bozo's return

I have a question

How come Croatia's goal was disallowed for a foul on the keeper and Holland's third wasn't ? Just asking. I'm glad the tournament came alive last night though. Was kind of twilight zone experience watching Spain's pedestal being dismantled. Finally. In game 3. The tournament became about football playing and not officiating. It's official (geddit?). Bozo is hooked.

Is the blame properly apportioned?

I have decided I am heartily sick of one particular comment. You will all have heard it, it goes along the lines of: "why does God allow all the poverty and starvation in the world?"

You really think that is God's fault?

Really?

Apparently people do - and think that the existence of poverty and starvation is a kind of proof that God cannot exist.

So. You don't think that God has provided us with enough resources in this creation to feed, clothe and house everyone?

Because I think He has. I think the problem is distribution. I think the people on earth are really very bad at distribution.

So let us consider a case study of an acquaintance of mine - who shall remain nameless.

He loves football a lot. He subscribes to Sky Sports - and BT Sports and he has a season ticket to Chelsea. Now that's quite an investment. £900-£1250 for the season ticket. According to the Sky website the Sports package is £22 on top of the £21,50 for Sky. So that's coming up to £500 a year - without even allowing for the BT Sports bolt on. Let's say a conservative £1700 a year for the lot. That's just under $2,800.

That is close to the per capita GDP for Laos - and just behind Pakistan's $3056. According to the IMF (data found here on wikipedia). According to that data. There are 47 countries whose per capita GDP is less than the cost (pre tax) of following Premiership football to the max. Our anonymous Chelsea season ticket holder needs to earn about £3000 before tax to keep doing that. This is a reasonable number to look at - as if it went to charity - it would be deductiible! £3000 is about $4900 dollars and now exceeds the per capita GDP of 63 countries.

And where does his £3000 of pre tax cash go? Well Sky pays most of their share to the Premiership - who pay their teams - who pay their players. Last week Chelsea fielded 11 millionaires with another 5 on the bench. Any profits made by Chelsea end up with Roman Abramovich, who, according to therichest.com was worth $13.6 billion back in May 2013 (although other web sources put the poor man back at only $10.6 billion).

Phew! So at least it's all going to good homes.

Now my friend cries out (trust me he does) "I earn this money - I work very hard for it. And I have the right to spend it however I want!"

And, guess what. I agree with him!

God gave us all free will. So we all get to choose what to do with our hard earned money.

I just think that what my friend doesn't get to do is blame poverty on God.

***

There is of course an addendum to this. My friend would ask - why does God not arrange the distribution fairly in the first place?

But would you want Him to do that? Really?

My friend would. But only by creating much, much more in the way of resoruces, so the poverty stricken and starving could get taken care of without anything being taken away from him personally!

The world has enough food and enough money - it is the choices of all of us with free will (and I do include myself in that category) means that it is unfairly distributed.

It makes no sense to blame that on God.

If you think God shouldnt allow it - then be careful what you wish for - because most people read the book of Amos - which is a pretty clear vision of God's opinion of people who don't look after the poor - and think that it makes God the bad guy when he wants to punish the haves for ignoring the have nots!

So...

• If you don't want God to forcibly take what is yours - that's fine.
• If you don't want to freely give what's yours - that is fine too.

But stop blaming Him for not sorting it out.

 

Goal of the Month

Bozo was watching MotD2 last night... unusually - although Colin Murray is quite good fun.

They showed the Goal of the Month for August - 9 goals - all pretty good.

Not one single one of which was scored by a player of ANY of the home nations (let alone England). Not one.

And yet, when England struggle - as they will - some bright spark will say "how come we have the best league in the world and fail internationally?"

All I have to say to that is Durr.

Not that forcing my Englishmen into the Premiershipr by virtue of any form of legislation changes this - Bozo is not bemoaning the makeup of the so-called best league in the world - he is bemoaning (in advance) the stupidity of the journalist who doesnt get the reality and thinks the magnificence of the premiership should drive England to glory.

