SALS Conference 1989: Tape 11 - Ian Macdonald Part 1

Speaker A You.

Speaker B This afternoon, I'd like to discuss the assessment of potential. There's some technical difficulties involved in this, seeing as really some of the material that I'm going to present and will be used for discussion is probably better used in groups of about six or seven. So this is a sort of size 50 small group. We've got some videotapes to watch, but we'll break into smaller groups later because it's just not possible to have the sort of detailed discussions in a large group. I really want to raise several questions about the assessment of potential based on some of the comments raised yesterday and some of the things that Elliot was talking about this morning. The way you ended Elliot talking about trust reminded me of a particular story, another favorite story of mine, which has to do with trust, some of you know, which is a story about an Englishman who had been a bank teller all his life and was a good level one or stratum one position. And he'd had ambitions and at times thought he'd had potential to go beyond this, but he'd never had the courage to do anything beyond that. But he did have one ambition or desire, which was to see the view at Beachy Head. Those of you don't know England, that's very, very steep cliff, which is renowned not only for its marvellous view, but also as a favourite spot for suicides. Anyway, he decided on the day of his retirement he would treat himself, he would actually go and see that view. So he retired from his bank teller's job and he got on the train, went down towards Beachy Head and he was pretty anxious about the whole thing. This is the most exciting thing he'd ever done in his life. And he went out, walked towards the edge of the cliff and he was about 20ft away and he could begin to see the view. And he thought it was marvelous, it's terrific. But inside he knew that this wasn't exactly what he meant, he should get closer. So he walked a bit closer to the edge of the cliff and he was about 5ft away and he could see a lot more there. This is fine. But still he knew that wasn't what he really meant to do. He had to get even closer. So he screwed up all his courage and he went right to the edge of the cliff and it really was magnificent. It was the best experience he'd ever had. And the whole of the scenery was just as he'd hoped it would be. And as he was standing there, the edge of the cliff gave way and over he went. But as he went over, he grabbed onto some tufts of grass just at the top of the cliff and he was hanging there above this hundreds of feet drop. So he looked up and he called out, Is anybody there? And nothing, nothing at all. So he called again, is anybody there? And at that moment, the sky parted, and this voice called down from above and said, yes, my son, I am here. And he said, what shall I do? And the voice said, have faith, my son. Trust me. What shall I do? And the voice said, trust me. Just let go of the grass and trust me. And he was hanging. Then he could feel the grass giving way, and he looked up again and he said, is anybody else there's? Now, looking at the assessment of potential, one of the purposes today, well, this afternoon, is to really hopefully examine some of the models that we're using to look at both potential of people and what their current capabilities are. Now, if all of us involved in organizations know that, the organizations really have to ask two basic questions about people working within them. First one, obviously, is what people can do now, and the second one what people will be able to do in the future. Now, that seems very straightforward, but what it does is underline the fact that most people do have some sort of developmental theory that what people can do now may not be the same as what people will do in the future. And the other aspect is it seems to be a general assumption, whether people have heard of stratified systems theory or not, that people assume that that development will occur at different rates. That seems to be a general assumption. The problem comes in looking at how organizations model that and how they even try to model that. Now, I was very struck by working with the UK civil service, which I have done for quite a few years now, and doing so in two capacities. First of all, as I'm what's called a panel psychologist for the civil service selection board, which means that I sit on boards assessing the potential of what they call fast stream candidates. So these are the people who they're trying to decide whether they have very high potential or not. As a result of that, obviously, with the other work I was doing, I got interested in trying to work out what sort of models they were using. I use this example because I think it's not untypical of a lot of organizations. So a colleague who in fact has been involved in working on stratified systems theory, and particularly career path appreciation with Gillian and I, Sarah Paul, we undertook some research for them to look at how members of these panels actually did make decisions about potential of individuals. And it was very revealing because there