And the real truth is…

We, human beings, try quite hard to make the world look as nice as possible. Nothing odd with that. It is natural. Green grass is nicer than dirty soil. The upside of flowers looks better than the downside, where all roots are hiding. The haircuts are mostly, with some exceptions, well done, our clothes are mostly following the fashion styles of today and so forth.
There is a tale that a deeper self-knowledge, earned by and through psychoanalysis or a long-term self-insight psychotherapy process, would bring man into a greater understanding and an even better outlook at life and oneself. It sounds quite often as if these kind of dives beneath the superficialities of man is also quite nice, almost as a dive in the surroundings of the Great Barrier Reef outside Australia or in the Red Sea.
But deep inside are a lot of other, not so very beauitful parts, hiding. There are the sources of the unhibited aggressions and the naked desire and lust for the uncovered sexuality; there are the layers of pain and sorrow; there are the hostile envy and the conflict creators; there are all the parts we have tried and tried and tried and at last succeeded to hide (at least parts of all dirty things).
Who do you think that you are?
The bright one? The enlighted one? The kind one? The smiling, friendly one?
But this is not you. This is the surface of you.
Behind and beneath and beyond you are the animal dressed up as a human being. And when the animal goes hungry or thirsty he is prepared to kill. And when he is experiencing too much of oppression he is becoming the revolutionary wolf. Or, perhaps, just going nuts, getting crazy.
The real truth is always a lot more complex and complicated than what the surface shows.

And this is life

You become born.
You have a lot (and I really mean a lot) to do to adjust to this world.
You grow up, very slowly.
Anxiousness and weak self confidence gradually disappear (if you are lucky and smart enough to find good enough tools to cope with all these conflicts that appear everywhere).
One day you will say: “Am I already in my grown up years?”
And the answer will be: “Yes, you are.”
After a short while, just a few years up to a couple of decades, you start to plan for your descent.
And now, the end is near, and I will face the final curtain…. (Sinatra: My way).
And this is life: the new generation will replace you.
Yes, this is life.
The first picture shows my pretty grandson.
The second picture shows my beautiful eldest daughter, at the moment very pregnant.
Yes, this is life.
I am happy.

On prediction of man

A skilled meteorologist is able to predict what kind of weather you will meet during the next 10-14 days. The period above 5 up to 14 days is quite uncertain, but it is anyhow possible to make a rather good probability of the weather situation also for next week.
The selection of people prior to a possible employment in a comapny or in an organisation includes quite often special selection techniques, such as psychometric tests and interviews. The recruitment experts claim that they are able to predict failure or success regarding a special candidate for the future 10, 15 or even 20 years. Is this just a hoax? Is it possible to really predict all kinds of behaviour for such a long time in the future?
According to my experience (and my experience rests on more than forty years of work as a “predictor” of human behaviour) it is possible, providing that the recruitment process is built on several important factors, such as:
1) a very thorough, well defined requirement profile,
2) a complete battery of assessment techniques, all of those worked out and evaluated during a long-term process,
3) a so called deep interview with the candidate, where the interview has to be conducted by an experienced and skilled person, preferably a behaviour scientist or a psychologist.
In these days there are a lot of so called experts within the field of recruitment and selection. All of them are, in reality, no experts. They may have very limited professional experiences or deeply rooted psychological knowledge, and in such a case the prediction coming out from their reports is perhaps in the same area as the meterologist: the predictions may be true up to 14 days from now, no longer than that. Which of course is worthless.
So, you´d better check up the so called experts, or the so called professors.
It is good to be suspicious and to use your critical mind.

Kill Dad!

How old do you want to become? What kind of career do you want to make?
There are some scientists, who seriously believe that it will become possible to prolong the lives of the Human Beings – a lot! Perhaps several hundred years! This will be one of the results of future research of our genes and our primary cell developments. And of the art of transplantation techniques.
Would you like to stay alive for three hundred years? Or for five hundred?
Are you sure?
There is, in this context, a certain problem of importance. If you want to make a career within an ordinary occupational field there are already too many people in front of you. Just think about an example: your boss, let us say that he is now 63 years of age, will perhaps live until he will become 263, and if he wants to stay in his position for another 100 years, well….then he is definitely in your way.
The solution is: kill him! Don´t let him stay too long in his position! What I mean is that the present kill process has to increase – a lot!
The present kill process?
Yes. Also today there is a certain, old fashioned kill process going on. Dad represents the authority of yesterday. He has to become replaced. If he does not move by himself – let us move him!
No, I am not talking about my own children and their relations to me. We love each other.
I am thinking of the processes going on, primarily within the professional working fields. I have several former, younger colleagues behaving in a way that says: kill Dad!
But I make still some resistance and I am still alive.

