from the book: Shadow Dancing on the Grave of Hope:
If an enterprise is not about results, it’s not about its customers.
Almost all effective programs will take place outside of government agencies. When the provider is responsible to the customers, he will quickly find that customers generally do not pay for ineffective practices. Anyone who needs anything dependent on knowledge of behavior, rehabilitation, teaching and learning will greatly increase the probability of success by seeking them outside the auspices of any organization which has any connection with government funding. He should seek out someone he pays directly so that he can directly determine the service he gets. Favorable contingencies don’t ensure a positive outcome, but they greatly increase its probability. Unfavorable contingencies don’t ensure a negative outcome, but they greatly decrease the probability of a positive outcome, usually to zero.
The first thing is to separate rhetoric from reality which means separating the INTEND and IS from the DOES. Requiring effectiveness as defined and monitored by customers is a sure link to reality. Every government employee is a politician so that source motivation will color all his activities. In the social sciences, most, but not all, hysterical, self-congratulatory rhetoric comes from government sources. This drivel must be disregarded for anything good to come of any enterprise. Secondly, only seek advice from those who are paid directly from their customers. These people are not always right, but those who are not paid directly are almost always wrong. For example, do not ask public school teachers for educational advice. All you will hear will be the cultish answers based on myth, misinformation and lack of knowledge or, worse of all, that which the responders believes based on “personal experience”. In business and science, things improve–in politics, things change. Whatever is politically fulsome is scientifically empty (yes I know fulsome has nothing to do with full–still). It’s easier to be a smoothie than a sharpie, so be aware of those who are politically proficient even though, to many people, government enters most arenas with “an unearned aura of virtue” with emphasis on “unearned”. For those who study such things, government enters any arena with a well-earned aura of incompetence and a probability of political posturing of 1.00. They’re not like us. Keep in mind, in human and horse endeavors, there are show horses and work horses and the two are easily separated when there is work to be done.
Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies
