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Toxic Masculinity and the Andrew Tait case

Written and spoken by Tudor Rickards 
November 27, 2024

Toxic masculinity has become a topic of research and debate in the 2020s. Andrew Tate has become identified as a case example who is also recognised as a successful global leader/influencer attracting enormous publicity through the social media.

In July 2022, it was reported there were more Google searches for his name than for Donald Trump or Kim Kardashian. His impact on his followers is familiar to impact of cult leaders.

Lifton, Robert Jay. Losing reality: On cults, cultism, and the mindset of political and religious zealotry. The New Press, 2019.

According to Lifton

Quote: The cult leader becomes an object beyond any meaningful accountability, and becomes the unifying and defining element of the group and its beliefs.

A process of indoctrination, and exploitation takes place  by the leader and the ruling coterie which leads to group members to act in ways seen by outsiders as being primarily in interest of the group leader.

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Written and spoken by Tudor Rickards
22 November, 2022

Elon Musk has acquired spectacular success as an innovator. He has been compared with career great engineering pioneers who shaped our world.

One list places him alongside George Stevenson, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Thomas Edison, Ada Lovelace, and Henry Ford. In addition, the list contained a particularly interesting nomination of  Nicola Tesla [Musk is in part famed for his strategic leadership of the Tesla organisation].

What lessons can be learned from studying the leadership story of Elon Musk’s time at the social media site known as Twitter, which he has converted into the site now known as ‘X’?

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Boris Loses It

20 November 2024

Written and spoken by Tudor Rickards from articles in The Week, The Economist, and a Case study from Henley Business School.

The rise and fall of Prime Minister Boris Johnson has become one of the most widely studied cases of political leadership from the perspective of a leaders losing the trust of his ministerial colleagues.

The long and complex story is difficult to examine as an historical event. A starting point is to collect information at a critical point and assist its significance. 

One such point occurred in the days approaching what amounted to a coup administered by his cabinet of ministers, themselves aware of the views of other conservatives and their constituency members. 

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Wit and Wisdom November 10-18, 2024

Finding wit and wisdom in the Presidential election result

@LongTimeHistory
Sadly, there will be 4 more years of Trump for Tennessee Brando to write songs.
His  new song is about MAGA selling out their daughters for cheaper eggs.
🎶 The red hats are flexing, they're all acting thrilled.
They don't know how tariffs work, but soon they sure will. 
They think their leader saved them, and he's restored their faith.
But we see they cut their noses off to spite  their own face🎶
🎶 They sold out their daughters, and they threw away their friends.
On a senseless notion, they could all be great again.
When they scream they didn't vote for this, remind them yes you did.
And ask them how it's going, with those cheaper eggs.🎶

Garry Kasparov, one the greatest chess players of all time, and now a political activist
reposted an earlier tweet …
The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth

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A tale of creative accounting from His Majesty's Armed Forces 

16 November, 2024

This podcast is spoken by Tudor Rickards from content which has appeared on several internet sites but without attribution.

Today I found the tale replicated in the correspondence to the Guardian’ s quick crossword, supplied  by the puzzler Bath Osprey. I would welcome any suggestions of its origins:

Lt. Colonel Robert Maclaren retired from the British Army in 2001 after a long fulfilling career. On the day that he retired he received a letter from the Personnel Department of the Ministry of Defence setting out details of his pension and, in particular, the tax-free ‘lump sum’ award, (based upon completed years of service), that he would receive in addition to his monthly pension.

The letter read:
“Dear Lt. Colonel Maclaren,
We write to confirm that you retired from the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards on 1st March 2001 at the rank of Lt Colonel, having been commissioned into the British Army at Edinburgh Castle as a 2nd Lieutenant on 1st February 1366.
Accordingly your lump sum payment, based on years served, has been calculated as £68,500. You will receive a cheque for this amount in due course.
Yours sincerely,
Army Paymaster”

...

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The Gartner hype cycle: An investment system explained using a mapping metaphor 

This podcast is spoken and produced by Tudor Rickards drawing on information from: 
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnwerner/2024/07/18/the-trough-of-disillusionment-and-four-outliers-on-the-gartner-hype-cycle/; 
https://www.gartner.com/en/research/methodologies/gartner-hype-cycle

As its commercial owner, the Gartner research organisation explains, the Gartner hype cycle is a methodology which helps companies assess the potential risks and rewards of emerging technologies. Each Hype Cycle drills down into the five key phases of a technology’s life cycle.

Innovation Trigger
Peak of Inflated Expectations
Trough of Disillusionment 
Slope of Enlightenment
Plateau of Productivity

Notice the use of a map as an explanatory metaphor ....

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How is trust earned and lost?

Notes prepared for a 4th edition of Dilemmas of Leadership
November 11 
I scribble down some initial thoughts.
How is trust earned and lost?
Psychological theories
Practical experiences
Are leaders actions ‘banked’? 
And selectively remembered with distortions: the popular expression of a deeply held belief as
“QUOTE I’ll never forget the way he…”

A personal story
Trust building exercises on leadership courses at Brathay Hall with executives and MBA graduates.
Conventional wisdom in such exercises to support experiential learning, team building and leadership development.

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Chess training resumes. Question of the week: “why can’t a Queen castle?”

After half-term hiatus, my Sunday morning junior chess training resumes.  As ever, the session is a source of enlightenment for me (as well, I hope, for the students). 
I can report the break has not affected the retention of earlier lessons by the students. 
For example, one has become somewhat entranced by the utterance of the magic term ‘j'adoube’, as defence against the other magic utterance ‘touch a piece, move a piece’.
 If anything, he has stretched its use to meaning “I’m taking that  move back”

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Ed Davey. Don’t laugh at him, he’s not a fool.

Written and spoken by Tudor Rickards

In the 2024 General Election in the United Kingdom, The Liberal Democratic Party leader Ed Davey began to attract media coverage for a series of events which were unkindly described as political stunts. Davey was widely mocked by the press, and by the general public who appeared mostly confused about them.

An irate journalist for the Telegraph vented feelings implied by other media commentators

“[T]here is something a little depressing about a party that once served as the voice of Britain’s radical consciousness reducing itself to Davey’s aquatic antics. He managed to capsize his paddleboard no fewer than five times. That suggests either that the Lib Dem leader is as poor at watersports as he is at meeting aggrieved postmasters, or that he is truly desperate for attention”

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On naming Liverpool’s new football manager … the case for Nominative Determinism.

The story came to life for me today, when William, an acquaintance of mine who is an avid football follower, suggested that you had to have a special sort of name at present to become a manager at Liverpool FC.

"They used to pick managers with solid English or Scottish names", he continued,  " -  Bill, Kenny, Joe, Bob and Roy."
I resisted saying that Roy Evans was Welsh ...

"Anyway, then they went foreign. After Jurgen Klopp, they needed someone with similar sort of name and selected Arne Slot".

I was about to pour scorn on the idea, when I remembered the theory of Nominative Determinism. A little research, and I came up with evidence which goes back to ancient Roman times...

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