were almost as many models and assumptions as there were assessors in terms of what it was people reported that they saw in the young people who were coming to these assessment centers. Now, I thought that was very interesting, but they didn't. And to this day they don't find it terribly interesting because when I actually examined those and we put together their assumptions with some of the Stratified systems theory modeling, they were not terribly concerned about it. And certainly when they looked at the implications of training or retraining their assessors, they decided that it wasn't worth it. And why is? Because they, like a lot of organizations, took the assumption that they based the assessment on potential on purely statistical modeling. That is, what they said was if we get a group of people and they make similar judgments and those judgments then have a reasonable predictive validity, then why do we need to know how it is that these people make judgments? And they were just satisfied with that. Now, I think one of the things that we might share here is that maybe you can do better than just that statistical modeling. One of the problems then is to say how do you present models in a coherent and usable way so that people can without years and years of training get some commonality in their judgments and actually see how the criteria change over time and which ones hold up and which ones don't. That requires a great deal of hard work and they just didn't regard it was worth it in terms of their results, which and I've got a paper on that which were not bad in terms of the predictive validity anyway. But I think maybe here we are concerned to look at some of the processes involved and to see what commonality there is. Now bezel would people agree that's a useful process to do now that assumes that we have a way of articulating that process. And I think it's fair to say over the years that's not been a very simple task to accomplish. And yet it's one that relating back to things you were saying this morning. Elliot, if people are talking about mode level strata and meaning slightly different things by all of those, then we're not only going to be confused amongst ourselves, but actually have the potential for confusing a great number of organizations and individuals in the process. And some of the questions that I really want to ask are around our assumptions of what we mean by mode listening to, well, not just mode mode and Stratum cognitive states, cognitive categories, as you were saying this morning, Elliot. And what exactly these mean now looking at or listening yesterday evening, there was in the language that people used, there were well, there was just different usage. Some people used the word level. Some people were using stratum. I noticed that some people actually use the descriptive label level one person for example, or Stratum fours. Take that for example. To me that's very confusing terminology. What do you mean by a level one person? Is that somebody who is mode one working at Stratum One? Or what about somebody who is in a Stratum One role, who has the capability currently to work at Stratum Three, for example, and has the potential to work at Stratum six. How do we actually distinguish between those people and the shorthand, particularly the shorthand, and it's one that we've I think it's fair to say, Carl, we've tried to tidy up a bit in CRA. I just noticed that using terms like level one person, level two person caused a tremendous amount of distress in the organization and actually led to the interpretation of the theories and the models as being quite oppressive. And I think we have a cultural problem anyway, certainly in the field of psychology. And my experience of a lot of organizations of a very strong antithesis to quotes, categorizing and labeling, putting people in boxes, wrapping them up and saying, this is it. Seeing our modeling as very deterministic, where you go through some sort of procedure and you get a tattoo or something on you and that's you sorted out for the rest of your organizational life. And to me, I think, as you were saying, Elliot, this morning, using the shorthand terms can sometimes be actually more unhelpful in those situations and can lead to that sort of interpretation or that stereotyping of what is a very wide range of ideas into another one of these systems. I said to you yesterday about the work I do in the field of mental handicap. I've just run a series of workshops in the United Kingdom just to make this point about labeling. And quite a bit of my work has been looking at the capability of people with a mental handicap, how they get defined as such, and the sorts of complexity that people in that situation can handle and how that differs from people in work and different levels of work. I ran a two day workshop on assessment, and in two days, and maybe it was partly my failure, I had some of the leading clinical psychologists in the field came to that, and in two days I failed to get across that it was actually important to make some of these distinctions. The group of people were so against anything that they immediately