As i said -  Durr.

Even two wins out of three for West Ham (whose goals this weekend were refreshingly scored by Nolan, Reid and Taylor) has really rekindled my interest in the Premiership.

I an just so uninspired by a load of multi-millionaires who manage to take all that wealth and all the blessings - not just of great talent - but of great talent that is strangely valued so highly - and be such awful role models - irrespective of which nation they represent.

 

Cheating

As the full magnitude of Team GB's Olympic success was sinking in - Bozo said out-loud - to his shame:

"I hope none of them gets caught cheating"

Why shame?

Because what I should have said is:

"I hope none of them was cheating!"

Like most of society Bozo can feel that cheating that isn't caught is kinda ok. And of course it is not. But isn't it a tragedy that we live in  a society where cheating is increasingly condoned? Where more and more shoulders are just shrugged?

What goes on in business ethics and in the dodgy deals of bankers is only a symptom - and the biggest metaphor for this plummeting in the values of society is sport. The biggest damage is in business - but the biggest metaphor for how we shrug our shoulders is sport.

It isn't even worth going near football/soccer. We all know that diving is OK - so long as it's our player doing it. We moan at the referee for not spotting the blatant shirt pulling -but we do not castigate or ban or vilify the shirt puller. Especially not if he is our shirt puller and not their shirt puller.

But the major tragedy in sports values occurred in Baseball in the 1990s. And it occurred with the compliance of both the ownership and governance of the game and the players. In fact the players association has a lot to answer for. But the saddest thing is that it isn't even over yet. In the 2012 season  5 drug related cheating suspensions have been handed out.

Looking at two of them - the most recent - and perhaps most high profile two - Melky Cabrera and Batolo Colon. Of course it is just a coincidence that Melky was having his greatest ever year and was playing for a new contract. Colon, aged 39, was looking to extend what had been a long and distinguished major league career. At the end of the day, for both of them - the motivation was clear. Money. No different to the motivation of the cowboys who sold mortgages to people with no jobs. It is part of the same problem.

The fact is some people will always cheat - because they like winning - and they will do so even in a friendly game of Monoploy at home. Some people will eveb cheat to beat their own kids. But other people are drawn into cheating by the rewards. And as the rewards of sporting success goes up - so does the cheating.

But I have a question - I have a question for Don Fehr who used to be head of the Major League Player's Association - but it is relevant also to Michael Weiner - who does the job currently.

Who do you represent?

Fehr fought the owners tooth and nail to prevent what currently exists as MLB's drug testing and enforcement programme. Tooth and nail! And his logic? "Why wouldn't I fight for my members to have the same rights to privacy as ordinary citizens?"

I was stunned when I heard that. Because as the players representative - it is only logical if ALL your players are using drugs to enhance their performance.

Don, were ALL Major Leaguers doping themselves on steroids?

We kinda know the answer don't we? We know that steroid use was prevalent - widespread - but we know that not all of the players were doing it.

So, it seems that what Mr Fehr was actually doing was fighting tooth and nail for the right of SOME of his members to cheat and in so doing - deprive others of his members from a fair chance to earn a living.

I mean to bring the example into the current day. Let us take Cabrera. Leaving his impact on the Giants chances of representing the NL West in the play-offs instead of one of four other teams to one side - let us consider Melky's contract hopes. He was on pace to win the NL batting title. If he had done so - some club would have paid him well to join their team as a free agent. That money paid to him - would not be being paid to someone else. Someone  honestly paying the game is seeing money that would be available to him in a team's salary budget going instead to Cabrera. Indeed, Cabrera without steroids may not even have a job - and someone who was not cheating who would have been potentially employed could have been unemployed because Cabrera got a contract by cheating. That potentially unemployed person is also a member of the MLPA. Colon was trying to prolong his career. You want to feel sorry for him? Well why not instead feel sorry for the non-cheat that Colon would have kept out of a job.

During the 1990s the MLPA and Mr Fehr were effectively forcing non-cheats to make a simple choice. Compete on the non-level playing field at a disadvantage - or  - poison their bodies by taking drugs. Does that look like fair representation to you?

