known as cost of sales or cost of revenue), comes from the income statement. Inventory comes from the balance sheet, and to calculate the average inventory you'd simply take the average of the inventory at the start of the year and at the end of the year.

Let's look at an example from tractor manufacturer John Deere. Its 2013 accounts show that the cost of goods sold was $25.7 billion. The inventory at the start of the year was $5.2 billion, and at the end of the year it was $4.9 billion, so the average is $5.05 billion. So the formula becomes:
Inventory Turns = 25.7 / 5.05 = 5.1
That means that, on average, John Deere sells its entire inventory about five times a year.

How to Evaluate It

In general a higher number is better, because it indicates that products are spending less time languishing in the warehouse or sitting on the shelves before they're sold to customers.

However, it's important to realize that this number varies a lot by industry. John Deere sells agricultural machinery, so it's not going to cycle through its inventory as often as a grocery store, which is always bringing new products through its warehouse. Whole Foods Market, for example, has a much higher inventory turns rate of 21. That doesn't mean it's more efficient than John Deere - just that it's got a very different business model.

So it's important to compare like with like. Research your competitors, or contact an industry association or consulting firm to get average numbers for businesses in your field. Also compare your current number against your own historical averages, and watch for any decreases, which could indicate bloated inventories or slow sales.

How to Improve It

The key here is to reduce the amount of money that's tied up in inventory. You can achieve this either by speeding up sales or slowing down the accumulation of new inventory.

Speeding up sales could be about increasing the marketing budget, for example, or opening a new store in a popular location. On the inventory side, perhaps it's worth investing in a more effective inventory tracking system, so that you can have a clearer picture of what you have in stock and know exactly how much you need to order. If you can restock quickly and reliably, then consider waiting until the last minute before reordering, so that you minimize the time the goods spend sitting in your inventory.

Keep in mind, though, that you can't cut too close to the bone. If you keep inventories very low and achieve a high number of inventory turns, then you'll be super-efficient, but may risk annoying your customers by running out of stock at critical times. The aim is to keep sales brisk and inventories low, while still being sure to meet your customers' needs.

2. Revenue Per Employee

Why It's Important

As your business grows, it can be hard to know how many staff to hire. You need enough people to produce high-quality goods or services for your customers, but if you hire too many, your costs will be high and your profit margins will suffer. This metric gives you a good benchmark by comparing staffing levels to the amount of revenue you're bringing in. It can help you ensure that your company provides good service, without being inefficient.

How to Calculate It:

Simply take your total revenue and divide it by your average number of employees for the year:
Revenue Per Employee = Revenue / Average Number of Employees
If you made $2 million in revenue this year, for example, and you employed 20 people on average, your revenue per employee would be $100,000.
Revenue Per Employee = $2,000,000 / 20 = $100,000
To get your average staffing level, you could simply take the average of the number at the start of the year and the end of the year, as we did with inventory in the previous section. But you could also get a more accurate picture by using your payroll records. See how many paychecks you wrote each month, and find the average of those numbers by adding them together and dividing by 12.

How to Evaluate It

Of course, you want the number to be as large as possible here. And you certainly want it to be significantly higher than your employees' average salary, otherwise you'll never make a profit.

But again, it's important to look at other companies in your industry. And keep in mind that other factors, like employee compensation, play a role here. McDonald's, for example, has one of the lowest revenue per employee numbers of any large American company, at $65,000. Apple, on the other hand, has revenue per employee of $2.4 million.

Both companies are very profitable, but they are in very different industries. Fast food restaurants require a large number of workers, but those workers are relatively low-paid compared to Apple engineers. And McDonald's scores very highly on other measures of efficiency (its inventory turn, for example, is a massive 141). So it's important to compare yourself to similar companies, and aim for a higher revenue per employee than your peers.

As your company grows, you can also use the revenue per employee number as a guide to how many new staff you should take on. If your current revenue per employee is $100,000, and you have a new business opportunity that could boost revenue by $1 million, it would be worth hiring 10 new employees to get it done. But if you find yourself having to hire 20 more people to get that extra $1 million in revenue, it might not be worthwhile.

How to Improve It

Cutting staff, of course, will immediately boost your revenue per employee. But if you're too ruthless, you risk compromising the quality of your service and possibly driving away customers, which would reduce your revenue in the long term. As with our first example, it's about the balance between efficiency and providing a good service. If you can find ways to encourage your existing employees to generate more revenue, perhaps by offering better incentives or by giving them training, then you can boost revenue per employee without compromising customer service.

3. Capacity Utilization

Why It's Important

This metric is particularly useful for companies that manufacture physical products, but with a little imagination you can apply it to other firms too. It measures how much of your production capacity you're using right now, and it's important because if it's low, it means you've got a lot of fixed assets being wasted: for example, expensive machinery not being used.

How to Calculate It

This one is a little different, because we're not using any numbers from the financial statements. The formula for capacity utilization is:
Capacity Utilization = Actual Output / Potential Output x 100
What do we mean by actual and potential output? Let's look at an example.

Say you make T-shirts, and your factory or workshop is equipped to produce 1,000 T-shirts a month. In that case, your potential output would be 1,000. If you're only producing 500, then your capacity utilization is 50%:
Capacity Utilization = 500 / 1,000 x 100 = 50%
As we mentioned, this number is mostly used in manufacturing, but you can adapt it to fit different businesses too. If you run a yoga studio, for example, your potential output might be the maximum number of classes you could run in that space every week. If you could run up to 20 classes per week, but you're only running 15, then your capacity utilization is 75%.

How to Evaluate It

A higher number indicates a more efficient use of your fixed assets. In the yoga studio example, you have a lot of fixed costs associated with renting or owning the studio space, maintaining it, paying utilities, etc. You have to pay those fixed costs whether you're running 15 classes or 20, so clearly it's better to run more classes and make the most use of the space you're paying for.

Generally, though, businesses don't run at 100% capacity all the time. In fact, if your yoga studio really were at 100% capacity, it would indicate that you needed to invest in a bigger studio space to allow for future growth. The average capacity utilization among US industrial firms is around 80%, so you can use that as a general benchmark.

How to Improve It

If your capacity utilization is low, it indicates that you need to ramp up production (assuming, of course, that you can sell those extra goods). It may even be worth offering discounts to boost sales and keep production at a certain minimum level. If it drops too low, then those large fixed costs are going to be a drag on profits.

In an extreme case where capacity utilization was permanently low and you saw no prospect of increasing production in the near future, it might be necessary to move to a smaller space and reduce your overheads. It's better to make more efficient use of a smaller capacity than to have a lot of equipment lying idle.

If your capacity utilization is getting close to 100%, on the other hand, then it's probably time to invest in more capacity, perhaps by upgrading machinery, expanding your space, or moving to bigger premises.

4. Staff Turnover

Why It's Important

Running an efficient business depends on having skilled, motivated employees. Staff turnover measures the rate at which your employees are leaving, and high turnover is often a sign of dissatisfied employees, which is likely to mean that even those who are staying with you aren't fully committed.

High turnover is also inherently inefficient, because you spend time training and developing each employee, and every time one of them leaves, you have to start over again with someone new. It can cost more than twice an employee's salary to recruit and train a replacement.

