Poo

During a casual conversation, Vivian said, "There is on the internet a plan amongst people north to the Shenzhen River to come to our city on the National Day and pee or poo around."

"Of course I heard of it. Who doesn't? This is the response to the recent conflict between the couple who allowed their child to relax his back passage in the public and some local citizens who were slightly too eager to use their video cameras."

"I think they are overreacting." My wife said.

"Alas! From their point of view, this is part of the same country, and they could behave just like home." I smiled, "After all, there are a whole lot of places in our city that could be suitable for our friends to relieve their distended bladder or rectum."

"Oh, do you mean the home of that Mr So, or even Mr Leung!?" My wife asked.

"My dear, don't be too harsh to them. They do not know what they are doing - or, do they? Since our friends from the other side of the river are so confident in doing what they think justified, I would suggest they should exercise their pelvic automatic nerves outside the Foreign Correspondents' Club at the Central (中環外國記者會). I'm sure our Chinese culture and tradition should be advertised around the world!"

Ecology

(The meeting in the Department of Environment Protection continues.)

"This is no good. Our country needs a forest and a wealth of wildlife." The minister shakes his head.

"Sir, you are right - but only partly," the private secretary murmurs, "Our country also needs agriculture and industry and a whole lot of other things - we have so many citizens, new and old, who needs to make a living. There is an opportunistic cost when we decide how to use the water from the river."

"Minister, if our aim is to preserve a diversity of wildlife in our country, there is nothing to worry." The permanent secretary says calmly.

"What do you mean?"

"You see? Yes, the forest is disappearing, and we can no longer find deers or squirrels or woodpeckers. Nonetheless, there are other animals that struggle for their living in a desert. We have camel, fennec fox, lizard, and a handful of others."

"But... the spectrum is different! And the land is no as fertile as it used to be!" The minister raise his voice.

"Sir, you'd better see it as a change in ecology." The permanent secretary says carefully.

"Is it? Humphrey, when do you become a Buddhist?" The minister says, finding himself more cynical than ever.

Desert

(In a meeting of the Department of Environment Protection.)

James, the Minister of Environment Protection, begins, “Look. Our forest is turning into a desert. Why’s that the case?”

“Sir, that’s because the place is not suitable for the living of trees or animals.” Humphrey, the Permanent Secretary of the department, replies.

The Minister, who happens to have read Edward de Bono, wishes to say that’s a level one explanation. However, he swallows those words back to his throat and regurgitates them in a different way, “In that case, why should the place be not suitable for those lovely creatures?”

“Maybe there’s not enough water…” Bernard, the private secretary of James, tries to help.

“I see that the river that used to pass through the forest has been diverted to somewhere else,” the minister points to the map, “What’s happening there?”

“That’s true, minister,” the permanent secretary replies, “The water is saved for the Department of Agriculture. You know, farming is an important aspect of our country.”

Simple

You may find it surprising to call making pizza a whole-day game.

Well, it is not – unless you are making this traditional Italian dish with children.

It goes like this: After breakfast and some morning routines (for example, practising piano), I brought my princesses to a supermarket to buy the ingredient. In addition to having great fun, it is an excellent opportunity to show them different kinds of cheese, sausages, vegetables, and herbs. I also taught Euterpe how to compare price and so forth. Once you also consider the time for discussing what type of candy to buy and lining up to pay, a whole morning is just sufficient.

And, after a quick lunch, the girls went for a nap. I took the chance to unpack the flour and moisten the yeast. (Believe it or not, I also took the time and reviewed a  grant application for the Bureau.) When they woke up, we made the dough together. (For obvious reasons, the girls added the yeast and water to the flour, and I did the messy job of mixing.) While we were waiting for the dough to raise, we had a quick afternoon tea. Then, alas, it came the climax: I rolled out the pizza dough and my princessess added the topping as they liked. (It turns out that parmesan cheese is their favorite – they were trying to eat it that and there!) After all these, when we took the final product out of the oven, it was almost dinner time.

Happiness could be very simple.

No, happiness is usually very simple.

Pizza

The main celebration that I had with my princesses during the Easter holiday was making pizza at home.

The story goes like this: Euterpe is always fond of eating pizza. During the Christmas time, while she was bored of studying for her mid-term examination, I made the promise that if she does reasonably well in her examination, we shall make pizza together at home during the Easter holiday.

And, that’s that. For obvious reasons, Adler needs to have a hand on this interesting game.