Donald Fehr thought that it was his job defend those of his members who were cheating - even though the victims of the cheating were not just duped owners - or duped fans - the real economic victims of the cheating were his own non-cheating members - forced to compete on a non-level playing field.

I am surprised no member ever sued the MLPA for failing to represent them equally.

 

Doesn't seem right to me.

But what is most worrying is the idea that making moral choices is no longer seen as necessary. The idea that it is up to someone else to catch and enforce the rules on you. You are not responsible for knowing and upholding the rules.

Of course many of you think that Bozo is on cloud cuckoo land. That cheating has always existed. That human nature and blah and blah and blah.

But I disagree. I disagree totally. Sure there have always been cheats - but not so prevalent as today. And one of the reasons is that we as a society are more willing to condone, more willing to shrug our shoulders, more willing to move on and not worry.

The slow march of society toward total immorality is the pot of water that is slowly heating up - and we are the frog sitting in the pot not noticing that the world is going to hell in a hand basket. And when the pot is boiling - like the frog - we will be too dead to do anything.

 

 

Gold, other medals - and Prizes for All

We are a funny country - or maybe we are a funny species.

Let me give some contextual examples as background.

Do you remember Hunter and Purchase, exhausted mentally and physically - and apologising in tears to the country that they only got Silver?

Do you remember Rebecca Adlington tearfully saying she felt she had let everyone down when she got bronze and not Gold?

(Let us not mention the millionaire soccer playings limping out as usual with no apology at all)

Do you remember Tom Daley ecstatic about his Bronze - even though he had Gold from the world championships and he himself and the country both had higher expectations.

Tom was happy... not sad .. and not apologetic. And I believe rightly so. "Diving is such an on-the-day sport" he said. "All you can do is your best on the day and hope that the years of training get rewarded with a medal."

How mature! He came 16th in the opening phase and barely qualified for the semi-final. But, David Boudia - who won the Gold - had come 18th and qualified dead last for the semi! It is indeed an on-the-day sport. And Tom had every right to be happy - and in my view so did Becca and Hunter/Purchase - and the four rowing boys who missed Gold by 0.2 seconds.

Ok, I hear you cry, enough context, what's your point?

Well shortly after the Games I heard that David Cameron had said we needed a new focus on competitive sport in schools and an end to the "prizes for all" philosophy.

And I agree with him.

Then, on Tuesday I was at a meeting with a client in which we discussed a performance and reward project I did a year or two back for a major global blue-chip employing over a hundred thousand people. This project had as its challenge (and it was a big challenge) the task of moving middle management away from rewarding people for how hard they tried or how hard they worked and instead rewarding them for what they achieved.

All of this comes together in my mind. Because medals for all is wrong.

I know why many people like it. They don't like that the poor geeky kid who is rubbish at football and cannot run or swim for toffee always comes last and gets jeered at by his compatriots. Well for a start let us acknowledge that this is two separate problems. The problem of kids jeering at- and being cruel to- one another hasn't been solved in many thousands of years of recorded civilisation - and you aren't going to solve it by giving the kids who run slow prizes. The second problem is that (in my experience at least) most kids/people are actually good at some sort of sport - but there isn't enough sport diversity in schools to find out what the geeky kid is good at.  You may say that sports clubs abound - but if he has never seen a squash court - who decides to go to a squash club?

The BBC (as Bozo has bemoaned) along with the other media have placed athletics at the pinnacle of Olympic endeavour - and let us face some facts - 65 UK medals - 8 of them from athletics. Sport is bigger than running jumping and throwing - and it is certainly bigger than premiership football - but that is another blog altogether.

And, you ask, what has all this got to do with performance and reward? What is the link between poor reward strategies and giving geeky kids medals for coming last?

Well first - the major selling point of prizes-for-all is that people believe (and rightly so I think) the old saying that: "It doesn't matter if you win or lose, so long as you tried your best!".