How to Calculate It

Staff turnover is the percentage of people who leave in a certain time period - usually a year, but you can also calculate it monthly if that makes sense for your business. Here's the formula:
Staff Turnover = Number of Separations / Average Number of Employees x 100
"Separations" means the number of people leaving your firm during the year. Usually companies don't distinguish between different reasons for leaving: they include voluntary resignations, dismissals and retirements in the "separations" figure. The average number of employees is the same figure we used in the "Revenue per employee" section.

For example, if you have 100 employees on average, and 5 of them left during the year, then you have a 5% turnover rate.

How to Evaluate It

A lower percentage is good, because that means fewer people leaving. You can get a good benchmark from these US government statistics, which show that the average staff turnover in the US in 2013 was 38%. The rate varied widely by industry, though. The construction industry had turnover of 62.5%, for example, whereas in manufacturing it was just 23.3%. It also varied by region, being highest in the South (40.8%) and lowest in the Northeast (33.3%).

You can look through those statistics to find the turnover rate for your industry, and see how you compare. The US government categories are quite broad, though, so it's worth doing additional research to try to find more specific information for companies like yours, in your particular region or city. It's also good to compare against your past performance, to look for any changes. As well as looking at overall turnover, consider splitting it out into voluntary, dismissals and retirements, so that you can spot trends in each area.

How to Improve It

Reducing staff turnover is a huge subject, and it's not always easy to fix. Part of the picture is paying people well and offering bonuses, benefits and other incentives, but money isn't everything. High turnover can also be caused by a number of other factors, like hiring the wrong people in the first place, problems with the organizational culture or workplace environment, lack of training, limited promotion opportunities, poor management, or even an inconvenient office location.

If you have a high staff turnover rate, the key to finding out what's wrong is to ask your employees, both through formal surveys and informal meetings. Exit interviews with people who are leaving can also help you fix any mistakes and ensure other employees are more likely to stay.

Putting It All Together

These four different measures of efficiency can be used together to give you a clear picture of where your business is working well, and where it needs to be improved. You can now measure exactly how long it's taking to convert your inventory into sales, how much revenue each employee is generating, how effectively you're using your fixed assets, and how much staff turnover you're experiencing. You know what to look out for, and what action to take to improve your results.

Healthy numbers on these efficiency metrics will also boost your profits and cash flows, so you can track these in conjunction with the profitability and liquidity metrics we looked at in the first two tutorials.

The final piece of the jigsaw is to look at your customers. After all, they're the lifeblood of your business, and you need to know how effectively you're acquiring and retaining them. So come back next week to find out about key customer metrics in the final part of our metrics series.

Resources

Graphic Credit: Line Graph designed by Scott Lewis and Graph designed by Michele Zamparo from the Noun Project.

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Make Your Business More Efficient By Tracking These Numbers

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So far in our series on the key metrics every business should track, we've looked at measuring how profitable your company is, and how well it can cover its expenses. Now we're going to look at how efficient your business is. How quickly do you sell your inventory?

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How to Write a Solid Statement of Work (SOW)

The Statement of Work, sometimes called the scope of work, can do a great construction contract even better. A well-written statement of work must be clear, complete, logical and concise enough to be understood by the contractor and the construction manager that will be providing the administrative portion of the contract. The SOW must describe in details the expected performance of the contractor, converting it into a measuring tool for the construction manager.

The scope of work must be prepared with help from corresponding departments and professionals that will eventually take part in the developing and construction process. For example, a scope work for a drywall contractor will include types of interior finishes required, designs, material needed, prices and budget, the deadline, special requirements, etc.

What Type of Wording do I Need?

A statement of work wording is vital and must be clear to reduce claims, litigation, and other related problems. A scope of work is the preferred method used in the construction industry to even get construction financing and will be the base for your construction insurance company when providing the proper bonding. A nice SOW should avoid arguable or ambiguous phrasing and must identify the project deliverable and its objectives. Special emphasis should be given to the statement of work wording to avoid or make impossible two different interpretations of the same SOW.

If an action is mandatory, the statement of work wording will contain the words shall or must. A contractor that receives the scope of work that is unclear, might refrain from participating in the bidding process. The statement of work should avoid including cost of products or services that a contractor may claim they were supposed to furnish or provide.

Statement of Work Basic Components

A statement of work should have the following components:

Project Overview- A brief statement describing the business needs and a short summary of the project description.

Project Deliverables- This section should include all the expected goals and targets that must be achieved through the project. It must include all related information that will help a contractor in understanding the project's requirement.

Project Scope - This section of the statement of work should contain, in terms of budget and technical data, the quantifiable goals set forth under the construction contract, Is an essential part of the SOW. Statement of work scopes might divide the document into two parts:

a. Technical considerations - Specific technical or methodologies relevant to the contractor's performance and how he will be measured against

b. Tasks - Specific requests and tasks that are needed to satisfy project objectives, with detailed milestones and results that should be obtained from these tasks.

Project Schedule- Summarize the project schedule including all related task so the contractor can deliver on time. This section of the statement of work (SOW) should contain all important delivery dates, time restrictions, and the expected project duration.

Project Management- The management section of the SOW must contain a description of how payments will be issued, change control process, specific contract and legal requirements, phasing or stages of the project and the project's limitations. It is also the area on which time management and contract administration will be specified.

How Accurate the Scope of Work Needs to Be?

Follow these guidelines to determine if you are preparing or receiving a complete Scope of Work (SOW):

If these items form part of your SOW document, then you are off to a good start, if not, you can be exposed to claims and adverse situations that might affect cost and schedule in your project.

The SOW identifies the contractor's responsibilities.

Provides precisely contract objective and project requirements.

The SOW provides enough details to estimate labor costs.

Includes a contracting method and the payment schedule.

The Statement of Work has only one interpretation.

The SOW explains standards, regulation, and special contract requirements.

The Statement of Work presents in a clear manner all related task, duties, and limitations to obtain expected results in accordance with the project goal.

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The Statement of Work, sometimes called the scope of work, can do a great construction contract even better. A well-written statement of work must be clear, complete, logical and concise enough to be understood by the contractor and the construction manager that will be providing the administrative portion of the contract.

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Remix - A Planning Platform for Public Transit

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See your plans come to life. Sketch complex scenarios in seconds, make your decisions understandable, and build on the best practices of 200+ agencies.

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Before you start a business, you need to be sure that the marketplace wants what you are offering. Nothing sucks more than pouring your heart and soul into a new business venture only to find out that people just aren't interested in what you have to offer.

Conducting thorough market research also opens up additional questions you may need to answer about your business and may reveal opportunities in the marketplace that are not currently being met.

Before you start any kind of marketing or advertising campaigns, you'll need to conduct some market research first. It doesn't need to be a seven-month-long process or a 100-page document that you create, but you do need to ask yourself some questions and do some work to find out the answers.

Without a thorough knowledge of the marketplace and existing businesses, you may be putting yourself in danger before you even start. The following questions will help you to identify some important issues in your marketplace, and it will help you to double-check if there are crucial issues that you may not have considered before you start your new business.

Market Research Questions

1- Are there other businesses similar to yours that are currently operating in your market? Existing businesses like yours is not a bad thing, it means there is a market for your business.

2- How do these businesses appear to be doing? Do they look like healthy, thriving businesses?

3- What are these businesses doing well?

4- What are these businesses doing poorly?

5- What could you do to compete with these businesses? How would you stand out? Is there an opportunity to create a competitive advantage here?

6- How much competition is there? Does the market appear to be saturated?

7- If yes, are there ways that you can alter your business plan to suit a niche market?

8- What kind of people would want to buy your product or pay for your service? What's your ideal customer profile?