categorized as intelligence testing. And the effects that intelligence testing had had on people with a mental handicap, for example, keeping them in long stay institutions, assuming that they couldn't make certain choices, assuming that they couldn't handle certain problems in their lives, meant that they even rejected the possibility of exploring that area. And it was quite a hard two days for me because I kept being pushed into that category myself. On the other hand, and I'll see one of the tapes later, the possibility of trying to understand how it is that somebody really does construct their world and then being able to work with a person in terms of that construction and give people opportunities and see the extension as well of their worlds is critical. I don't see how a lot of those questions can be answered about what provisions can be offered to people, whether it happens to be in work or these institutions without really understanding the way that people construct their worlds. But it's not an easy process and one which, if you do start to be confusing can lead to those sorts of misunderstandings. Now, I think some of the problems that I'd like to raise for discussion and not necessarily for resolution this afternoon, I'm afraid to say, are issues such as what we mean in this context, assessment of potential. What we mean by mode and how we differentiate between modes and whether people in this Room would share the criteria on which those distinctions are made. Further, what is the distinction if we're looking at current somebody's current ability between somebody who we make judgments and we talk about people who are, say, mode four at stratum Two? What's the difference between somebody who is mode four working at stratum two and somebody who is mode three working at stratum Two? How at any one time look at from another point of view at any one time do you see the potential and what is it that you see? How much of it do you see? Where is the sickness in a 16 year old? How do you somebody raised that? Who is it, Terry? Yeah. Talking about working with younger people. What I notice is that people tend to do it. People do talk about whether it's somebody of 16 or 20 or certainly by early 20s start to distinguish between people who they judge will be able at some time in their lives, for example, to take on work at stratum four or stratum five and those people who maybe will struggle to work above stratum Three. So what is it that we're seeing and do we share that because the processes that we use well, there's a question. Does it matter whether the processes we use and the definitions that we use, does it matter whether they're different and what are the significant differences? If you look at the range of descriptions in the written material alone there are clearly differences. Which are the significant differences? There are two other issues. One is the nature of discontinuity which relates to that point. With regard to mode, there seems to be quite a bit of discussion as to the extent to which people experience significant changes or not as they move through strata. And I'm assuming development where people actually do have work have the opportunity to do work consistent with their capability. That's a major assumption. But just for the sake of argument, to what extent do people really experience a different way of constructing the world and to what extent did they always have that with them? Is if work is discontinuous, are people and what is it that we see in terms of somebody reaching out beyond, say, stratum two role, reaching out beyond that and giving us some evidence of higher capability? Conversely, as people develop and move through the various strata what happens to the behavior? Do we see it literally disappear? Do people no longer attempt to solve problems as they used to? So that's in various possibilities. If you take this as a range of behavior, let's say the judgment is that they are within mode five and they are currently appropriately capable of carrying accountability for work at Stratum two. What sort of distribution of behavior would you expect to see most behavior consistent with the Stratham Two work, how much of three or how much of four? And where's the fiveness? But also if you take the same person now at four, are we saying that actually there is no residue behavior there? That it's mainly four, but quite a bit of five? I'll be interested in people's experiences and hypotheses. Talking to some people, they do talk about significant shifts and experiencing significant changes. Talk to others, both informally and through using the CPA, who don't who don't particularly feel any different in terms of the way that they construct the world at all. They do feel different in the extent to which they can actually use that capability or in a particular role, can demonstrate that capability, but they don't see any major changes. How important is it for us to agree on some of these issues? And that, presumably, is part of the purpose of a meeting like this for a week to have the opportunity to discuss these sorts of problems and share those experiences.

