John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part II

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My comment should only be taken within the context given... it has happened many times with working peers in Asia. Its a -not cause me to loose face or not show disrespect to me. They wouldn't tell me because it was my product and it didn't work well, they respected me as their senior so didn't want to tell me that my amp sucked. When in fact it was fine.... grounding issues. But that cultural characteristic cost a year of time. Now they respect me even more because they learned something about the right and wrong ways of grounding.

BTW - The owner/investors and president interviewed me for the position of their CEO. These are smart wealhty (uber) business men with many investments in small businesses. I accepted. the people I know very well for 20 years yet this cultural habit persists while I am the rude direct speaking American. They are great friends of mine and though I don't work with them any more (no salary and no free condo), they honor me with an office to work out of if desired for my personal projects and help and I do same for them. That is how Dadod's circuitry got into their hands and owner/investor is putting up the money to make a run of them based on my relationship and trust.

Basically, you don't know what you are talking about.

-Richard

As to your last point:

I lived in Japan for over 3 years, held a job were I visited the Far East 6 times a year, was married to an Asian wife for 18 years and am now doing business on an almost daily basis with Chinese counterparts.

For the rest of it:

When you learn how to read between the lines, you will increasingly understand how much we all have in common.

What I found is that pomposity, boastfulness and attempts to project innate superiority by top management can easily lead to the result you mentioned: staff will not communicate problems or failures.

This is not a cross-cultural issue, but a lack of management skills. How come, that your staff did not trust you to react in a constructive way to their mentioning of a technical issue? For over a year? Nothing to do with culture, just textbook bad management.
 
... the EE who didn't check the motor wiring phasing. Gross negligence IMO.

I don't believe in gross negligence in most cases. I had a wonderful plumber who understood all the aspects of our eccentric HVAC system, but when he installed a new garbage disposal for our neighbor he forgot to punch out the plug in the dishwasher drain and their dishwasher was toast. I would still hire him in a minute. Judgement and trust matter more than that knife in hand give them the boot way of working together, everyone can make an honest mistake.

When my head layout person had breast cancer I threw the timesheets in the trash and told her to ignore HR rules.
 
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Poor Richard, he was placed in a difficult position in Asia, it would seem. I would have the same problem too. What many Americans would call 'excessive politeness' is not our style, even in speech. We tend to omit: please, thank you, if you have the time, etc from our directed speech to our employees, unless there is an exceptional reason for it, and we don't don't expect it from the people directing us. It just saves time, and is not part of our culture.
Americans for the same reason seem to be very rude compared to the French for example, when these social terms are used everywhere it would seem. However, I think there is something more, if one is to be liked in the workplace as an employer, and I have, and do work for others who have it far more than me. It is wanting to keep employees happy by paying attention to them with little gifts and things. One of my employers used to pay virtually minimum wage to his techs, but he would buy them lunch, give them little presents, etc. They seemed happier in the workplace than I would have been in their place, but that sort of social lubrication doesn't come as easily or naturally from me, for example. I just pay well, and try to help when I can, or when I am asked. I admire those people who create an extra happy working environment.
 
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Dismissing something out of hand without researching the topic is nothing but self deception, reality disagrees.

Narcissists Tend to Become Leaders
https://www.forbes.com/sites/amymor...get-promoted-but-do-they-make-better-leaders/
Narcissism: Why It's So Rampant in Politics | Psychology Today

Cheers Michael
If I were dismissing something "out of hand", I'd probably say " I dismiss that out of hand".
Perhaps you meant to say something else? What you did was erect a straw man argument to knock down.

It appears your three links have used the same source content. The first is just an article discussing the other links so does not count as independent.

Research should be tested by others to confirm validity, it looks like your cites are about to be published. It may be valid and accurate, peer review and time will tell.

Jn
 
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?.. the EE who didn't check the motor wiring phasing. Gross negligence IMO. But, he too didn't work for me.
I am surprised that a motor would fry so easily when spun backwards. Normally we bump a motor after wiring to verify direction.
This kind of knee jerk reaction here re. good management practices and spins and insinuations and one-upmanship are ugly and getting really old and tiring. I didnt work in a vacuum. I had to compete with 200 others with my job title. I was ranked #2. I think this means by my peers and above - I am very good at what I do.

THx-RNMarsh
I didn't see a knee jerk reaction here, nor any ugliness. We're there posts removed I didn't see?
Jn
Edit..ah, I see it now. I lean towards most of vac's statement, however not his chalking up the year to poor management skills. There I tend to agree with you.
 
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If I were dismissing something "out of hand", I'd probably say " I dismiss that out of hand".
Perhaps you meant to say something else? What you did was erect a straw man argument to knock down.

It appears your three links have used the same source content. The first is just an article discussing the other links so does not count as independent.

Research should be tested by others to confirm validity, it looks like your cites are about to be published. It may be valid and accurate, peer review and time will tell.

Jn


Before attempting at distorting, disqualifying and nitpicking on trivial matters, I suggest you going pack to your own initial post and work out a bit on why;

reality may not agree with it.

as a reply to the following statement;

more often than not, people striving for top position in the corporate and political world are if not downright narcissists and psychopaths at least border personalities

for which I later made my best albeit perhaps subpar attempt at providing a few sources to support the aforementioned supposition.

And, if possible, please make sure your eventual findings are "peer reviewed", thank you.
 