9- Are there enough of these types of potential customers living in your community to support your business? Where are they located? Will they frequent the area you plan to be in?

10- Can the economic profile of the community support your business? Are you selling a premium service with prices to match? Can the community support this type of business? Be sure your product or service matches the economics of the community.

11- Are these people the type of customers who are likely to become repeat customers? If so, why?

Summary

Don't think about the above questions as a way to rule out starting a business, they may actually lead you be become even more creative and innovative about your new venture. usually what happens is that answering these questions opens up new insights and potential opportunities for you. To get some further insight, have someone you trust answer these questions too, they might have some suggestions you never thought of.

Once you have finished answering these questions, make up a list of additional questions that may have arisen during this research and find answers to them. Armed with this information, you'll be able to make better decisions and help minimize mistakes that could have been avoided.

Once you have completed your market research, you can start working on your marketing research. You can read a previous post titled, Five Steps to Conducting Great Marketing Research for Your Small Business

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11 Questions To Ask When Conducting Market Research For Your Business

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Before you start a business, you need to be sure that the marketplace wants what you are offering. Nothing sucks more than pouring your heart and soul into a new business venture only to find out that people just aren't interested

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This article explains the concept of the Stage Gate process by Robert Cooper in a practical way. After reading it, you will understand the basics of this powerful innovation and project management concept.

What is the Stage Gate process?

The State Gate process is a patented trademark of Dr Robert Cooper. The model focuses on the innovation process and is also referred to as the waterfall process. It is a project management technique, in which an initiative or project takes place, divided over several stages. These stages are separated by so-called 'gates'; the decision points for whether or not to proceed to the next stage. This model can be used when developing new products, process changes or improvements.

Gates

At each gate, a decision is made whether to continue the process or not. This decision is based on the prognosis and information available at that moment and in most cases is made by a manager or steering committee. The quality of an idea is assessed at each of the gates. This concerns the quality of the execution, business motivation to continue financially and the action plan showing what needs to be done in order for the project to have a chance at succeeding. After each gate, one of the following decisions can be made:

Go

The project is good enough to move on to the next stage.

Kill

The project is not good enough to develop further and is shut down right away.

Hold

The project is not good enough to continue to develop it at this moment, but not so bad that it needs to be shut down immediately. It is put on hold to possibly be resumed at a later date.

Recycle

The project is good enough to develop further, provided some changes are made.

Stages

The Stage Gate process consists of a number of stages, which are connected to each other by gates. Each stage is designed to collect specific information:

Stage 0: discovery

Stage 1: scoping

Stage 2: business plan concept

Stage 3: development

Stage 4: testing and validation

Stage 5: launch and implementation

Depending on the size of the project, 2, 3 or all 5 stages are completed. A project that focuses on major product innovation will go through all 5 stages. A project with less risk will suffice with just stage 1 (scoping) and stage 2 (development of the business plan) and developing it to stage 4 (testing and validation). With very small or simple adjustments, only stage 3 (development) and stage 4 (testing and validation) will be implemented. Examples are marketing requests or an application to modify an existing product.

Stage 0: discovery

This initial preparatory stage determines which project a company wants and is able to carry out. Ideas can be generated in brainstorming sessions. Employees are not the only ones involved in this part. Customers and suppliers also provide useful information. An idea is first selected and then proposed. If the idea is not worth the effort, the gate closes here.

Stage 1: scoping

This stage is all about evaluating the product and the associated market. What are the product's strengths and weaknesses and what can it bring to the user/consumer in terms of added value? This stage takes all the possible threats from competitors into account. Based on the assessed threat, production will or will not continue. The greater the threat, the greater the chance that the gate will close.

Stage 2: business plan concept

Now that the product is impervious to competition, a business plan is drawn up. This is the last stage of concept development and is crucial before the starting with development of the actual product. This stage is very labour-intensive and includes sub-stages that need to be completed:

Product definition and analysis

The customer value is determined by finding out which benefits the product offers and what conditions and functions it must meet. This information can be retrieved with the help of interviews and surveys. We also look at the environment and the competition.

Creating the business plan

In this document the product is described and defined, including the legal health and safety requirements.

Creating the project plan

This plan contains a list of all tasks that are planned during the entire development process, and the people who will carry them out. The expected launch date can also be found in this plan.

Feasibility review

This includes a feasibility study in which different departments assess the plan's chances of succeeding. If, after this stage, it appears that the business concept does not have sufficient potential to generate turnover, the gate will close.

Stage 3: development

During this stage, the plans from the previous steps are carried out and simple tests are conducted. For example, at this stage customers can be asked what they think of the product. The development team also creates a timeline with specific milestones that have to be achieved. This timeline can be revised and updated regularly. It also incorporates multi-functional teamwork; different departments provide input with expert advice. This ultimately results in a product prototype, which will be extensively tested during the next stage. The gate will remain closed if the product has not been sufficiently developed.

Stage 4: testing and validation

This stage covers product testing and validation. They also look at the manufacturing process and how the product is accepted by customers and the market. This also means that a number of sub-stages are completed during this stage:

Near testing

The purpose of this test is to identify possible production errors or other issues. It is no longer a prototype; the product is almost ready to be sold. The groups that carry out this test are closely tied to the organisation. They include staff, regular customers and suppliers.

Field testing

In this part, the product is tested in the field by various participants who can make a valuable contribution. This is usually done with the help of customers. It is important to find out whether this target group is interested in the product, which characteristics they consider important and in which context the product will be used.

Market testing

This test is optional If the product is offered in the market, it has already passed through the previous test stages. This means that sometimes, after a period, the product is assessed to see whether it sufficiently matches the needs and wishes of the consumer. The product is usually pretty much in its final form after testing. However, there also has to be a good marketing plan to launch the product. If not, the gate to the next stage will remain closed.

Stage 5: launch and implementation

The marketing strategy comes into play during this stage in the Stage Gate process. The product is ready to be launched, which will include a fair amount of hype, by means of for instance an advertising campaign, free publicity (press releases) and interviews. An estimate is made about the quantity that will be sold. Policies regarding production, inventory and distribution must be set up. The sales team is predominantly responsible for ensuring a smooth process.

Effective gates

The transitions between the different stages are in the Stage Gate Process monitored by the gates mentioned earlier. These gates have the added function of putting a stop to the development of weak projects in order to prevent unnecessary work. After all, that can cost a lot of time and money. In that sense, the gates are the points that provide an overview of the project so far. This is the crucial moment to make go / kill / hold / recycle decisions and set priorities. It is important that these ports have clear and visible criteria beforehand. In most cases this is done based on components that the project must meet at that specific level in development. If the project fails to meet the criteria, the decision is made to stop developing further.

Advantages of the Stage Gate process

The Stage Gate process has a number of advantages. The most important can be found below:

Reducing production errors

Reducing errors and waste of raw materials

Internal focus on the right projects

Good communication between different departments

Clarity about all planned projects

Good communication between external stakeholders, including customers, partners and suppliers

It's Your Turn

What do you think? What are your experiences with the Stage Gate process? Do you recognize the practical explanation or do you have more suggestions? How do you determine whether to continue with a process or not?

Share your experience and knowledge in the comments box below.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our Free Newsletter for the latest posts on Management models and methods. You can also find us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+.
More information

1. Cooper, R. G., Edgett, S. J., & Kleinschmidt, E. J. (2002). Optimizing the stage-gate process: what best-practice companies are doing. Research-Technology Management, 45(5), 21-27.