Affiliation and identity

If you are interested in human behaviour in groups – have a look at the crowd following a soccer or an icehockey game. The crowd roars: ecstatic joy – and aggression – here and there. Why is it so very important to identify oneself as a fan, belonging to a sport club? And why do I have to relate to those that claim that they belong to another club in a way that looks just as if we are almost deadly enemies? What are the forces behind these kind of human behaviour?
I think that the answer is our need of finding an affiliation, a belonging, and, due to that, an identity of a specific kind. If your primary family is not able to support you with that kind of basic feeling, and if the society is too complex, too difficult to understand, I believe that a lot of people search desperately for something more easy to grasp and to cling to.
The hard core of the football and soccer and icehockey crowd is filled with those, who once were afraid to become lost in the common world, the outcast, the ones that were not able to understand the complexity of the world we live in. They found their enjoyment and happiness in the club affiliation.
I do not envy them.

When is enough enough?

There is an old saying: the one that has it all wants even more. This goes for pleasure, for money, for living conditions, for power, for honour and so on.
When the society spends hundred of billions for care of the sick ones there is a stream of patients coming to the hospitals and to the polyclinical care stations. If the government spends more money the stream of patients will increase.
When my former colleagues saw the possibilities in gaining out of the fact that I had to somewhat calm down, not working as much as I had done before, some of them tried to throw me completely overboard. They went mad, opened their mouths for more….and more….and more. They claimed that I had retired, which was a lie, and when they were asked if I served as their Senior advisor, which was a requirement for their new positions, they said yes, which was another lie.
Some people are never satisfied. Perhaps for a very brief moment. But then they act as hungry kids, trying to get more, and better, and bigger. and…
Some people have not learned that enough could be enough.

Aggression as a requirement

Do you want to make changes in your life? Real changes?
Do you want to become a force for development?
Do you want to achieve something that you have not achieved before?
Well, then you have start to accelerate – climbing over the hindrances. Most of them are within yourself.
Acceleration needs some source of power. When you turn the ignition key in your car fuel are immideately transported to the ignition room, and the power of electricity is mixed together with the power of the fuel chemistry – and POW! the engine starts to roar.
Your power of energy is named aggression. No, it is not always a bad word. The aggressive energy is a must if you want to make things happen, particularly if you want to make some changes of your life directions.
The goals of your life is a mixture of your desire and your experiences. The road to your goal is not always an easy one. It could be a very bumpy road. So, steam it up! Use your aggression!

Under the 15 bridges in Stockholm

During the Swedish summer season there is a possibility to see a large part of Stockholm from the seaside. If you take the sightseeing boat from Strömkajen or from Nybroviken that takes you for an almost two hour ride under the Stockholm bridges and through two locks you will have a great view of Stockholm city. And if you press the button for the Swedish voice (you have several languages to choose from) that will guide you all the way – the voice you will hear belongs to – me.

THAI pilot recruitment

I have assisted THAI Airways International for forty years, starting at 1967, ending in 2007. My main work was to assist in the pilot selection process, finding the most suitable ones according to the requirements. It was a hard, inspiring, challenging, stimulating job.
In 2006 THAI turned to a young, new, Swedish consultant group of behaviour scientists. On request by THAI my intention was to serve as the Senior Advisor of the new consultant company. But for several reasons I did not fulfil that kind of duty. One of the main reasons was that the new consultant group deviated too much from my methodological points of views and as the new consultants did not want to listen to my advices I thought I´d better leave them alone. This new group of consultants, formed into this new consultant company, is not yet known in Scandinavia. As far as I know it has no other customers but THAI. I can only hope that the company despite this serious situation will be able to achieve a good enough result for THAI.