Before attempting at distorting, disqualifying and nitpicking on trivial matters, I suggest you going pack to your own initial post and work out a bit on why;



as a reply to the following statement;



for which I later made my best albeit perhaps subpar attempt at providing a few sources to support the aforementioned supposition.

You are off the mark. I will attempt to better explain.

The fact that I tended to agree with what was stated does NOT mean that the statement is valid. Nowadays, so many people are blindly believing that which they feel aligns with their own thinking. Having a science background, I cautioned that reality may not be consistent with what I am inclined to agree with. Nothing more, nothing less..
And, if possible, please make sure your eventual findings are "peer reviewed", thank you.
I am not the one publishing, so there is nothing on this topic that I would be involved with. Nor am I a reviewer for that publication. It is the psycologist type people the research article is directed to who will peer review it. They will also be the ones to review the methodology, biases and statistics.

I assume that you have misread my intent simply because of language, that is not a problem for me. (meaning, I am ok with the discussion)

J
 
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Ugh, I'm trying to find it. There have been too many plane crashes lately that are flooding the search engine :( (I listened to a Podcast and then read about it, around 6 or so years ago)

Here's a tid bit about the same thing, including that one flight mentioned earlier.

what about sociopaths?

People use the word sociopath and psychopath interchangeable but I believe there is an original distinction, found in the name. Socio, social, paths, like to be admired. They feed off of everyone liking them and go to amazing lengths to accomplish that; in very psychopathic ways of not showing empathy and burning through people if the net gain is still big. They need the lime light. Where as a psychopath doesn't necessarily care at all about the lime light, they're just self serving to the point where us normals can't even understand them fully.
 
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This is not a cross-cultural issue, but a lack of management skills. How come, that your staff did not trust you to react in a constructive way to their mentioning of a technical issue? For over a year? Nothing to do with culture, just textbook bad management.

I would agree if that was the situation. It is not. There are many many other factors. There were other projects being worked and this one was a new one which had not been funded at that point. Low priority to them. The people doing the work do not speak English, for one. Only upper management. Then, most of the time I am not over there. CEO is not for day to day issues which the managers should deal with. It was the managers whom did not know how to fix the problem of personnel or the test and measurement issue I found for them. I do not usually do trouble shooting of electronics for them. The save face issue is very alive and well in Asia and plays its part. And, poor communications skills between upper management and myself. That has changed after this event and delay. After their president died too young, there left a leadership vacuum at the company. And, none of the EE there have such skills and know they need a leader. They got one who was also an investor who lives in Thailand but down south. However, he too had a stroke and cant get to Bangkok anymore So, they are leaderless again. I have started to fill that post for them by having a comprehensive review of the companies finances, talks with marketing/sales etc etc. But I am not there long enough. So, this trip I will be available for 4 months. I am not their CEO anymore - retired. And I am not being paid. But because I am personal freinds with many and I used to be their CEO, they respond well to me. And, they need the help. Suffice it to say, you/others should not read too much into anything here.


THx-RNMarsh
 
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I don't believe in gross negligence in most cases. I had a wonderful plumber who understood all the aspects of our eccentric HVAC system, but when he installed a new garbage disposal for our neighbor he forgot to punch out the plug in the dishwasher drain and their dishwasher was toast. I would still hire him in a minute. Judgement and trust matter more than that knife in hand give them the boot way of working together, everyone can make an honest mistake.

When my head layout person had breast cancer I threw the timesheets in the trash and told her to ignore HR rules.

That is your prerogative. I wouldn't rehire that man for other plumping work. As for the cancer woman, I would also do same. however, if her work was in a critical path, I would replace her but move her to another job/roll.

And that isn't any where near the scale of error I brought up. LLNL is not producing a product for profit. They get a budget and have to produce results in a certain time frame. If someone is careless or negligent, they jeopardize the whole project by costing it a lot of money not in the budget to fix/redo and lost time. Both things which are Not flexible.

THx-RNMarsh
 
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What Richard and I have tried to talk about when mentioning that many, if not most Asians do not give direct conversation about problems or bad news, might be partially conveyed by my actual experience almost 40 years ago that potentially got me into a lot of trouble:
In 1978 I was approached by a Japanese guy who wanted to invest in a company headed by me, and he would take 25%, but he would fund the whole thing. However, I had to make a corporation so that he could transfer funds, etc. This seemed an offer 'made in heaven' and I enthusiastically went for it. Of course, it could be all 'hot air' but my Japanese investor came through with a large down payment, and scheduled me to give a talk in Japan (at his expense) at the Tokyo Audio Fair latter in that year.
I got two other people, one for the business side, one for the production side to create the company "J C Audio Laboratories" (ever heard of it?) and gave them significant shares of stock in the company. Then we leased space, hired technicians, bought tools, etc, etc.
A second major payment was promised around the time I went to Japan to give the paper, (essentially the same one that I gave for the IEEE earlier in the year). No warning, nothing negative, just relative quiet, while my trip to Japan was being planned. Of course, we were getting worried, because we had a corporation with employees, and we had salaries and bills to pay. Still no negative commentary, just polite silence. Finally I went to Japan, this part was paid by the Japanese investor, and he put up an exhibit that cost plenty at the Japan Audio Fair, and he paid my expenses, but what about my employees, etc? I never got a 'sorry John there is no more money', or any other direct commentary, but after I returned to the USA, we were out of money, and it never came. We scrambled to make other projects, and survived for another year or so, but it could have been terrible, if we kept up hope for further funding from the Japanese investor. Why couldn't he level with us? It appears to be a cultural thing, so far as I can understand.
 
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