2. Cooper, R. G. (1990). Stage-gate systems: a new tool for managing new products. Business horizons, 33(3), 44-54.

3. Website Stage-Gate International: https://www.stage-gate.com/

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Patty Mulder is an Dutch expert on Management Skills, Time Management, Personal Effectiveness and Business Communication. She is also a Content writer, Business Coach and Company Trainer and lives in the Netherlands (Europe).

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Stage Gate Process: innovative Project Management method | ToolsHero

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This article explains the concept of the Stage Gate process by Robert Cooper in a practical way. After reading it, you will understand the basics of this powerful innovation and project management concept. The State Gate process is a patented trademark of Dr Robert Cooper.

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As we enter the new millennium, pressures increase on organizations toward rapidly and accurately responding to complex market and customer needs. Product developments must often be planned and managed in an environment of fast changing technology, markets, regulations, and socioeconomic factors, as well as within team-based organizations that rely on resource and power sharing (Deschamps & Nyak, 1995; Thamhain, 1996). Traditional, more linear, product development processes work well under reasonably stable market conditions, which were present, by-and-large, until the 1970s and '80s. However, with the increasing complexities of today's projects and their business environments, companies have moved toward more sophisticated tools and techniques for effectively managing their multidisciplinary activities (Rigby, 1995; Thamhain, 1997, 1998, 1999). Also project professionals had to become more managerially skilled and organizationally innovative to cope with the increasing dynamics of our business environment. As a result, many new management tools and delivery systems evolved in recent years. The phase-gate process, a derivative of R. Cooper's Stage-Gate concept (Cooper, 1994; O'Connor, 1994), is one of these contemporary systems that builds on the strength of well established and robust conventional product development processes, such as phased-developments and phase-review methods. Especially driven by the promise for increased time-to-market performance, managers across all industries have considered this contemporary management tool for new product developments. Success stories cover a wide spectrum of new product projects, ranging from hardware to software, to processes and services (Cordero, 1991; Editorial, 1995; LaPlante). Yet, for many managers who tried the technique, the results were mixed regarding overall project performance. Disappointments often came in form of higher administrative overheads, stifled decision making, transfer of accountability away from the project team, confusion, role-conflict, and organizational compartmentalization. All of these problems often translate into more costly, longer and less innovative product developments-precisely the opposite of what the phase-gate process promised to accomplish. Even managers who successfully implemented phase-gate processes acknowledge great challenges and management skills necessary for fine-tuning the system toward effective organizational performance within a given business environment.

The Phase-Gate Process:The Basic Design

As an evolution of the phased approach to project management, the Phase-Gate Process has gained wide acceptance for managing complex projects, especially those requiring intricate multifunctional integration (LaPlate & Alter, 1994; Neves, Summe, & Uttal, 1990; O'Connor, 1994; Cooper & Kleinschmidt, 1993). As graphically shown for a typical product development in Exhibit 1, the process provides a template or road map for guiding projects, such as new product developments, from idea to launch and beyond. One of the prime objectives is to use phase-gate processes for making the project cycle and its performance more predictable, that is, to minimize downstream uncertainty, risk and complications (LaPlate & Alter, 1994; O'Connor, 1994; Noori, Munro, & Deszca, 1997; Iansiti & MacCormack, 1997; Sobek, Liker, & Ward 1998). Initially, the process must be defined as a procedure that identifies specific activity phases or stages, common to a class of projects. In the example of Exhibit 1, new product developments go through five phases: (1) concept development, (2) detailed design, (3) pilot production, (4) product launch and marketing, and (5) field support. Each phase or stage is defined in terms of principle scope, objectives, activities and deliverables, as well as functional responsibilities. Further, each stage leads into a gate, which defines the specific criteria and results that must be met for the project to succeed in the next stage and beyond. If designed properly, these gates validate through multifunctional reviews, all necessary "conditions for future success." As an example, the gate succeeding the Concept Phase could be designed to validate such criteria as producability, testability, reparability, quality parameters, available licenses, and profit targets.

For procedural simplicity, the phase-gate process is usually presented as a serial, step-by-step method. However, its application is to both serial as well as parallel work processes, including concurrent engineering, design-builds, fast tracking and multi-organizational joint developments. To conceptionalize such concurrent application, one can envision each stage as a bar or time line on a Gantt chart, as shown in Exhibit 1. Time lines can be overlapping or running completely parallel to each other. Furthermore, gates are not necessarily positioned at the end of a time line, but can occur anywhere during the activity cycle of the stage. One of the critical elements of the phase-gate concept is the review process associated with each gate. Not only must the gate metrics be designed to validate the correctness of the current project approach, but also equally important, the review process, its people, environment, and leadership must be conducive to a dynamic and candid assessment of the project and its performance against the final objectives and success parameters. Moreover, an important criteria for the phase-gate process to work, is the ability of task leaders in "downstream" phases to define the gate criteria for those phases on which they depend as "customers." In addition, these task leaders not only define the gate criteria, but also guide the upstream activities toward desired results. This is often accomplished by participating in project- and design reviews, by soliciting and providing feedback on work-in-progress, and by cross-functional involvement in interface definitions and technology transfer processes. Interface charts, such as shown in Exhibit 1, can help to support these interface definitions by graphically showing the specific inputs and outputs required during the various phases of a product development process.
Exhibit 1. Example of Phase-Gate Template
Does It Work? With a large number of success stories reported, phase-gate processes have enjoyed a favorable image for enhancing the manageability of new product developments, and have been used by many. Further, companies have invested heavily in new management tools and techniques in support of these phase-gate processes. Yet, there has been no universal evidence on the effectiveness of those tools (Cooper & Kleinschmidt, 1993). Further, few guidelines have been published in the literature on how and where to use the phase-gate concept most appropriately. Few companies go into the restructuring of their business processes lightly. For starters, one of the great challenges for management is to seek out management tools and techniques that meet the triple constraint: (1) compatible with the business environment, processes, cultures and values, (2) conducive to specific problem solving which usually involves a whole spectrum of factors from innovation to decision-making, cross-functional communications, and dealing with risks and uncertainty, and (3) useful for tacking and controlling the project according to established plans. The second major challenge is for management to implement the selected tools and/or techniques into a business process. This involves careful integration of the new concept with the various physical, informational, managerial and psychological subsystems of the enterprise to minimize the risk of rejection. The third major challenge is for management to create and facilitate a learning process for these tools and techniques to become institutionalized and used by the people in the organization because they help in getting their projects done more effectively, and create visibility and recognition for their work. Moreover, management tools are rarely used in an isolated fashion, but work in concert with other tools, techniques and concepts, either fully integrated or in support of each other as an integrated part of the established business process. Examples are concurrent engineering (Cooper, 1994; Cooper Kleinschmidt, 1993; Haddad, 1996), design reviews, out-of-bound reviews and quality function deployment.

Scope and Objective

Based on extensive field studies into project management practices between 1993-98, this paper shows how the phase-gate process can be managed to reduce project uncertainty and cycle time in new product developments. Specifically, the paper discusses techniques for setting up phase-gate processes for effectively integrating gate-reviews within the project plan and within the overall framework of modern project management. It also discusses the important role of cross-functional linkages, involvement, commitment, communications and decision-making, and how these conditions can be enhanced via properly managed gate-reviews. The paper concludes with specific suggestions, gleaned from best-in-class practices, for effectively managing the transfer of technology from R&D to the market.