Speaker A Um.

Speaker B One of the distinctions that I'd like to make, but we'll come back to later, is the difference between a person in a situation where they have an actual task to complete. That is, they actually have a problem that they are required to solve and actually be paid, for example, for solving a problem and the situation where somebody is asked to talk about or think about the resolution of a problem, but they don't actually have the accountability for solving it, for actually generating ideas and generating possibilities for solving problems. And so come back to that, whether we distinguish between those sorts of events. Now, we have various ways of looking at the way people construct their worlds, and I want to come back to that later on after one of the exercises. But that may be one of the distinctions in looking at those processes that is useful. What strikes me, however, is that in most cases, the assessment of potential is not done in any formalized way. There is no overall organizational requirement, for example, for everybody to go through a career path appreciation interview. Most of the decisions about potential and the realization of potential are made by managers or manager once removed. With regard to the way people behave, the way they see, the way they experience people day to day, what is it? And some of those managers are fairly confident. And as in the civil service, some of those managers are very accurate in their judgments, very strong predictive validity what is it that those people are actually paying attention to and looking at? What do you think?

Speaker A It narrow the subject of the question.

Speaker B Would I like what what do we think about yeah, just generally that last point point most people are working with organizations. You talk to managers, they're making these judgments. They're not necessarily using any formal processes. They might be writing things down. But I mean, what sort of what do they tell you?

Speaker A In my experience, multilanager do use some criteria. Most of the time they work them out on their own. Most of the time, consistency. This person has kind of traits or characteristics, general behavior, hardware, nature, not really visiting to select, but in their mind, they do have criteria. I think it works fairly well, lower level, but it begins to break down at the higher level because a couple that I've watched, I'm not sure, but high level confidence in themselves and their own current and future. Wood and they seem to look at people who exemplify or behave or operate in ways that are similar to them.

Speaker B In terms of the way in which.

Speaker A They go with all their problems, making decisions, hacking on things. So it's very self related based on self concept, both in terms of current, though, and their own future belief about their.

Speaker B One of the things picking up on both of those issues, that was the problem that I had with the civil Service was, yes, people would report they were using various criteria. When you started to examine those, they were fairly woolly in terms of what they actually used. A lot of other people, my experience is exactly as you've said, it's a relative judgment. Is this person quotes brighter than I am? Are they the same sort of person as I am? One of the ways that I've characterized that in the past of self assessment, if you like, of mode or assessment of mode of another person is that people seem to be very quickly able to relate to people who are quotes the same as me.

Speaker A All I read is two or three examples. It wasn't limiting in the sense that there's a person sharper than I or brighter. The good ones seem to be also able to say that that person is smarter than me.

Speaker B Right? But when we look at those relationships and you hear comments like somebody quotes who's sort of one mode below, the sort of statement, the judgmental statements are things like, yeah, well, that was quite interesting. Quite interesting that he said that but took him rather a long time. Two modes below are very much about, well, I don't even know why he bothered to say that. Somebody who's a mode above is gosh, I wish I'd thought of that. Two modes above is how the hell did he or she think that up? That's brilliant. When you get beyond that, it seems that it's like magic. No idea how the person comes to think of these sorts of things, and people will use those sort of relative judgments. The problem is, it depends what mode you are to begin with and then your own judgment. I think in the process, it's important from my point of view not to lose sight of the person's own judgment of themselves. One of the factors which very strongly attracted me to your theories, Elliot, in the first place was the concept of felt fairness and the fact that a lot of your writing was about people's own sense and normalcy in that way of their own sense of their capabilities and their own reality and being in touch with that and consequently having a sense of what is fair payment for the sort of work that I'm doing at the moment. And part of the process of making judgments. What that did for me was saying at that time in the world of psychology was to say, my goodness, here's somebody who actually recognizes the quotes, the validity of the subject, that we're not talking about a system which is separated from the subject. An awful lot of other categorizing systems were more concerned with raters being correct and agreeing amongst themselves, and that actually being separated from the person being assessed and subject being seen as in a very passive light. And consequently, the whole notion of testing in that sense of, look, come and do a test. You won't understand anything about it. You won't have any understanding of how this actually relates to any of your experiences, but you go through these sorts of things, and then I'll tell you how clever you are at the end of it. And if you argue with me, then I'll show you the statistical validity of all of these tests and so on, demonstrate that I'm right and you're not. And here we had a completely different conception of the world where it was rather important what the person's own view of their reality and their capability was, which then is very consistent, in my view, with the development of career path appreciation, where, again, when you go through that whole process of sharing that judgment with the other person and understanding their reaction to that, what do they think about it? But that also depends on us being able to offer a model to the person which is intelligible. If your judgment is a particular mode or that somebody who's currently capable of working at a particular stratum, do they understand what those concepts mean? Anyway, to try and get.