Here is our result:

Concert

(Open letter from a famous pop star.)

Dear fans,

I am here to announce I shall not take part in any concert performance in the future. There will still be performances on the stage, but they would only be recorded in and sold as DVD.

I understand this is a tough decision and may not be universally welcome. Nonetheless I consider it as a necessary move, and there are numerous reasons to support so. First, watching a recorded performance rather than a flesh-and-blood one does not only do away with the variation in quality, it allows fine editing and guarantee the audience to watch my singing and dancing at the best of quality.

More importantly, the box record of my concert has been declining, and, even amongst the ones who do buy a ticket, half of them fall asleep before the toilet break, and the other half just sit there. They don’t even clap – not to say cheer or yell. The atmosphere of my concert is not cool. It is not even cold, but literally freezing. I fancy my crew of camera men give a better response than my concert audience.

Therefore, don’t blame me for cancelling the concert. My heart remains enthusiastic. But, dear fans, please think once again what you have contributed to the success of my performance.

Sincerely, et cetera, XX

油渣麵

On an recent occasion, I was asked to sit in a meeting and listen to the students’ feedback to our medical curriculum.

I shall not tell you the exact details. By and large the points are much expected. Nonetheless, while I was sitting there and playing with my Nexus, a joke that I heard many years ago flashed through my mind:

********************
A man goes into a bean curd bistro (荳品舖), sits down by the table, and makes his order, “A bowl of cracklings noodle (油渣麵), please.”

“Sir, do you have any specific order for your noodle?” The waiter asks.

“More cracklings for me, please” the man replies, and, then, he thinks for a while and adds, “Oh, I also want more dongcai (冬菜) and more noodles.”

“Kitchen!” The waiter yelled, “Two bowls of cracklings noodle!”

PS. For those who are not familiar with the Hong Kong culture, it is a tradition of many bean curd bistros to serve cracklings noodle. The reason for this association is not entirely clear.

Notes

I remained silent for a while to digest what L said. Then, I decided to change the topic slightly, “I see that you are bringing along with you a note book. If you believe the entire exercise of program review and opinion collection is kind of a window dressing, why do you have to take notes during the meeting?”

“Alas, I take notes, but I do not jot down the opinion that people expressed during the meeting!”

“What!?”

“You see? What everyone say in the meeting is immaterial. I put down the words of only one person – the chairman's! This is the official opinion; it indicates what the boss really wants to happen!”

“L, you are such an evil!” I exclaimed.

“Well, I shall take that as a compliment.” My friend said with a twist of his lips.

Purposes

"In that case, what's the purpose?" I asked, and, as soon as I posed my question, remembering what I wrote about silences and I began to see light, "Oh, policy review is a formality. The opinion and suggestion of the others doesn't matter much - but F needs to appear to be open and democratic. He has his own idea and know what to design for the new policy."

"You are quite right," L smiled, "That's half of the reason."

"So, what's the other half?"

"My friend, you should have some idea about who's who in my company. Who do you think should be the chairman if there is only one committee to take charge of designing the new policy?"

"E..." I said slowly, and began to see what my friend was getting at, "My goodness, that's exactly what F doesn't want. The Review Committee is necessary so that F is apparently engaged in some important aspect of the new policy. On the other hand, F could have his own people - maybe F himself - to take charge of the policy design!"

Two

After a moment of silence, L asked, “My friend, what do you make out of it?”

“Em… I know E as well as F, your CEO, from the morning paper. I must say F is usually efficient and has a distinct distaste for bureaucracy. The idea of setting up two parallel committees doesn’t seem to be his personality.”

“Very true. From the very simple neuronal reflex to the complex operation of a government, the sequence of event should always be information collection, integration, and execution – all to be done in a single system. If we have our eyes to see what’s going on and our legs to walk, the latter would never know where to go before the former bring the necessary information to the brain. In this case, however, why should the Policy Design Committee be doing when the Review Committee is still collecting information?”

“Maybe the Design Committee is not yet working?” I asked.

"In that case what's the point of having two committees? Doesn't it make more sense to have the same group of people - whatever the name of this committee - to review the existing policy and then design a new one?" L said.

"Let's come clear. What are you implying?" I was getting more puzzled, "Do you mean F is nuts?"

"Of course not. Everything has a reason..."

Committees

While thinking about the sound of silence, I met my friend L again.

