The “drunkard’s walk” refers to the Brownian motion, the seemingly random movement of particles suspended in a fluid. The original thought was that you might be able to calculate the movement by measuring and calculating the interaction. It proved impossible. There are too many factors and too many interactions. Small changes in a system can … Read more »
Tag: Perception
Whales and Compliance
I was surprised to be thinking about compliance while I was reading about whales. Sure, I eat, drink and sleep compliance. But there are some lessons that compliance professionals can learn from the study of whales. This came up while I was reading Watching Giants: The Secret Lives of Whales by Elin Kelsey. My original … Read more »
Perception, Dilbert and a Magical Management Necklace
Are your assumptions correct? You get a new tool to help manage your processes and everything starts working better. Is everything actually working better? Or is the data just being manipulated to look better? As is often the case, the pointy-haired boss can show us the problem. Often the compliance officer is like the pointy-haired … Read more »
Criticism and Praise
Do criticism and praise work to affect performance? Leonard Mlodinow briefly addressed this topic in The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives. He explores the studies of Daniel Kahneman who was lecturing the Israeli air force flight instructors on behavior modification. Kahneman was trying to make the point that rewarding positive behavior works, but … Read more »