Method of Investigation

The study began with an integrative literature review of project control concepts, tools, techniques, with focus on phase-gate processes and gate reviews. This initial study formed the basis for a detailed survey design, involving a combination of action research and questionnaires. Sixty-two project teams and their managers participated in this study, including: USA (22), Australia/New Zealand (16), Mexico (11), Brazil (9), and Europe (3). All of these teams worked on technology-oriented projects with team members located in various countries. The four geographic regions listed represent the location of the project office or its primary integration site. Combined, team members associated with these multinational projects worked from various locations, representing 23 countries. Specifically, the study includes data from 294 professionals: 186 engineers, scientists, and technicians, 23 supervisors, 38 project team leaders, 18 project managers, 10 directors of R&D, 9 directors of marketing, and 10 general management executives. Together, the data covered over 180 projects, mostly product/service developments with budgets averaging $1,200,000 each. The host companies are large technology-based multinational companies of the "FORTUNE-1000" category. Data were collected between 1993 and 1998 by questionnaires and two qualitative methods: participant observation and in-depth retrospective interviewing. The purpose of this combined data collection method was to cast the broadest possible information-gathering net to identify the tools, techniques and practices used for managing technical projects today, and to gain insight into applications, methods and effectiveness.

Key Success Factors for Managing the Phase-Gate Process

There are obviously cultural and philosophical differences that influence the way companies manage their projects and set up control systems. This certainly holds especially for complex management tools such as the phase-gate process. Even within one department, methods may differ from project to project. However, using content analysis of the survey data, this study shows that a general agreement seems to exist among project leaders on the type of factors that are critical to effectively organizing and managing phase-gate processes and their gate reviews in today's business environments.

What we find specifically, for phase-gate processes to work effectively, they must be congruent with the business process and the human factors of project management. That is, team members must work in an environment conducive to mutual trust, respect, candor, and risk sharing. Equally important, the work environment must foster effective communications, cross-functional linkages, and a business process conducive to interconnecting people, activities and support functions.

An important part of the phase-gate process is the gate review, which relies critically on a QFD-based framework of understanding the internal customers, sponsors, and transfer points, as well as the ability to set up gate criteria, which can project the feasibility of the venture and minimizes potential problems later in the project cycle. Finally, the effective management of gate reviews involve a whole spectrum of critical factors: clear direction and guidance; ability to plan and elicit commitments; communication skills; dealing effectively with managers and support personnel across functional lines often with little or no formal authority; information-processing skills, the ability to collect and filter relevant data valid for decision making in a dynamic environment; and ability to integrate individual demands, requirements, and limitations into decisions that benefit the overall project. It further involves the project leader's ability to resolve intergroup conflicts and to build multifunctional teams.

Specifically, a number of suggestions for effective implementing phase-gate processes and gate reviews have been derived from the broader context of this field study. The recommendations presented here should help both project leaders and their managers to understand the complex interaction of organizational and behavioral variables involved in the control today's complex projects and the implementation of appropriate managerial tools, such as the phase-gate review and techniques. The findings should increase the awareness of what works and what doesn't, and help to fine-tune project management systems toward high performance. Finally, the findings should also help scholars who study these concepts to better understand the complexities involved in the project management process and to use some of the conclusions reached from this study as building blocks for further research.

Make the Phase-Gate Processes Consistent with Work Process. Management controls, such as voice-of-the-customer, interface definitions, and gate reviews should be an integrated part of the business process. Particular attention should be paid to the workability of the tools and techniques for task integration and technology transfer across organizational lines. When implementing a new phase-gate process or gate review procedure, build on existing tools and systems whenever possible. The highest levels of acceptance and successful usage of management tools are found in areas where tools are incrementally added to already existing management control systems. If at all possible, the new process should be consistent with established project review procedures and management practices within an organization.

Involve the Team. Make your people part of the phase-gate process and its managerial controls. The project team together with the project manager should be involved in the assessment of the project status against the established success criteria. Critical factor analysis, focus groups and process action teams are good vehicles for such team involvement and collective decision-making, which leads to ownership and a more readily acceptance of the tool, and a willingness toward continuous improvement and most effective use.

Pre-Test a New Gate Review Procedure. When introducing a new gate review, try the new concept first with a small project and with an experienced, high-performing team. Asking such a team to test, evaluate and fine-tune the gate review process for the company is often seen an honor and professional challenge. Further it usually starts the implementation with a positive attitude and creates an environment of open communications and candor.

Clearly Understand Organizational Interfaces. Overall project success depends on cross-functional integration via teamwork. Each task team should clearly understand the transfer mechanism for their work, be encouraged to seek out cooperation, and to check out early feasibility and integration. QFD concepts, n-square charting and well-defined phase-gate criteria can be useful tools for developing cross-functional linkages and promoting interdisciplinary cooperation and alliances. It is, furthermore, critically important to include into these interfaces support organizations such as purchasing, product assurance and legal services, as well as outside contractors and suppliers, especially if there are work interdependencies or issues affecting the project integration.

Define Proper Gate Criteria. By definition, each gate consists of a set of criteria, derived from the activities of the last stage. Meeting these criteria should essentially ensure successful completion of the project. Several conditions must be met for gates to be effective: (1) The criteria must be defined conjointly among the stakeholders of the business process at the beginning of the project cycle. For example, management must define specific success criteria for a project and articulate specific metrics useful for assessing these criteria at the end of each stage. (2) The people executing particular project stages must agree to the criteria and its metrics as an obtainable objective within the established project scope and its time and resource constraints.

Assign Gate Reviewers Early. The people who judge the fulfillment of the gate criteria should also have specific ownership in the project. Ideally, these people are eventually the receivers of the work packages produced in the stage that is reviewed via the gate. These reviewers are not only judges, but also members of the broader multifunctional project team who should participate in design reviews and project reviews during the stage execution and provide feedback on an ongoing basis, not just during the gate review. For this reason, it is critically important that gate reviewers are assigned early in the project life cycle and fully committed to multifunctional project development.

Assure Proper Representation. Assure proper representation from functional support department. This facilities the participation of resource managers in the problem identification and resolution. It also provides a link between the project team and upper management, necessary for proper management of the resource personnel, priority setting, and resolving interfunctional problems.

Anticipate Anxieties and Conflict. Especially for the introduction of a new gate review procedure, project leaders should anticipate anxieties and conflict among their team members. These negative biases come from uncertainties associated with the new working conditions and requirements. They range from personal discomfort with skill requirements to anxieties over the impact of the new tool on the work process and personal performance evaluation. These problems should be anticipated and dealt with in a straightforward manner as early as possible.

Ensure No-Threat. Management must foster a project team environment of mutual trust and cooperation, an environment that is low on personal conflict, power struggles, surprises, unrealistic demands, and threats to personal and professional integrity. Cooperation with a management control tool or technique can only be expected if it is relatively risk-free to the user. Unnecessary inferences to performance appraisals, tight supervision, restriction of personal freedom and autonomy, and overhead requirements should be eliminated from the technique and any concerns dealt with promptly on a personal level.

Keep Meetings Interactive. Keep meetings interactive and on a mutual trust basis. Good review meetings are often noisy with plenty of candor and broad involvement. It is this dynamics that helps to discover small problems at an early stage.

Detect Problems Early and Resolve. The project leader should foster an environment that is high on mutual trust, focused objectives and professionally stimulating. These are the factors that positively influence the action mentality of the project team and keep it focused on desired results.