But - if someone comes last - or second last - or even fourth - how do you know they tried their best? How? Given human ability to game and con any system ever devised - one of the easier challenges is not bothering to come better than last - and not trying at all - especially when the reward for last is the same as the reward for first!

Companies that like low differentiated pay - and low differentiated bonuses and equal rewards for all employees in the spirit of "fairness" are of course just being UNFAIR to the people who achieve the most. If 20% of your people produce 80% of your value (and Pareto seems to work in most instances) is it fair to pair those 20% the same as the others? Really?

Bill Shankley once said "If it doesn't matter if you win or lose, how come we keep score?"

You see  in Sport and business both we need to reward people who are doing their best - but to know they are doing their best we need to measure their performance.

Tom Daley provides us with a good example. Scoring over 500 in a diving competition is considered good. Its about 83.33 points per dive. 9 of the 12 finalists managed that. I am led to believe that Tom's 557 points would win a lot of competitions quite handily. The winner - was we have noted - came 18th and barely scraped into the semi.  The fact was that Tom was brilliant on the day - and two blokes were more brilliant. Tom was worthy of his Bronze - worthy of being happy - and worthy of being judged to have done all he could on the day. Certainly worthy of being called successful. If you had asked Victor Minibaev ahead of the tournament if he would take a place in the final and 527 points - he would have said yes - and he placed fourth! I hope no one is Russia thinks Victor failed (If he was Australian he would have been run out of town).

You see the point is we know by measurement that Tom performed well. His reward was well earned.

There was British bloke who came last in the 800m race that saw a new world record. His time was both his personal best - and the fourth fastest time ever by a Brit AND would have won the last 3 Olympic 800m finals! Does anyone think Andrew Osagie was a failure? He did his best - prove-ably - by measurement and by historical analysis - and his reward? Nothing. Nada. Niente. That is the harshness of sport.

Actually there may be one member of the British media who thought Andrew was a failure. She interviewed Ben Ainslie and asked if Britain's 1 Gold and 4 silvers at sailing were a failure!! How dim.

The thing is - you cannot give prizes to all (nor yet bonuses). You have to reward success. And, you have to be measuring things to know if someone is trying their best/improving/achieving.

Prizes for all do not work. Because it encourages people not to try at all.

And, frankly - if you can discourage your staff from working very very hard whilst achieving nothing of value - well that is a good idea too.

So what is all this about?

Well no matter how well Andrew Osagie ran - he didn't get rewarded - and he shouldn't. Was he a failure? No. Should he get a medal? No.

And there are many people in your organisation who fit that profile. It's sad but true.

Because if you reward Andrew for doing his best - well the point of achieving excellence - and the incentive to do it - will be lost to your organisation forever.

So ask yourselves:

• do I measure?
• Do I measure the right things?
• Do I measure honestly and realistically?
• And does my pay and bonus scheme reflect a desire to build a culture that values achievement and success?

I wrote last week about how heartbreaking it was for fourth placed Elizabeth Simmonds. We can measure that she didn't fail - but the system is clear - you need third to get the medal - the system is clear and transparent. She got the right reward.

Is your reward system as clear and transparent as that? You may have such good measures in place that you can give "medals" to your foruth - or even tenth - place finishers - but if your reward system gives bonuses for people for turning up, doing their day job - and maybe staying late a few times - without measuring what they actually achieve - you have got it wrong - and will be unfair to your most productive people -and drive a culture of mediocrity through your firm. The harsh realities of how UK Sport has funded different disciplines based on success has accurately reflected the harshness of global elite sport - and has driven a culture of excellence through some disciplines that have produced shiny medal results for all to see.

If they respond in a "soft" way to the performance of UK Swimming against expectation -I predict it will have negative repercussions for the culture of excellence. I it heard loud and clear when former US Olympic champ and World record holder Michael Johnson said on Gabby Logan's show "the most refreshing thing I have seen this time - in all the years of working for the BBC is that the culture of rewarding mediocrity has gone."

 

...............