Speaker C The context of how accurate or inaccurate organizations are at actually making those judgments. And just a recent statistic, and it goes back to the Shell International study of the internal accuracy predicting over ten years. Harrison was 35% accuracy. Imperial Oil is an on again offering a client of ours in Canada, and that's the Exxon or so affiliate there. And they went back and did their own research on their own predictability. Taking as the way to do that, they looked at all the people in the last twelve years that they had predicted would reach, in our language, stratum five capability within. And they did not, as Shell had done, filter out those who left the organization for some reason in between. But they had less than 20% accuracy. And of all the organizations I've worked with, they are the best at sitting down methodically at about the equivalent of a manager once removed level and working on those issues of predicting where people will go. So that's pretty abysmal in terms of any long term forecasting, at least about they're going back and recrunching the numbers to see if they take out people that left, whether or not they be closer to shell. I suspect a lot of people are left for the very reasons that they.

Speaker A Weren'T back here dealt with in the organization.

Speaker B Dan flushing out that same point.

Speaker D Katie want to comment? We've had an enormous difficulty to our company misassessment of capability and are probably running roughly 180 degrees out. We are no better than guessing, and we are in most cases picking our worst people to be our best and our best to be our worst. Probably fewer than 30% to 40% of our managers in job possess the capability of even learning the job, let alone actually performing. Sounds like pretty accurate instrument.

Speaker B Just take two populations.

Speaker D I'm just saying the normal process is a manager of selection, promotion and assessment.

Speaker B Yeah, we would be better off not.

Speaker D Trying to assess at all random. We'd be, we'd be good.

Speaker C These people would understand.

Speaker B But yeah.

Speaker E I think one of the.

Speaker F Things that on which departments are looking at but there seems to be a systematic overvaluing of people in mode four, particularly those who have a certain kind of aggressive personal style that seems to match certain kinds of expectations and a systematic undervaluing of people in mode five and above. It's not so much 180 degree level. There are different things that in particular case that was true, but it's the misunderstanding of the higher people of presumably.

Speaker B Higher potential that has been very sad.

Speaker F Because they get squashed below people in the hierarchy. And.

