Learning from the Masons

There is a lot to be learned both for and from the masons here in the Dominican Republic. Building something in the United States involves a trip to a well-stocked hardware store. Having wood is a matter of choosing which type of tree you’d like to use, balancing cost with durability. My New England born instructor of all things construction quickly taught me to pick up the smaller hardware before the larger wood so you don’t have to schlep wood all around the store. And of course, always stop by the contractors’ entrance for your free cup of coffee!

While building a house is fundamentally the same here as it is in the US, you need the same roof, walls, supports, windows, doors, and a foundation. But there are so many little differences. There are different size nails, but we don’t use screws, as there are no power tools. The one drill that the masons have uses a nail as a drill bit, and it’s only used for very small pieces of wood you don’t want to split when you nail into them.  When choosing screws or nails in the US, you take the total width of your wood (say, 3”) and then buy something that is a little shorter (say 2.5” or 2.75”) so that the screws don’t pop out on the other side. While the nails here come in several sizes, none of those sizes have anything to do with the width of the wood you are using, simply how secure you need the wood to be. If the nails you are using poke through, either you don’t bother making it safer, or if you’re really feeling ambitious, you bend them downwards and upwards, roughly alternating.

There is strong ingenuity for recycling resources, and a strange stupidity in organizing supplies and tasks. We unbend hundreds of nails, making sure to get the most use out of all of them. And to save money, instead of filling the concrete walls with rebar to reinforce, the Dominicans use barbed wire stapled into the posts. The plywood that we use as a mold for pouring concrete was partially used when we started, and we use it over and over. Through our construction of concrete molds, we made sure to nail almost every nail in mostly, but then bend the last 1/8 of an inch over so that once the concrete had set, we could remove the nails (unbend them for reuse), and then pull the plywood out without ripping the nails through it.

The organizational skills that are lacking are quite frustrating from the American perspective. It is on the volunteers, many of whom have never done this work before, to anticipate where the masons are going to not think ahead, and try to get things done before them. Putting up a wall requires a bunch of steps, some of which take longer than others. Tacking in the barbed wire takes time, as does making the plywood moldings and reinforcing them. Carting sand, gravel, and concrete into a big pile and filling the walls with concrete doesn’t take as long, and neither does prying off moldings from completed sections. Yet somehow for every wall we have made through two different weeks of work, the masons instruct all the volunteers to focus on removing plywood and piling resources. Those of us who see the error in this thinking end up starting work crews to do the tasks that take more time under our own initiative, and often against resistance from the masons. It is a strange dance of having them needing to be right and in charge, but it being obvious to an American’s eyes that the process is inefficient.

There are other glaring examples of both ingenuity and lack of it. The Dominican soil around here is filled with rocks both small and large. Anywhere that the wall needs a few inches of concrete where there is no way to pour it in easily, we will fill the space as much as possible with rocks before adding tackier concrete that we’ve mixed without gravel. This way you can use less concrete to fill the space and still get a smooth(ish) finish. On the other hand, the masons insist on mixing all the concrete on literally the hardest to reach area from the piles of supplies. The piles of sand and gravel are right by the front of the house, where the dump truck could put them from the road. For some reason the masons insist on mixing concrete behind the house so that every wheelbarrow, bucket, and shovel of sand and gravel has to be carried the longest possible distance to a pile before being brought back most of the distance as mixed concrete to be put into the walls.

Not a day goes by where I am not made happy by the companionship and irresistible humor of my Dominican hosts, and also frustrated by the dearth of initiative and problem solving techniques. The whole thing epitomizes the American phrase of taking two steps forward and one backwards. Of course here, after you’ve done that, it’s time for a break to dance to some Bachata.

Prognostications After a Week with President Trump

President Trump has so far been an irresponsible leader. As someone who is comfortable (and in fact enjoys!) arguing for the opposite point of view in order to spur on arguments with friends, I often find myself trying to think through the logic of a viewpoint with which I disagree. Some of my most firmly held beliefs that differ from social norms have arisen from this method. The best example is my stance on personal recycling (it's a form of tax, doesn't matter, and is morally licensing, so I'll stick to reducing and reusing thank you very much).


So though I harbored many differences with candidate Donald Trump, I am fully prepared, especially in the presence of so many smug Bernie supporters in my social circle, to try to react to his policies with analysis rather than anger. So far he has demonstrated his usual callous and un-Christian attitude towards others as well as several massive violations of wisdom abut leadership and American institutions which I hold dear, and which history has shown are worthy of respect and adherence. For a good list of these, check out this weekly record.

Russell Simmons wrote an interesting opinion piece on Huffington Post today that I think gives us part of the picture. I've seen a few pieces articulating that even if somehow Trump got impeached, Democrats are in for a long, hard four years. Even assuming something Trump does causes Republicans in power to somehow decide it's worth jumping ship and impeach him, it would take a long time. Even Liberals who are shouting and waving their fists like Robert Reich think it'll be a while before they dump him. And lest the passionate among Democrats forget, President Pence wouldn't be an alliterative leader that propels the country forward.

The timing here could be very interesting. Democrats seem to have little hope of winning back either the House or the Senate in 2018. If things stay this way, Republicans could very well hide behind a smoke screen of their normal obfuscation while letting Trump parade around for two years, and then announce after winning, potentially a filibuster-proof majority, that the voters had endorsed Trump's policies, even though reality says the map and seats up for election favor them. If Trump manages to learn which crazy things warrant backlash and protests, and which fly under the radar, he could manage to be propped up for the entire four years, helping usher in an even stronger majority for Republicans.

