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Gathered around a few white cloth-covered tables under brighter than usual Saturday night lights, I hosted a group of 17 New England tasters to evaluate a dozen wines made from the Mencia grape.  Finally, the opportunity to examine Mencia in a critical environment presented itself and I looked forward to validating my developed preference that I have unleashed on restaurant wine lists across the country.  

Having never met a Mencia wine I didn’t like, I wondered what might happen in a blind, varietal peer group format.  We assessed a decent range of wines from vintages spanning 2003-2008 sourced from the Valdeorras, Bierzo, and Ribeira Sacra growing regions in Northwest Spain.  The wines ranged from 12%-14% alcohol content and retail price points started at $12 (2005 Flavium Crianza) moving all the way up to $80 (2007 El Pecado).  The event confirmed what I was discovering piecemeal trying these wines one at a time accompanied with food; strutting its stuff without attempts to hide anything, Mencia displays a combination of red/blackberry fruit, exotic and herbal aromas, rustic characteristics, and a richness that never feels too ripe.  On this evening, the wines seemed to organize themselves into two broad categories; (1) rustic earthiness combined with exotic, spicy aromas (2) deep fruit core with berry flavors and floral aromas relegating rustic, garrigue hints to the background.   

Before a lineup rundown and some words on the group’s favorites, it’s worth remembering that this grape is indigenous to these Northwest regions of Spain and not grown anywhere else.  There was a school of thought that the grape was related to Cabernet Franc, but the speculation has been suffocated by negative DNA tests.  As we gathered around our glassware, a friend and fairly steady tasting partner, Glen, reminded us that he has visited his son-in-law’s family who hails from these parts, and not to forget that Ribeira Sacra and Valdeorras (getting famous for the delicious white wines made from Godello fruit) are part of Galicia while Bierzo, 70 miles to the east of Ribeira Sacra, buts up against the same unique environmental influences that the Galician ocean and mountains offer.  The vineyards are found in both valley floor and terraced hillsides, with soils of stone and clay down below and granite and schist composition up top.  The wines are products of their home, and I noticed a few wines, including the overwhelming crowd favorites, moved toward a riper international market style, slightly departing from the brighter berry and herbal terroir driven qualities of the hills and ocean influences that Glen’s son-in-law is also a product of.  These few wines, while delicious, seemed to lose some of the tell-tale berry characteristics we were discovering through the evening. 

Here are the wines we tasted and some approximate retail prices: 

2003 Ribas Del Cua, Bierzo $20                              

2003 Tilenus, Bierzo $25                            

2005 Baltos, Bierzo $15    

2005 Flavium Crianza, Bierzo $12                               

2006 El Castro de Valtuille, Bierzo  $16                                                       

2007 Losada, Bierzo $20 

2007 Vina Caneiro, Ribeira Sacra $28                              

2007 El Pecado, Ribeira Sacra  $80                              

2007 Petalos, Bierzo $25                              

2007 El Cayado, Bierzo $20                           

2008 Pena do Lobo, Ribeira Sacra $17    

Bodega Jesus Nazareno as Chas, Valdeorras  $13 

Jay Miller at the Wine Advocate reviewed nine of these twelve wines and gave all of them 90+ scores.  He rated the El Pecado 98 points, saying: 

Its ethereal aromas are reminiscent of a great vintage of La Tache (readers will surely think I’m exaggerating) leading to a layered, sleek, elegant wine with tons of spice, that seems to melt in the mouth. 

The extraordinary wines of Raul Perez must be tasted to be believed. Words simply cannot do them justice. The problem is that they are produced in minuscule quantities. 

Interestingly, the El Pecado did not finish in the top 3 of the group’s favorites.  It was fifth.  I was surprised.  It showed its dark black color, was restrained in its ripeness, had deep black cherry flavors with a little pepper spice, tobacco leaf on the nose, and a sweet long finish.  It was in the evening’s first flight, and was my third favorite of that flight and fifth favorite overall.  Yet, the notes were consistent with the first time I tried this wine at Casa Mono (which you can read about in this post) when I sang its praise; 

…intense aromas of rich black fruit, raspberries, and earth with other stuff I could not even recognize in the nose.  Tasting this wine with dishes like bone marrow, fideos with chorizo and clams, pumpkin and goat cheese croquetas, crispy pork belly with apple salad, and duck egg with mojama (salt cured tuna) created a competition for aroma definition that had my nose raising white flags of surrender.  But, the intensity of the wine was something I had not experienced in a very long time…pure elegant fruit, laser point focus, and the silkiest mouthfeel imaginable for a wine as packed as this.  And the finish…wow that finish…..went on for minutes and the depth of flavors and fruit hung in there with rich blackberry, spice and earth filling my head and chest….I thought of some of the great Paulliacs I’ve tasted in classic vintages where gobs and layers of fruit packed elegantly into silk purses of soft supporting tannins, all with finishes to remember. 

The group’s, and my own, favorite was the 2007 Losada.  I loved this wine the first time I tried it at Toro, in Boston’s South End, which concluded in a search and destroy mission that had a dozen bottles land in my cellar.  On this evening, the wine showed its unusually dark black/purple color and meaty gamey aromas.  Amanda, one of our tasters and budding wine writer, discovered exotic barbeque duck spice and someone else reported tar-like flavors.  In past tastings of this wine I also noted cinnamon and fruit cake aromas.  The wine’s finish, as usual, was long and rich. 