 

Now... there is PS/Aside/Coda to this involving banking...

You see proponents of Bill Shankley's view abound in investment banks and use it to justify their own bonus strategies. But banking isn't a game of football. Paying a man £5 million for buying a load of sub-prime mortgages that make money by the end of the year isn't the same as giving a winners medal to people who win the cup final.

Because nothing you did to win the cup final last year carries a risk over into this year. But as we all know - those sub-prime mortgages became both unsellable and worthless. They generated billions in losses. But the man who bought them still has £5 million in the bank doesn't he?

You see the final whistle is a good time to measure who won the cup final. The final whistle of the final game is a good time to measure who won the Premiership. The winner crossing the finish line is a good time to measure who won the 800m. After the 6th dive seems a good time to measure who won the diving.

But is the end of the financial year really a good time to measure who should get paid what in banking? When the evidence that asset values can go from 100 to 0 as quickly as we saw in 2007-2008? Is mark-to-market as sound a concept as you think? (especially when market measures like LIBO are discredited and rig-able)??

Reward success - all in favour - reward extravagant success extravagantly - all in favour.

But please, please, please let us measure the right things, measure them honestly and measure them realistically.

 

 

Team GB

Team GB are getting plenty of accolades... but they deserve them all.

I know the media will make sure that jess Ennis and Mo will be properly famous.

But I do not think you can find a better reason for triumphal gloating than the Track Cycling.

Medals available 10

Medals won:       9 (of which 7 Gold)

I don't blame the world federation for changing the rules because GB would have got 20 medals in 10 events if they hadn't. But it still rankles that no one sees its wrong to have three Jamaicans on the podium in the 200m - but its apparently wrong to have more than one Brit on the pdium in cycling.

One rule for all say I.

Rowing also deserves a mention. Also with a maximum of one team per event - so one medal per event.

Medals Available  14 (although we didn't enter one event so 13 in practical terms)

Medals won:         9 (of which 4 Gold)

 

Sailing Medals Available 10

Medals won                     5 (of which only 1 Gold - but 4 silver winners were all in the running for Gold until the final race - and some of them until the final 100 metres of the final race)

And last but not least - Boxing

Medals Available - 10 (boys and girls)

Medals won             5 (3 Golds...)

 

It was refreshing that the wonders of multi-channel digital broadcasting m,eant that we got real coverage of these events for a change - and I hope that continues in Rio - even if Bozo will be too ancient to stay up all night watching.

My one last special mention is for the GB gymnasts. Thank you all for educating me on how amazing a sport that is - if you hadn't been doing well - I would never have found out.

 

 

 

 

Gabby Logan

Having kept late night company with Ms Logan (Bozo is old enough to remember when she was Ms Yorath, in fact Bozo is old enough to remember her dad playing football for Leeds Utd...but I digress...)...

Bozo, chaperoned by Mrs Bozo watched Gabby every night of the games. The first couple of shows were a bit grim - but as team GB started winning medals and Gabby's rapport with her guests grew it got to be absolutely compulsive viewing. So having given it the Gold Star Bozo thumbs up - let me drop my only criticism in here...

Gabby - you really need to work on your interview technique. Your standard approach is to ask the question and then spend a minute or two suggesting what the answer might be - while some poor Olympian sits there trying to get a word in edgeways (and often failing). It looked grim in the studio - but when the poor soul was sat in Weymouth or Windsor with a 2-3 second delay in the question, they were starting to answer just as you were getting to the midway point of answering for them! Cringe making.

But - if you develop the confidence to sit quietly and listen (like Parkinson) they will give you gold - and you will look much cleverer. Trust me.

That being said - you gave us enormous joy. Ian Thorpe and Michael Johnson were spectacular regulars. Denise Lewis was good (aside from the "minority sports" faux pas) and so was McEnroe.

The whole show became like watching tele with your mates. Up there with Soocer Am vintage 2000 (after which Lovejoy became increasingly insufferable - do please learn from that).