Be Prepared. Effective review meetings require housework and proper preparation by the leader and the participants. A well organized status summary, change announcement, or problem statement requires often detailed background work and considerable effort organizing the presentation or discussion.

Follow Good Meeting and Review Practices. Send agenda with meeting invitation and follow it. Start on time, finish on time. Time overruns can be costly and disruptive to others. They also set bad examples for on-time performance. Send reading material and homework ahead of meeting. Don't take precious meetings time. Assign action items and follow up. Publish major milestones and project objectives. This provides cross-functional visibility for the overall project road map; it helps to unify the project team toward critical results and end-dates.

Foster Challenging Work Environment. Professionally interesting and stimulating work appears to be one of the strongest drivers toward acceptance and effective use of managerial controls, such as gate reviews. Work challenge seems to be a catalyst for integrating personal goals and the needs of the team members with the project objectives and organizational goals. Project leaders should try to accommodate the professional interests and desires of their personnel whenever possible. Effective support of managerial controls seems to increase with the individual's perception of professionally interesting and stimulating work. It leads to increased involvement, better communications, lower conflict and higher commitment. One of the best ways to assure interesting work is for the manager to match carefully the personal interests with the scope and needs of the tasks during the "signing on" of personnel to the task or project team. In addition, the manager should build a project image of importance and high visibility, which can elevate the desirability of participation and contribution. Such an environment helps to motivate people toward established goals, innovatively and creatively, and cooperation with managerial controls.

Continuous Improvement. The phase-gate process is part of the organization's project management system and overall business process, which in turn is continuously changing with its external environment. Provisions must be made for updating and fine-tuning the phase-gate process on an ongoing basis to assure relevancy to today's project management challenges.

Ensure Senior Management Support. Like any other management tool, the phase-gate process and its reviews require top-down support to succeed. Through their involvement and communications, management can stress the importance of these tools to the organization, which will span organizational and cultural boundaries, and unify objectives.

Provide Proper Direction and Leadership. Managers can influence the attitude and commitment of their people toward the gate-review as a project control tool by their own actions. Concern for the project team members, assistance with the use of the tool, and enthusiasm for the project and its administrative support systems, can foster a climate of high motivation, involvement with the project and its management, open communications, and willingness to cooperate with the new requirements and use them effectively.

A Final Note

The effective implementation and use of phase-gate process can be critical for expedient and effective project execution, and help accelerating the technology transfer to the market. Proper application of this management control technique involves a complex set of organizational and behavioral variables. It further requires congruency and integration with the work process and the established control and reward system. Most importantly, managers must pay attention to human factors. To enhance cooperation with the gate review process, and to use it effectively as a management control tool, project leaders must foster a work environment where people find the work challenging, leading to recognition and professional growth. Such a professionally stimulating environment seems to lower anxieties over managerial controls, communications barriers and conflict, and enhances the desire of personnel to cooperate and to succeed. It also seems to enhance organizational awareness of the surrounding business environment and the ability to prepare and respond to these challenges effectively by using modern project management techniques. Further, effective use of phase-gate reviews is critical. It requires administrative skills for planning and defining project efforts properly and realistically, and then tracking the project through its life cycle. Effective project leaders are social architect who understands the interaction of organizational and behavioral variables and can foster a climate of active participation and minimal dysfunctional conflict. They also build alliances with support organizations and upper management to assure organizational visibility, priority, resource availability, and overall support for the multifunctional activities of the project throughout its life cycle. These are some of the important criteria for the phase-gate process to work effectively in today's demanding, multifunctional project environment.

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This material has been reproduced with the permission of the copyright owner. Unauthorized reproduction of this material is strictly prohibited. For permission to reproduce this material, please contact PMI or any listed author.

Proceedings of the Project Management Institute Annual Seminars & Symposium
September 7-16, 2000 * Houston, Texas, USA

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Accelerating product developments via phase-gate processes

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As we begin the next millennium, organizations are under continued pressure to respond rapidly and accurately to market/customer needs in spite of increasing project complexities and organizational dynamics.

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We've all been there. You get a call (or more likely an email) requesting that you do something immediately, or within an impossibly short space of time. Alternatively, they may be asking for something that you simply do not have the resources to be able to deliver. Many times, these requests feel more like orders - people demanding that you do things without giving a thought to what else you have on your plate.

In these situations, it is all too easy to react emotionally - especially if the definition of "unrealistic" is stretched to the extreme. Your plans for the day are thrown off course, other people may be let down, and those people may be your loved ones. No surprise that you may feel angry or frustrated by the lack of consideration shown by the person making the demand.

If you're struggling to respond to unrealistic demands:

1. Don't respond - pause instead. Take a deep breath and let the emotion calm a little. Emotions are natural and healthy. However, an emotional response is seldom a good idea. Remember that it is not what others do to you, but how you respond that makes the big difference in effectiveness. Once you have calmed down, you'll be able to think clearly on the points below as you prepare to respond.

2. Ask them why. If a request is made, regardless of how realistic it is, there will be a reason for it. Until you ask why you will be at risk of responding incorrectly. When you ask, listen carefully and intelligently. Maintain a positive and curious demeanour instead of appearing defensive and upset. Don't tolerate replies like: "Because I want you to." Or "It's important." Strive for the facts.

3. Check the what. Words have different meanings to different people. As you are asking why, develop it into a discussion about exactly what it is they want you to do. Many unrealistic demands appear that way because of lack of understanding about what is actually being asked for. Interestingly, unrealistic demands often come from people who are themselves under pressure. Consequently, the first casualty is often the care they take with their communication. Rushing off hasty and poorly worded emails is easy when you're stressed. So, strive again for the facts.

4. Find out why. The "why" people tell you may not be the real why, for a number of reasons. The point here is, where appropriate (and feasible), seek corroboration for the purpose behind the request. Once you can be sure of what is motivating the request, you may realise that what they are asking for is actually not as necessary as they think it is. If you can spot an easier way to solve the problem or issue that they need help on, everyone can win.

1. Consider the consequences. What knock-on impact does accepting (or tolerating) the unrealistic demand have? The person who is making the demand is probably only one of your stakeholders or customers. If you are supposed to be attending to other powerful people's requests, why should you let this new request knock you off course? What risks does this new demand bring?

2. Review your approach to influencing stakeholders. It is easy to overlook important and vital elements of the Influencing Internal Stakeholders checklist - don't make this mistake.

3. Think about the opportunities. Yes, it may be unrealistic, but perhaps there is a positive here too. One of the great things about unrealistic demands is that on the other side is someone who is desperate for something. That brings a certain amount of power to your side. If they need you to do something, how might you be able to turn this to your advantage? Sometimes is could be as simple as influencing them to manage the expectations of other stakeholders so you don't have to do it yourself. Other bargains could also be struck so that you can find a way you can both win.

4. Engage your other stakeholders. Appropriately involve other people. Not to assemble a defence force, but to manage expectations, increase collaboration and collectively make a prudent decision people can buy-in to.

Now, I have to be honest with you, there is a lot of work here - but in my view represents the most important element of responding to unrealistic demands. Until you have the kind of clarity needed to address each of the points above, there is little or no point in talking about other aspects of responding such as pushing back, negotiating or reaching agreement. They can only be useful once you have worked out what you want and/or need to do. I'll pick up on these points in a later article.