Speaker B One of the things that I became interested in was looking at the use of language. And that's when we'll actually do some work now and people have to wake up. And it started off from my point of view of actually looking at the development of language in people with a mental handicap. What I noticed was, for example, there were a group of people who did not use the personal pronoun, who didn't use I, that there were various people who in their language, could not actually use language separate from the objects that they were talking about. And I can go further into that. There's a paper that's available for distribution looking at the use of language in mental handicap. What I did notice, however, was that when people did effectively use the personal pronoun, when they could also understand the difference between I and you and use that effectively, it became just I'd noticed socially it became increasingly embarrassing to talk about them as if they were mentally handicapped to use that label. It's a very strong correlation between that. And I noticed that staff and carers dropped the label when they started to be able to communicate in certain ways, no matter what quotes their IQ score, no matter what their so called physical disabilities or a current range of skills. Then started to get interested in the use of language in ordinary everyday life and how it is people picked up information from the way people talked and discussed about problem solving. What I want to do now is use some tapes to show you the use of language. And then later on, Flyn I got very interested in Flyn's work when Elliot was telling me about the work he was doing. And Elliot very kindly gave me a very short section of Flyn's PhD thesis, which I've now seen the rest of thank you yesterday. And Flyn will talk about that. And I'd like to draw some comparisons between these approaches. But first of all, all I want to do, it's very difficult to talk about making these judgments. And one of the things we found was that constructing situations where it was very artificial, a sort of case study approach, when we were trying to look at, for example, what's the difference between various modes or strata that I remember sitting in the hotel in Australia and we couldn't reproduce the language. And what you actually need are real examples. So as Don is now darkening the room, what I'd like to do is show you some extracts. In fact, I've got a whole range, but I've just chosen three. Now, when you've seen these extracts, I have split the group into smaller groups. And the very rough basis on which that's done is to actually try and put people together who at least know each other at the moment and have had some sort of working experience together. So that what I'd like you to do when you go into the small groups is to reflect on these three very short examples and see is there anything we're not carrying out some real judgments about these people as individuals, but what sort of models are you using? Can you say anything from these examples about either the current capability of the individuals and secondly, are there any indications that any of these people have demonstrate any potential? And then to meet in small groups and discuss that so that when we come back we'll look at the extent to which you can make those judgments. But more importantly, on what basis, what's been significant information. Now, these are videotapes and this huge screen here where you'll be able to see everything doesn't matter. I think the language and. The way people discuss the issues are more important than actually seeing the people. Let me tell you just very briefly then, about what these situations are. I hope most of you understand Australian, because two of them are from an Australian TV program which was concerned with a jolly discussion about euthanasia. And it's an open discussion, and there are two extracts from that of people with their views on euthanasia. The third extract, where, if you like, you can look at both of the people, is an interview between an Australian interviewer and a BBC journalist whose name is Michael Burke. Some of you may have heard of him. He was the person whose report on Ethiopia really gave a great deal attention to that, and he's talking about his work as a journalist. So any questions before we actually have a look at this? Okay, there is in two of the videos, there's effectively only one person. In the third one, I think it would be useful to look at Michael Burke, but you also might think in terms of the questions about relativity, of whether the interviewer is how much brighter the interviewer is than Michael Burke. All right, I know some of you have probably seen this before, okay?

Speaker E We're in a society, seems to me, that doesn't hesitate to take the cream of our youth and chop them up to another country and kill them off, not even in defense, their own country. And then at the same time, we're talking about, well, how far can we go? How far are they going to have to be? Will the doctors be able to have a say? And I think they have sparkly mistakes and things that will somebody else irrational be able to talk about it, but right, or will they be depressed? I think it's a whole lot hypocrisy. Do you realize that the women in the world with us, the carers that we are, we sit and we watch someone that we've loved and cared for most of our lives slowly disintegrate before our very eyes. And either we've got to be as brave as this lady over here, it has made a pact with her husband that she'll take the chance that she'll be had up for murder, and that's all. We go. We sit passively by and wait. It happens. Surely I want to know the conclusion, well, that's ridiculous. If you haven't interrupted, I'll be finished by now. The whole thing is that here we are in the situation, and there are going to be hundreds, if not thousands of older people in our aging society who are going to be as they are, already homeless and neglected in the situation, that they've got nothing really to live for. They have enough to train the league to start off with.

Speaker G People who want to say something.

Speaker E We've got to have the freedom of choice if we're going to be brought up in a world that is supposed to be we are mature adults. We can make a decision early if you want to, that if we should have the freedom be able to die in kidneys. And all this yak is not getting us very far towards it.

Speaker A It's.

Speaker B Coming up with the second one.

Speaker G I work as a psychiatry registrar in the final unit at the Oxford Hospital. And in my experience in that unit, many patients have expressed the wish to die. In particular, that occurs early on in the course of their convalescence. And what we find is that as they rehabilitate, the vast majority of patients lose that wish to die. And many of the patients I'm sorry, you say the vast majority. Aren't there those that you can't really help? Yes, there are those who, in fact, continue to express a wish to die. But what we have found is that the majority of those who express that wish are, in fact, depressed. And what we have found is that the majority of patients and I can't give you an exact figure, but we know that the figure who are depressed when they leave the hospital is approximately 10%. But 90% of patients, despite that income from a wide variety of levels of injury and degrees of disability, in fact, don't express that wish. And many patients have expressed to us that they are very glad that no one in fact acted upon or allowed them to act upon their wish to die at that early day.