“Hullo. Long time no see.” I suddenly realized he had in his hands a voluminous file and a small note book, “Oh, I could see that you are hurrying to a meeting. What a surprise!”

“Alas, I have to prove myself worth the salt,” my friend looked slightly embarrassed, “. And, as to the project that I am being involved, I suppose you know well enough the behaviour of extraterrestrials. Let me show you the letter that drew me into this muddle.”

He showed me a piece of re-use paper – obviously my friend printed it out by his own computer from an email:

************************
Dear L,

I would like to invite you to join the Policy Review Committee. I know some of your colleagues are already in the Policy Design Committee but it is vital, per our CEO’s view too, that the two committees overlap and work in tandem.

(I omit here another 2000 words or so, all about the work to be done.)

Due to major time constraints, we probably need to start working very soon.

Sincerely, et cetera, E (Chairman of the Policy Review Committee)

************************
I put down the paper and looked at my friend. I must have appeared very puzzled – for my friend was smiling curiously.

沉默

今天發生了一件事情，當時我曾經想力陳己見，最後選擇了沉默。我認為沉默是必要的。

事情的始末在此無關宏旨。不外是大夥兒圍坐桌旁，主事者以諮詢為名，着各人發表意見。余在此廿年，大小會議不知凡幾，過程卻也萬變不離其中。一腔熱誠者侃侃而談。其法上者旁徵博引，大有隆中獻策，不回天地不入偏舟之慨；次者止於論事，能見眼前蠅頭利弊，卻難辨遠大方向；再次者偏論人，渲染道聽塗說，以嚼舌根為樂；更有其下者挾持私慮，或見機行事，或混水摸魚，純為一己私利。余置身其中，須臾即頭暈轉向，口乾舌燥，耳鳴盗汗，不能自已。欲陳己見，是不能也。

然，廟堂之上，儕朋之間，口舌便給，指點江山，余亦不為。何也？會議論事，主持者多有腹稿。圍爐諮詢，不外圖個意思，以示開明；席間所言，能改上意者稀矣。更甚者，偶有在位者能操馬拉松討論，各人暢所欲言，不合上意者便逐一駁倒。此時會議，便成競猜主席肚內迴虫的遊戲。力陳己見，於事何益？

或曰，此種沉默，可稱適切，卻非必要。然自古成大事者，鮮有逞一時之快。昔紂踞商室，比干剖心陳情，不過添一寃魂；無箕子披髮佯狂，百世之後，何有三星韓流？曹阿瞞為漢相，彌衡、孔融直言竊國，下場可知。而劉豫州者，倘非困淺水時潛而勿用，嘻笑煮酒而論天下，日後如何借荆入蜀，得延漢祚？吾等縱一介布衣，既非朝廷棟樑，社稷所繫，更無意窺竊神器，逐鹿中原；然，家國天下，其理無異；政令得行，必須潛移默化，幕後游說，交近而孤遠。雄辯滔滔，口若懸河，徒逞能而不能服衆，更遑論暴虎憑河，死而無悔，吾當不與。沉默，因聽琴者牛， 言非其時，非不言也。書空咄咄，因明夷待訪，行非其地，非無所為也。此所謂：大勇若怯也。

Announcement

(An announcement from the Department of Transport of an imaginary city.)

To whom it may concern,

In order to achieve the important goal of eliminating all traffic accident, the Department of Transport decides to ban driving practice in the street by students of the School of Motoring. Although there is no evidence to show that driving students are an important cause of traffic accident, the Department sees the potential risk of allowing students to practice driving in the street. Feedback from some senior teachers of the School of Motoring also confirms that the new generation driving students may not be mature enough to handle the stress in the street in real-life. In response to the need of cultivating safe drivers, the government has decided to allocate extra resource to the above-mentioned driving experts for setting up a new Driving Skill Simulation Centre so that future students could learn driving in a stress-free environment.

Let’s work together and jump on any trivial incident. As to road safety, we should not be forgiving and no minor accident is acceptable.

XXX
Minister of Transportation
18 April 2034

Transparent

Another little story that flashed through.

**********************
The emperor asks his courtiers to make for him the most extravagant new suit.

After some time, the minister of external affair submitted one. To the surprise of the emperor, the submission was an empty box.

He summoned this imaginative officer and demanded an explanation.

“Your majesty,” the minister bowed, “This is the most trendy and honest garment on earth. It is known as transparency.”

