Spock uses a similar expression, but inverting the causality: “fear is a construct of an undisciplined intellect”. It’s not that it’s killing your mind, but an orderly mind will simply kill it. At least if you follow Surak’s Vulcan philosophy

With Surak, the Bene Gesserit and Roosevelt we have a nice triad about fear, don’t we? And the concept of managing defeat or death is sometimes as alien as managing victory and success…

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

Yes, merc, I agree completely that you learn on troubled times, but you are learning by doing, because you have no other option than flexing your muscles… do we really draw lessons from those kind of experiences? do we really have the time and will to sit back and reflect from the facts that we have struggled with? does interest outlive necessity? for example, in projects, how many post-mortem meetings do we really have about what went right / wrong and what we learnt from it? Usually it’s like finishing or coping with something and then running like crazy…

Sitting here, looking at the sea and hearing the neighbours go amok with firecrackers and bangers, I wonder if there is such thing as Spanish Management, and if there is how it must be like… the marks from the sun in my skin following the shape of my tank top I can see (yes, we had a very sunny first day of summer today) but, are those marks also present in the alter ego of Spanish managers… who knows…

Thanks Merc and Multi for reading and answering. Best regards

I’ll leave at a side that the Kobayashi Maru test greatly benefits from being purely a fiction exercise (Star Trek based, no less).

I’m with multimaniaco (hello ^_^) in that south europeans will have cheated as a baseline. But also think that typical spanish management actitude would have been a kirkesque “there is no no-win situation” until the end (the end of their teams, it is). The difference is Kirk is able to change reality’s preconditions in the fiction. The real manager or team leader cannot use plot tricks.

Many of our managers need character tests and training. It’s no popular thinking on defeat and losing, but it’s in the bad times when someone is really tested.

btw, that not only means looking with watery eyes but a heroic stance how others die. Means prepare early for failure, real damage control, getting the maximum of what defeat leaves behind, prepare for the post-defeat, etc.

“…the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” F.D.Roosevelt.

Sorry, I know both of you, mmm, fit into “spanish management” (myself been into project managing until earlier this year). I’m just betting you are not “typical”

However, this story always makes me think about the clear anglosaxon cultural background that it implies. For the forthright and honourable star fleet cadets, cheating is not an option, and henceforth, when it happens, it is creative thinking. If cadets had been mediterranean (say Italian, Greek or Spanish), Kobayashi Maru would have been broken long ago