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We've all been there. You get a call (or more likely an email) requesting that you do something immediately, or within an impossibly short space of time. Alternatively, they may be asking for something that you simply do not have the resources to be able to deliver.

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This checklist is intended to be used by subscribers and clients in conjunction with the CXO Guide to Influence. It covers the essential questions that you need to be able to answer in order to prepare yourself to successfully influence an internal stakeholder.

It covers the questions on:

Your Goal

Their Agenda

Conflicting Agendas

Their Decision Process

Your Strategy and Plan

If you can't answer all of these, and I'm pretty sure you will struggle with many of them, treat this as a call to action to get busy. This is the only way to eradicate guesswork and stop influencing in the dark.

Your Goal

1. What exactly do you want them to do, say, think or feel? Specificity cuts to the chase and helps you to move faster.

2. What evidence will you notice when you have succeeded? This is especially important for thinking and feeling goals so that there is no doubt in your mind you have influenced.

Their Agenda

1. What is their professional agenda? This should cover their whole role, and all of their roles. You need to be able to describe the professional context in which they are making decisions. Vital here is identifying their top priorities, concerns and worries.

2. How confident are you that if you describe their professional agenda to them, they will think you've been very intimate with their line-manager?

3. What is their personal agenda? This may overlap with their professional agenda, but it may not. This includes career aspirations, financial goals, recognition needs, personal preservation or even the thirst for revenge. Personal agendas are even more influential than profession ones when it comes to the decisions they take.

4. How confident are you that if you describe their personal agenda to them, they will wonder how you could possibly know all that?

Conflicting Agendas

1. If you are successful at influencing your stakeholder, who will lose out? This could be in direct and obvious ways (such as losing budget allocation or resources) or indirect ways like air-time, visibility, profile, reward potential or any manner of other negative consequences.

2. Similarly, who else would win if you succeed in your influence? Again, look for the indirect ways and identify potential opportunities to collaborate.

3. If your stakeholder says yes, how will that decision assist their agenda?

4. How will it hinder their agenda? This is starting to get to the crux of the matter.

5. Alternatively, how will saying no to you help move forward their agenda? Oft times, especially in large and complex organisations, you may need to influence against their own agenda for the greater good. For example, local profit margin vs. global standards or efficiencies.

6. Finally, how will it saying no make things even worse for them? This may be the opposite of question 9, but it may stimulate more helpful thoughts.

Their Decision Process

1. What formal process will they use to make their decision? This may not be appropriate in all cases, but make sure you don't ignore the presence of undocumented approaches which have been instituted in their domain.

2. What informal processes will they adopt? This will happen in every situation and could relate to the people they will involve in advising them. Perhaps they will take heed to gauge the mood of their teams, or others for that matter.

3. Knowing what they know, how would you respond to your influence attempt? Of course you would say yes like a shot, but what do you think they would do?

Your Strategy and Plan

1. Knowing what you know, how will you attempt to influence them? Most people jump straight here and give scant attention to the first 15 questions. Don't keep making that mistake.

2. How are you going to handle any risks that your influence attempt will go awry? This could involve mitigating or contingent actions. Make sure you have the main risks mapped out and planned for, especially if a second attempt might not be possible for months.

Of course, the depth you choose to go to on each of these questions is a matter for you to decide. You will also need to allocate time to this exploration which may be in short supply. All I can do is but point the way, and encourage you to do as much of this as you can.
Private Consultation: I've been specialising in helping individuals and teams to develop top-level influencing capabilities for nearly 15 years. If you'd like to take this off-line and have a private discussion about how to implement this checklist, simply get in touch, mention the CXO Guide to Influence and then we can schedule a convenient time to talk.

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This checklist is intended to be used by subscribers and clients in conjunction with the CXO Guide to Influence. It covers the essential questions that you need to be able to answer in order to prepare yourself to successfully influence an internal stakeholder.

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4. The Know-It-All Expert

Know-it-all experts are of two types: the truly competent, productive, self-assured, genuine expert and the partially informed person pretending to be an expert. Both can be a pain.

The true expert may act superior and make others feel stupid; they may be bull headed and impatient with differing opinions; they are often self-reliant, don't need or want any help, and don't want to change. If you are going to deal with the true expert as an equal, you must do your homework thoroughly; otherwise, they will dismiss you. First of all, listen to them and accurately paraphrase their points. Don't attack their ideas but rather raise questions that suggest alternatives: "Would you tell me more?" or "What do you think the results will be in five years?" "It probably isn't a viable choice but could we consider...?" Secondly, show your respect for his/her competence but don't put yourself down. Lastly, if the expert can not learn to consider others' ideas, you may be wise to graciously accept a subordinate role as his/her "helper." True experts deserve respect.

The pretentious-but-not-real expert is relatively easy to deal with because he/she (unlike liars or cons) is often unaware of how little he/she knows. Such a person can be gently confronted with the facts. Do it when alone with them. Help them save face. They simply want to be admired.

5. The Pessimist

Another "burden" to any group is the pessimist -the person who always says, "It won't work" or "We tried that." These angry, bitter people have the power to drag us down because they stir up the old pool of doubt and disappointment within us. So, first of all, avoid being sucked into his/her cesspool of hopelessness. Don't argue with the pessimist; don't immediately offer solutions to the difficulties predicted by the pessimist.

Instead, make optimistic statements - showing that change is possible - and encourage the group to brainstorm leading to several possible alternatives. Then ask what are the worst possible consequences of each alternative (this gives the negativist a chance to do his/her thing but you can use the gloomy predictions in a constructive, problem-solving way). Also ask, "What will happen if we do nothing?" Finally, welcome everyone's help but be willing to do it alone because the pessimist won't volunteer.

6. The Staller

Every group has a "staller," a person who puts off decisions for fear someone will be unhappy. Unlike the super-agreeable, the staller is truly interested in being helpful. So, make it easier for him/her to discuss and make decisions. Try to find out what the staller's real concerns are (he/she won't easily reveal negative opinions of you). Don't make demands for quick action. Instead, help the staller examine the facts and make compromises or develop alternative plans (and decide which ones take priority). Give the staller reassurance about his/her decision and support the effective carrying out of the decision.

Of course, these tips are largely just starting points in your efforts to better cope with the difficult people in your life. If you'd like to learn more in-depth techniques and ideas for improving your life, please check out my free online self-help book, Psychological Self-Help.
Clay Tucker-Ladd, Ph.D. is the author of the original and oldest online self-help book, Psychological Self-Help. This excerpt was reprinted from "Chapter 9: Understanding Ourselves and Our Relationships" and "Chapter 7: Anger and Aggression." Dr. Tucker-Ladd is now gone, but was the chairperson of the Psychology Department at Eastern Illinois University in the 1970s and maintained a private practice in Illinois.
6 Difficult Types of People and How to Deal With Them

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# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
6 Difficult Types of People and How to Deal With Them - Part 2

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We all have difficult people we need to deal with in our lives on a daily basis. While such characteristics may be exaggerations, you may find traits of them in a few of the people in your workplace, amongst your friends, or even a loved one.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
4. The Know-It-All Expert

Know-it-all experts are of two types: the truly competent, productive, self-assured, genuine expert and the partially informed person pretending to be an expert. Both can be a pain.