Alas, the king was convinced. He put on the new suit and went to the parade, hallucinating all ridicules as praises.

PS. I actually told this story some time ago. See http://ccszeto.blogspot.hk/2009/04/blog-post.html

Fire

While I was watching the musical, another story came through my mind.

*************************
There is a fire in the forest. All animals gather together and discuss the way to escape.

The monkey says, “I am the most intelligent animal. Let me tell you all where to go.”

The giraffe says, “Em... I am the tallest animal and can see the farthest. Let me lead your way.”

The eagle says, “No. I can fly and has the best eyesight. I know the best where to go.”

An ant says, “Oh, we are all members of the forest and should have the right to contribute my opinion. Let’s be democratic and vote.”

And, after another round of discussion, the lion roared, “Guys. Listen. I am the king of the forest. I shall decide where to go – just follow the king!”

I shall leave it to your imagination where those animals went.

Competition

The story goes like this: The hare, the tortoise, and a dozen of other animals plan to have a contest for fun. To begin with, they cannot come to the agreement what game to play; while the duck and the frog object to the idea of a simple racing because they cannot run fast, the hare and the deer are strongly against the idea of swimming gala as neither of them know how to float on water.

After a lengthy discussion, the wise old cow suggests a cross-country racing that encompasses both running and swimming. Moreover, each participating animal can bring their own equipment to help them finish with the competition – as long as they are not hindering the others.

**************************
I shall not elaborate on who wins the race and how and why. This is a perfect illustration of what a fair competition is. No, it is unrealistic to ask for everyone being the same or starting at the same line. In fact, it is close to impossible to have a system that allows every participant to have a similar probability of winning. All we could – and all we have to – guarantee is everyone has some chance to win, and setting plot against the others is not allowed.

Musical

In a recent weekend, I watched a musical with my younger daughter.

Don't be surprised. This is a musical for kids organized by my princess' kindergarten. Although she is a few months before 4 years of age, the performance was interesting enough to keep her sitting attentively for one and a half hour.

You may think I would be rather bored. Well, yes and no. If you consider the quality of the songs and singing, there is certainly a big room for improvement. (In this regard, I must say the only musical that I praise is Les Misérables. The Phantom of the Opera may be acceptable, and I never fancy Cats or Miss Saigon.) Nonetheless, the story is a remarkable one. In my opinion, it outshines most of the tales by Hans Christian Andersen or Brothers Grimm - and is closed to the level of Aesop's Fables.

It is about the race between a tortoise and a hare and a few other animals.

Itebana

My recent leisure reading is Itebana (凍花) by Kazu Saiki (斉木香津).

This is a crime fiction about three sisters. In short, the eldest sister killed the second one, and, as the story evolves, the youngest found out what happened and why. The element of detection is close to nothing and, to me, the story lacks the zest - or the twisty turn that makes it stands out. While thumbing through the pages, my mind kept thinking what plot Agatha Christie would use if she were telling the same story.

Nonetheless, the eldest sister does impress me, for she has the extraordinary habit of writing her blog as well as a private diary. As Ayako Miura (三浦綾子) said, a person who has continued to write diary (or blog, I dare say) for 5 years must be successful in some aspect of their life, and it certainly takes twice as much effort and determination to have both.

Such a person would never kill another one - at least not without careful planning.

Cooperation

What we are getting at is, there are two possible ways to subsist in a situation of this kind: Everyone works together and life is good and sustainable, or everyone looks out for themselves and life is good for a while but miserable in the long run.

The very question that we arrive at is, for a group of hunters, how to ensure cooperation?

Alas, this is the classical situation where free market doesn’t work and external governance is necessary.  In other words, we need laws and regulations so that favorable behaviour (that is, cooperation and compliance with the group strategy) is rewarded and, more usually the case, punishment would be given to those who work for their own short term benefit and breach the motto of cooperation.

Go read Dixit and Nalebuff’s The Art of Strategy.

Stag

Unfortunately, we are not living in a world of alternative physics. If all troops try to expand, the military system could not sustain.

Yes, some of you may recognize, this is a variant of prisoners’ dilemma in game theory. To go one step further, the situation is akin to the “stag hunt” game analyzed by the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

For those who are not familiar with the science of choice and strategy, let me explain briefly: In the stag hunt, if everyone works together to capture the stag, they succeed and all eat well. However, if some hunters come across a hare and are sidetracked to chase after hares, there will not be enough hunters to catch the stag. In that case, everyone will do better chasing after hares. The best strategy of the hunters as a groups is to go after the stage if and only if they can be confident that everyone else is behaving similarly. In other words, a hunter would prefer chasing hares if he has no confidence in what the others would do.