The only contemporary thing that gets close is Dan LeBatard's show on ESPN with his dad #DLHQ ...the best sports chat on tv these days.

Well done Gabby.

 

Elizabeth Simmonds

Bozo has always thought that coming fourth has to be the worst heartbreak in the Olympics. By far.

So let us give a (belated) shout-out to Lizzie Simmonds.

Age 21, First ever Olympics. Qualified 7th for the final of the 200m Backstroke.

So Mr and Mrs Bozo were watching the final - and expecting a typical British back of the pack finish. And the thing is we got better than that. Lizzie gave us the swim of her life. She finished 4th - 3 places better than her qualification and only .7 of a second put of Bronze - beaten by soon to be legend Missy Franklin.

Well done Lizzie Simmonds. You are probably gutted to be without a medal - nothing to put in a cabinet - but you did the swim of your life. You left nothing in the dressing room. And although no one will remember who came fourth and you won't get your face on an mdf board in Gaby Logan's studio, Mr and Mrs Bozo salute you.

I am glad that Team GB has a mentality and spirit now that demands and expects excellence. I truly am. I do not want to let that go - it is too much fun sitting on the sofa sobbing when we win another Gold. BUT I don't want us to lose sight of the Lizzie Simmonds' of this world - who do what Olympians are really meant to do - turn up - and do the best they can possibly do - and finish as high as they possibly can.

It was tragic to see poor Becca Adlington feeling she had let the country down with 2 bronzes. it was even more tragic to see Purchase and Hunter barely able to walk after leaving it all out on the lake saying "sorry" for winning a Silver medal!

I don't even want to mention that the only apology I haven't seen or read or heard of was the one missing from the British Olympic Football Team. The richest most pampered and highest paid members of Team GB. They did what was expected of them - bowed out tamely in a QF to South Korea in a shoot-out. They can console themselves with going back to earning 7 figure salaries and being lionized by a media that will forget Ben Ainslie and Jess Ennis by 3.15pm on the day the premier League kicks off.

If you want role models - then look no further than Lizzie Simmonds.

Well done Lizzie.

 

The Best Laid Plans

Were you - like Bozo - hooked on the hype for the men's 250km cycle race?

The fact that they cycled past my front door helped...no queuing ... no ticket buying ... front row...

But in the end - having given up on the possibility that the "masterplan" might be successful about an hour before the experts - I was relieved that the Kazakh and the Colombian went off and won it.

Why?

Well it seems to me they just raced 250km - on their own - faster than anyone else! And, once I got past the experts explaining it all to me - it occurred to me that the object of the exercise was to race 250km faster than anyone else. It really was a lot less simple than everyone made out.

If the fastest guy around 250km wins the Gold surely no one can have any complaints?

At one stage one of the experts said that Cavendish could break away and go for it - but there would be no point doing that as then he wouldn't have the energy for his famous sprint.

They seemed sure that sticking with the plan was better. As indeed did all of team GB. But is it me being dim? Does it not make more sense to at least be in the sprint?

It's like a football team being 1-0 down in the World Cup Final and saying. "No point giving everything to equalise - we will be too tired for the Extra Time and lose anyway!"

 

So the masterplan yielded a predicted (by Bozo with 2 hours to go) 29th. He was awarded the same time as the lone South African - who had no team nurturing him round - and whose plan seemed to be to keep cycling fast for 250km.

Are you telling me that making a break to join the leading group would have been so much worse? Really? And - if he had finished 39th or 49th instead of 29th - are you really saying he and Team GB and the hype-suckered British public would have been that much more disappointed?

Of course I am not an expert.

 

Experts

Bozo has watched pretty much every minute of the rowing (we can deal with the awful infection of Olymic Fever later) and has enjoyed it all - from GB's chance of making all 13 A Finals to the boy from Niger.

 

But what makes it all worth while is the colour commentary by Dan Topolski.

It seems that an Eton and Oxford education and many years as a rower and coach prepared him so thoroughly that he could inform us on Monday that:

The outside lanes are on either side of the course."

Thanks Dan -