The true expert may act superior and make others feel stupid; they may be bull headed and impatient with differing opinions; they are often self-reliant, don't need or want any help, and don't want to change. If you are going to deal with the true expert as an equal, you must do your homework thoroughly; otherwise, they will dismiss you. First of all, listen to them and accurately paraphrase their points. Don't attack their ideas but rather raise questions that suggest alternatives: "Would you tell me more?" or "What do you think the results will be in five years?" "It probably isn't a viable choice but could we consider...?" Secondly, show your respect for his/her competence but don't put yourself down. Lastly, if the expert can not learn to consider others' ideas, you may be wise to graciously accept a subordinate role as his/her "helper." True experts deserve respect.

The pretentious-but-not-real expert is relatively easy to deal with because he/she (unlike liars or cons) is often unaware of how little he/she knows. Such a person can be gently confronted with the facts. Do it when alone with them. Help them save face. They simply want to be admired.

5. The Pessimist

Another "burden" to any group is the pessimist -the person who always says, "It won't work" or "We tried that." These angry, bitter people have the power to drag us down because they stir up the old pool of doubt and disappointment within us. So, first of all, avoid being sucked into his/her cesspool of hopelessness. Don't argue with the pessimist; don't immediately offer solutions to the difficulties predicted by the pessimist.

Instead, make optimistic statements - showing that change is possible - and encourage the group to brainstorm leading to several possible alternatives. Then ask what are the worst possible consequences of each alternative (this gives the negativist a chance to do his/her thing but you can use the gloomy predictions in a constructive, problem-solving way). Also ask, "What will happen if we do nothing?" Finally, welcome everyone's help but be willing to do it alone because the pessimist won't volunteer.

6. The Staller

Every group has a "staller," a person who puts off decisions for fear someone will be unhappy. Unlike the super-agreeable, the staller is truly interested in being helpful. So, make it easier for him/her to discuss and make decisions. Try to find out what the staller's real concerns are (he/she won't easily reveal negative opinions of you). Don't make demands for quick action. Instead, help the staller examine the facts and make compromises or develop alternative plans (and decide which ones take priority). Give the staller reassurance about his/her decision and support the effective carrying out of the decision.

Of course, these tips are largely just starting points in your efforts to better cope with the difficult people in your life. If you'd like to learn more in-depth techniques and ideas for improving your life, please check out my free online self-help book, Psychological Self-Help.
Clay Tucker-Ladd, Ph.D. is the author of the original and oldest online self-help book, Psychological Self-Help. This excerpt was reprinted from "Chapter 9: Understanding Ourselves and Our Relationships" and "Chapter 7: Anger and Aggression." Dr. Tucker-Ladd is now gone, but was the chairperson of the Psychology Department at Eastern Illinois University in the 1970s and maintained a private practice in Illinois.
6 Difficult Types of People and How to Deal With Them

Related Articles

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
6 Difficult Types of People and How to Deal With Them - Part 2

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We all have difficult people we need to deal with in our lives on a daily basis. While such characteristics may be exaggerations, you may find traits of them in a few of the people in your workplace, amongst your friends, or even a loved one.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Your loved one hurt your feelings or crossed a boundary. You're trying to talk to them about it. But as soon as you start expressing yourself, they cross their arms. They look away. They start playing with their phone. They say things like: Why are you criticizing me? and I know you think I'm a terrible person. They start defending their behavior. They list a litany of reasons why you're actually in the wrong.

In other words, they get defensive. In fact, they get defensive any time you try to have a real conversation with them.

And this defensiveness feels a lot like they don't care. You feel like your feelings don't matter to them. You feel like you don't matter. According to marriage and family therapist Jennine Estes, defensiveness is actually "rarely intentional." Rather it's a knee-jerk reaction that shields the person from guilt and self-doubt, she said.

"People who are defensive have difficulty taking responsibility for their actions and often feel uncomfortable being 'wrong.' [That's] because accepting responsibility would make them feel as if they have failed."

Defensive behavior might stem from a tough childhood or traumatic past, which can make a person more likely to "react through a negative lens," said Lisa Brookes Kift, MFT, a psychotherapist and founder of Love and Life Toolbox. Kids often develop this behavior as a way to cope with difficult situations, said Estes, who owns a group practice called Estes Therapy in San Diego. Then it "becomes a bad habit as an adult." Individuals also might grow up with a sinking self-esteem and a deep belief that they're not good enough.

Defensiveness is like a spotlight, Estes said. "When you share pain with your loved one, that bright spotlight shifts from you to them. The defensiveness is a way to shift the spotlight back on to you, instead of keeping it on what really matters-the initial issue."

We can't control others' reactions or actions. But we can increase the chances that they'll listen to us by communicating in a constructive way. As Estes, said, "Relationships are like baby mobiles: If you tug on one side, the whole structure moves. If you shift your response, even just a little bit, the other person will automatically have to change their behavior." Here's how.

Avoid using "blame" language. Don't start a sentence with "you," as in "You didn't hear me, again!" or "You just don't care about how I feel!" said Estes, the author of Relationships in the Raw. Also, avoid using "always" and "never." "These words give no wiggle room, and can be very critical, causing a person to defend their position."

Start on a positive note. According to Kift, tell the other person what they mean to you, such as: "You're a great friend and I'm telling you this because I care about you..." Also, show appreciation for what the person has done, Estes said. "If they don't feel like their good efforts are acknowledged and only hear about how they messed up again, they will feel defeated."

She shared this example: "I appreciate how you tried to handle our kid's tantrum in the store. I know it wasn't easy and I am glad I am not alone in this. You did your best. Can we talk about how we can both handle these public tantrums in the future?"

Start with some vulnerability and responsibility. Be vulnerable with the person, and take some responsibility for the situation. Estes shared this example: "I always felt as if I didn't matter as a child. I was never seen. Now, when I talk and the TV is on, I feel like I am invisible again. You probably don't mean to send me that message at all. I know how much you like your show. But it actually hurts and brings me back to that place of being a kid again."

Focus on your feelings. "Beginning with an expression of how you feel is a good way to disarm defensive behavior," Kift said. She suggested using this sentence structure: Say how you felt (your emotion) when they did what they did (their behavior). She shared this example: "I felt unimportant to you when you said we would go to dinner last night and then you canceled on me at the last minute."

Ask meaningful questions. Estes suggested asking the other person how they're feeling. "Be sincerely curious around their response. Deep down, it might be the little kid feeling as if they are not good enough and they need your compassion."

For instance, according to Estes, you might say: "It seems like my question upset you. Is there something I said that makes you feel like you need to protect yourself?" or "It seems like my comment upset you. Did my comment make you feel attacked or hurt in any way?"

Don't lose your temper. Of course, this isn't easy to do when someone isn't listening to you, or is listing off 20 reasons why they're right. But losing your cool just adds fuel to the fire, Estes said. "Put down that pitchfork and stay focused on the feelings of hurt underneath it all." Slow down, and take several deep breaths. And if you can't calm down, tell the person you need to take a break.

Sometimes, you can do all the right things to have a constructive conversation-watch your words, be vulnerable-and the other person still gets defensive. In these cases, you can apologize and say it's not your intention, Kift said. Remember that defensive behavior can stem from deeper issues, which have more to do with the person, than with your approach.

How to Talk to Someone Who Always Gets Defensive

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By Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S. ~ 3 min read

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How to Talk to Someone Who Always Gets Defensive

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Your loved one hurt your feelings or crossed a boundary. You're trying to talk to them about it. But as soon as you start expressing yourself, they cross their arms. They look away. They start playing with their phone. They say things like: Why are you criticizing me?