Troop

When I first began my discussion, I mentioned that there are two aspects to consider when we talk about the number of officer in each rank. So far, I have outlined the macroscopic view with regard to the structure of an army for a country. The problem, however, would look very much different when we see it from a microscopic point of view.

I mean when you consider the strategy of each individual troop.

The difference in perspective is simple. Although continual expansion is not a valid strategy to maintain a healthy staff ratio when you consider the entire army, it is a workable method when applied microscopically. In other words, for each individual troop, there is no reason to encourage resignation of Generals or Majors. To the head of a troop, the team should grow. There are always reasons to improve and increase the scope of work provided, aren't there?

But, how could every individual troop expand but the size of the army as a whole remains static?

PS. In a certain universe with a different set of laws for physics, this mathematical paradox does exisit. There, you can have the GDP growth rate of a country lower than the rates of each and every of its province.

Need

Discerning visitors may notice I have neglected a critical consideration with regard to the military system.

I mean, while discussing the senior-to-junior ratio, I have not touched on the size of army that is actually needed for a country.

Em… no. The issue is not the size of the army as a whole. From what we have discussed, the question should be the number of front line soldiers that a country need.

And it is not all that difficult to calculate – because that depends on the provision of hardware, which is known and change easily anticipated. To go one step further, by knowing the size of front line soldiers needed and the average number of years that they would be in service (that is, before promoting to do a senior job or leaving the army), one could plan the size of military schools so that the number of graduate would meet the need.

PS. With the discussion so far, it is not difficult to predict what would happen if there is a sudden surge in the number of graduates from the military school - or I shall leave it to your imagination.

Supervisor

You may note that my discussion yesterday focused on the feeling of the Majors and Colonels. I must say the other side of the coin also worth considering.

I mean the feeling of the supervising Generals.

You see? Not all Generals like to supervise Majors or Colonels, and would prefer an obedient though mediocre soldier, because the middle grade often have their own idea and may not like to take advice. (It goes without saying that the less competent a General, the more likely they would turn away a middle grade subordinate. That's another story.)

And, at the same time, when you consider the inevitable happening of asking more middle grade to do junior duty, it becomes obvious that the battlefield is splitting into two halves: soldiers (and Captains and Lieutenants) led by Generals, and solo combat fought by the middle grade (hopefully with some advice from the higher rank every now and then).

All of a sudden, I find the old traditional system of the Royal College of Physicians illuminating: It used to take 3 or 4 years to become a member (that is, fairly independent to work under ordinary circumstances), but another 10 to 12 years to really become a fellow (when they are really senior and capable of supervising).

Supervision

When I mentioned the phenomenon of asking Colonels (and, in fact, Majors) to do the front line job, you may not notice it brings along a critical problem:

Do they need supervision?

I must say there is a schizophrenia of opinion even amongst soldiers of the middle grade (if I may use this term). On one hand, they are reasonably seasoned soldiers and wish to do things in their own way. And, contrary to the belief of many people, there is actually little evidence that further supervision by a senior (and senile) General would make things better - it could be quite the opposite. (I discussed this topic some years ago in this site. Go read http://ccszeto.blogspot.hk/2009/06/experience.html)

However, most Majors and Colonels know their own limit and would be eager to seek advise from the senior rank when they face a challenging task. Many new Colonels also feel anxious and insecure if asked to take up a troop as a stand-alone unit in a new stronghold. After all, the life so short, the craft so long to learn. There is much to master even after becoming a Colonel.

Ponzi

You may not notice there is actually a fourth way that, at least for a good while, may appear to get around the problem.

It goes like this: The three solutions that I described yesterday were based on the critical assumption that the system is stable, or, in other words, the number of staff is constant.

But that’s not always true. Many a time, the system is expanding and new senior posts keep coming up, and the system would appear smooth and happy. There is no need for premature leaving of the system for either seniors or juniors, and there is no nominal seniors who are actually doing junior tasks.

Unfortunately, nothing can grow indefinitely, and a system that depends on expansion is not healthy. Once there is no new means of expansion, the system collapses.

In essence, it is another kind of Ponzi scheme.

PS. The fallacy of indefinite growth also applies to the economy - China and worldwide all the same.