If, on the other hand, the protests and political activism that may be coming combine with one or more Trump decisions that break through the cognitively dissonant support of some of his voters, a few things might happen:

• President Trump, who we all know loves to gild things, might start believing polls that show him as un-liked. Protests and woke former Trump supporters might make these numbers sink further and break even more starkly. President Trump might turtle up and keep at things, or change, or just quit. He's a maverick after all, and has said many times he doesn't need this job.
• Slow-moving lawsuits (you actually can't sue the President for things he does as part of his official capacity, FYI) and petitions and eventually articles of impeachment might make it to the house floor. With only a simple majority needed, that's currently 26 Republicans siding with the Democrats, and would be less if it happened after midterms and Democrats picked up some seats. While it would take 2/3 of the Senate, which means a lot of Republicans switching sides and seems pretty near impossible, perhaps just the threat of getting it passed in the house would cause Trump to change course or jump ship given that Alec Baldwin consistently gets under his skin for doing an impression on air.
• The Democrats start offering more leadership and more young, Millennial voices the chance to become part of the party. If protests galvanize the Democrats in a similar way to the Tea Party, the Millennial generation can grab hold of political power. The Democratic leadership in the Senate has recently broadened, but even the Millennials willing to get arrested to change the party are advocating for a 75-year old to take control over a party he doesn't even identify as a member of. This would take Millennials rising up and denying the snowflake aspersions cast our way with little thought. I love this idea.
• Civil servants, judges, and large institutions combine to create a lasting resistance to the destruction of democratic and social norms in which President Trump is constantly engaging. From the "Resist" banner by Greenpeace to the rogue Tweets by NPS, EPA, and NASA employees, everyone everywhere makes sure that their one vote (that they probably were too busy or apathetic to cast, hence Trump winning in the first place) is followed with a few hours of dedication to the American Dream that unifies and uplifts, instead of President Trump's "American Carnage" inauguration address.

No matter what happens over the coming weeks, months, and years in our American political experiment, I know two things about myself for certain. First, I will continue to help out political campaigns for candidates I support by canvassing. I love the walking, the fulfillment I get from meeting so many good people, and the knowledge that while I only vote once, I can get many more votes cast by putting shoe leather to pavement. Second, I will keep reading and talking and being optimistic. If I stay informed, and keep reading, I will know more about why things are happening, and be able to help spread this information in my circles.

Using Biases to Win

Whether you're preparing for a meeting, changing your organization, or attempting to corral unruly employees/campers, you will be much more successful if you make use of people's cognitive biases. People like to feel street smart. They like to feel important. They like to believe that they have understood what is going on and have made an informed, intelligent choice based on that comprehension.

If you set things up cleverly, you can take advantage of this and are more likely to get people to choose whatever results you want. In addition to getting the result you desire, you are also giving people a feeling of agency, which enhances their buy-in and perseverance.

For a few marketing examples of decoys, check out this blog post. For a comprehensive and easy to read list of cognitive biases, read this.

I have often found that you can blend together a bunch of biases to get things going your way. Before you jump to some kind of "wow that's manipulative" conclusion - check yourself - this is how we do things all the time, I'm just talking about being more deliberate and increasing your effectiveness. If you genuinely care about people and want the best for you/them/the institution, then you're not being manipulative, you're being effective. Here are a few examples I've found useful over the years:

• I take really good notes for each staff member's exit interview each fall/winter. This helps people feel like they are important and that they have a say in how things go.
• Once I have a library of notes, I make sure to quote people to each other as often as possible. This means frequently re-reading the notes and is a time commitment, but people can imagine you quoting things they've said to others, which ensures people feel like they have agency and importance. It also makes people want to be mentioned in the future by you so they will focus more and try harder to impress you or be memorable.
• If I had an idea of a change I wanted to happen, I would ask a bunch of people what they thought about it. After the first person, I would be able to use the quote method mentioned above too! When I instituted the change later on, no one would question it, as most of them had already had a chance to express their opinion - and their opinion was tempered and massaged by the fact that I chose to quote peers whom they respected who agreed with the change or peers whom they didn't respect who disagreed with the change.
• People prefer to be happy - if you emphasize positive aspects of something in a way that expresses how long it will make them happy, they will be more likely to believe you. Since we start and emphasize that "Camp is for the Camper", I will also often mention how what you do with kids this week will stay with them for the rest of their lives. If your extra little bit of effort today results in lifelong positive changes for a kid, you are likely to put in that extra little bit of effort.
• People will take risks to avoid negative outcomes. If a counselor is worried about their cabin  not getting along or meshing, they are much more susceptible to suggestions that involve creative solutions. This doesn't work for positive outcomes, if a counselor is optimistic about being able to get their cabin back on track, suggest things that involve less risk. This logic works exactly the same when dealing with a camper - if they are afraid of not making friends they are willing to take more risks to get friends, if they expect to make friends, they will be more likely to respond to suggestions that don't involve as much social risk.
• Say it in a new and inventive way and people will remember it. Say it with a pun or a rhyme or an unusual physical flourish and it will be embedded in people's memories.

I think I'll have to do a series of posts moving forward digging deeper into how we use cognitive biases in a variety of ways and settings. Most social interactions are filled with overlapping biases, and people who are aware of and make use of the biases in themselves and others are powerful and effective.