Speaker A I'd like to take yours someone who's.

Speaker G Castor for the BBC for 15 years. It was his reports from Ethiopia and South Africa that brought the fight of those countries into lounge rooms right around the world and that ever so famous voice. We now meet the face Michael Burke joins us this morning. Good morning. Good morning, michael, what you've done is awakened the world to what goes on in South Africa and Ethiopia and other countries. Are things getting any better in South Africa?

Speaker H Not really, no, I don't think so. Certainly when I went to South Africa in 1983, things seemed to be rather hopeful that some of the apartheid laws have been reformed, as you know, and seemed to be moving forward in a way. But then there was this almost kind of uprising that came that's been put down now, and the whole thing seems to have stagnated and the changes that the parties and the racial laws seem to have come to a halt.

Speaker G Censorship, zombishly Hindered yes, I think so.

Speaker H Because the uprising has been suppressed in a way, and because I think those people who were outrising have got tired, and it's waiting for the next time it comes up. But because of censorship, people don't really know whether there's any violence around or not because, of course, reporting online is not allowed.

Speaker G So in a sense, that's working against.

Speaker H The South African government. If things really have quietened down, how.

Speaker G Can we possibly help the black people in south Africa. Are sanctions more a help or a Hindus?

Speaker H Oh, gosh, that's a real political question to ask a reporter, isn't it? My personal view is that the sanctions imposed by the outside world or the level of sanctions imposed by the outside world don't do anything really more than make the white government in South Africa more determined to stick to its own path. Certainly the sort of sanctions that have been contemplated by the Western government so far.

Speaker G Let's have a look now at one of your reports on Ethiopia. How on earth, Michael, how could you possibly cope with walking into that nightmare?

Speaker H It was very difficult. I think, as a journalist, and particularly a reporter in Africa, you can become hardened to lots of things, but it's very difficult to become hardened to misery on that scale, both the numbers and the way that people were suffering. And you stood there in the middle of it and you thought to know all those confused emotions going through your mind, smelling it, feeling it, touching, having people holding babies in front of you and kissing a white man. I think you're a doctor and can help. And you're just a reporter if you can't, and you wish you could have been better at biology at school and been a doctor. All those things running through your mind of great confusion, wondering how you can communicate to people sitting at home and experiencing it thirdhand through a television screen in their uncomfortable lounges, how you can communicate all the things that you're feeling through to those sort of people and wondering if you're ever going to be able to.

Speaker G Did you also wonder how we remain ignorant for so long about it?

Speaker H Yes, to a certain extent. I mean, that was a really complicated story as to why this thing had suddenly tipped over from being a very grievous situation into an absolute catastrophe. But I have to say that even now we don't report a lot of what's going on in Africa. We only report it when thousands of people are dying, as they are in Ethiopia. But the whole conference, in a sense, is sliding towards catastrophes of that kind, and we're not really reporting it.

Speaker B Three examples do is break into six groups. Okay, but this isn't terribly important.

Speaker G There's six groups, not seven.

Speaker B George made up the first two groups. Which rooms do we have to use? Yeah. Have we got just someone I can stick these on the wall.

Speaker G Do you have some tape?

Speaker B Yes.

Speaker A Anymore? Oh, no.

Speaker G That's the only reason.

Speaker B It's just trying to put some people together who've had us at least work together in that we really don't have a great deal of time. And discussing some of these issues with people who you haven't met who may be using very different assumptions. Those thought would take a lot longer so that we might start, at least in smaller groups, with some common understanding.

Speaker G That maybe.

Speaker B How big is the room.

Speaker D We have this space which is large enough to set up really two groups divided across downstairs on the first floor of the registration building just behind the office is the seminar room, which is.

Speaker A Our.

Speaker D The room right at the back by the coffee machine divided by this cold house is the third room. We have lounge area over by the dining room. We have outside we need several places and it looks like it's a terrific place to be.