Maintain

Let’s take aside all humanistic considerations and ask the simple mathematics question: In that military system, how to maintain a senior-to-junior ratio as one-to-one?

Very simple. There are limited number of ways to make such a system sustainable:

1. When those in the senior grades leave the system well before the age of retirement. (The serious arithmetic answer is if all seniors resign from the army at the age of around 48.)
2. When a substantial proportion of those in the junior grades leave the system without becoming seniors. (Once again, the accurate numeric solution is if half of the juniors resign from the army after 12 years in the system, i.e. just before they get a promotion.)
3. When you change the configuration of the system and ask all Colonels to do junior duty. (If you follow the calculation so far, it would be immediately obvious that the system would be stable if all Colonels continue to serve as a junior for 6 years.)

Sounds logical eh? The very point to note is these three are not solutions to the problem, but consequence of the system. It goes without saying that all three of them contribute to the stability of the staff-mix; all that matter is which one is more likely.

And, the sobering truth is, if those in senior grade have little intention to leave (as they have all the benefit), and neither do the juniors (because their prospect of promotion is secure), the inevitable happening is to ask those less senile seniors to do junior tasks.

Ranks

Let's consider the scenario of an army:

Say, a soldier joins the army as an Lieutenant (少尉). If he passes the promotion board examination, he will be become a Captain (上尉) 3 years later. After another 4 years, if his performance is reasonable, he will be advanced to be a Major (少校). With another 5 years, if nothing goes (seriously) wrong, he will be appointed as a Colonel (上校). Further promotion to a General (將軍) is more tricky and depends on a lot of political factors.

The mathematical question is: How many officers should there be in each rank?

There are actually two aspects of this question. The more simple consideration (but with a wider implication) is to divide the officers into junior (Major or below) and senior (Colonel or above) ranks. If soldiers graduate from the military school at the age of 25, they will become Colonels at the age of 37. If the age of retirement is 60 and no one leave this system prematurely, the inevitable consequence predicted by simple arithmetic is the senior-to-junior ratio of this system is two-to-one.

Opinion

On several recent occasions, I was asked by a number of my friends to give my opinion on some complicated business.

As you expect, my standard answer is I do not need to have an opinion on this matter. 

Of course, the flaw of this statement is, like medical knowledge, we have a whole lot of opinions that we don't actually need, and, for this very topic, I have several and probably conflicting ideas. I shall explain them in the coming days by my usual convoluted way, and, by doing so, I suspect I could achieve the impossible mission of offending all parties.

And, following Baruch Spinoza, who tried to solve ethical and metaphysical questions by mathematical means, I shall begin by considering our in-house problem by simple arithmetic.

PS. If you do not know what topic I'm referring to, just sit back and consider my discussion from a metaphysical point of view.

Minutes

While I was wondering what a good leader is and what brings people together, I attended another gangsters' meeting.

I shall not describe what happened. In fact it is rather difficult to figure out what actually happened. When some of my colleagues sat down together afterwards and recollect the event, I had a deja vu feeling of watching Rashomon (羅生門) because everyone seemed to be giving a somewhat different account and it is impossible to determine what the truth is - if there is one.

Nonetheless there are lessons that we could learn.

For example, meeting is not meant for discussion or making decisions, but for documentation of decisions and announcing them. Critical discussion should take place well in advance of the meeting in order to arrive at the conclusion. The doctrine is, if you have not finished with the minutes of a meeting, don't call one.

You may ask: Aren't all these taught by Humphrey Appleby?

True. But, as Andre Gide said, everything has been said, but nobody was listening.

Cohesive

You may think it is immaterial to think about how a country hold its people together.

I beg to disagree.

It is not (only) because I try to be patriotic, but the basic idea has a much wider application in our daily life.

For example, what keeps twelve divisions a department, or nineteen departments a faculty, or nine faculties an institute? There must be something in common amongst all of them – a religion, a belief, a motto, or whatever. It is obvious that religion or belief is not something that could be created from thin air and implanted into (adult) human brain within days. For that reason, a charming leader is invaluable. Just like the relation between language and thinking, a good leader could express a belief, hide the problem of lacking a belief, or, more often than not, replace a belief.

And, if you need to hold people together but have neither a religion nor a good leader, all you could do is to create a sense of belonging. Unfortunately, this very feeling could not be cultivated by holding a yearly weekend retreat or Christmas party.