The least favorite wine of the night was from the cooperative of Bodega Jesus Nazareno; as Chas.  Lightest in color of all the wines we tasted, it exhibited a barnyard, animal, manure smell that actually appealed to me, but repulsed a lot of the other tasters.  I turned my head to the wine’s lack of fruit and middle depth.  The wine was not horrible, but it was not in the same league as the others.  It might be nice to drink with some barbequed pork or heavily herbed salmon.  Not to be totally dismissed, it was the only wine that generated any real objection.  As such, all the wines in the lineup are recommended and represent, for the most part, strong values.  

Taking second place was the 2003 Tilenus.  It was good to see one of the wines with a little bottle age perform well.  It was black in color with sweet floral perfume, tobacco leaf, garrigue and lead pencil aromas.  Interestingly, the center of the the wine was in need of just a bit more fruit,  leaving me a little surprised and expecting lots more considering its intense aromatics.  

A wine that did not place in the group’s top three, but was my second favorite of the first flight of six wines was the El Castro de Valtuille.  A rich purple color with amazingly true Mencia character shining through, the wine had red berry crossing into strawberry and pomegranate seed aromas, sweet flower petals combining with a slight mustiness, and rich red and blackberry fruit flavors in the finish.   The wine is multidimensional and constantly changed in the glass showing its kaleidoscope character.  It did secure a few 1st place votes by the group. 

Third on the group’s overall list was the other 2003, Ribas del Cua.  The color of the wine was deep purple, with tar and cigar wrapper on the nose.  Deep black cherry flavors dominated. 

Worth noting in my top 5 was the Vina Caneiro from Ribeira Sacra.  The color was light purple with an alluring bright black cherry, cola, Pinot Noir-like nose.  The 07 Vina Caneiro delivered a rich fully coated mouthfeel, with one of the longest, velvet-like finishes of all the wines we tasted.  

With the tasting accomplished, I was restfully satisfied that these wines are for real and worth buying.   Wines with seven years of bottle age were showing well, there was a definite varietal streak that carried through all the various styles, and even when modern wine making gets introduced, the resulting wines are released with acceptable alcohol levels and restraint allowing for true recognition and enjoyment of the region’s special terroir.   I still love Mencia, even after the battery of tests we put it through this evening. 

]]> http://flowingmotion.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/oh-what-poiesis-taught-me-about-auto-poiesis/ Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:03:22 +0000 Jo Jordan http://flowingmotion.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/oh-what-poiesis-taught-me-about-auto-poiesis/

Poiesis

I learned something very interesting just now.  The Greek word for poetry is poiesis - ‘making’.

That wouldn’t have been too dramatic a discovery but management theorists are fond of the word auto-poesis.

Auto-poiesis

Autopoiesis literally means “auto (self)-creation” (from the Greek: auto – αυτό for self- and poiesis – ποίησις for creation or production), and expresses a fundamental dialectic between structure and function.

We like this word in management because it expresses the constant interplay between our relationships with the world and ourselves.

Autopoiesis vs allopiesis

An autopoietic system is to be contrasted with an allopoietic system, such as a car factory, which uses raw materials (components) to generate a car (an organized structure) which is something other than itself (the factory).

Management theory in the 21st century

Much of the management theory I grew up with was about allopoietic systems.  How do we turn inputs into something that we will send out or away?  X and Y.

Indeed, even allowing for the transformation of X into Y is somewhat of a novelty for a psychologist.  To have a feedback loop from Y to X is so challenging that the loop mysteriously disappears from some text books!

When we think of ourselves as autopoietic, we allow that “if organization of a thing changes, the thing changes.”  Here we are saying that every time a bolt and a washer, or indeed anything enters a factory, or a car leaves a factory, the factory itself has changed.

We are less concerned with what goes in and what goes out and more concerned with way the factory reinvents itself minute-by-minute.

An example of an autopoietic system

It’s a bit giddy-making when we switch from one idea to the other.

For the research minded

It is easier for research, stats-minded people to see the idea when they think of Losada’s work on the maths of happiness.  Happiness is made up of three things yet any one these is not happiness, or even the beginning of happiness.  The three things are a positivity/negativity ratio of around 5 to 1, slightly more curiosity than advocacy, and slightly more interest in the outside world than ourselves.  We don’t add up these three variables.  Rather, they “feed” off each other. At any one time their coordinates (x,y,z) can be anywhere in a 3D space shaped like a 3D butterfly.

Happiness means we have a big plump space and the coordinates swoop around.  Unhappiness means they have a repetitive circle or limited space.  Here we see the dialectic between structure and function.

We are healthy when we are constantly regenerating ourselves in response to the world around us and what we were a minute ago.

We become ill when we don’t look after who we were one minute ago (right now in other words) and we don’t attend to what is going on around us.  We are ill when our head is anywhere except here and now.

There is room for day dreaming, planning and reminiscing.  But as the icing on the cake.  Devoting space to what we are not is not healthy. A healthy mind is asking what is going on now and celebrating what is rather than what is not.

For the non-research minded

For the non-research minded, lets think of a cake made of flour, eggs and sugar.  We can vary the proportions, or at least good a baker can, and by varying proportions we get a good range of delicious cakes.   To have one type of cake all the time is boring.  Happiness, in this analogy, is a wide variety of cakes from plain biscuits to luscious forest cakes.   We have a plain biscuit today and we feel like a rich cake tomorrow, and vice versa.

Life becomes grim when the recipe never changes or we try to swap eggs for something else (like potatoes).  We need constant variety within broad rules.

We need to enjoy each cake for what it is.  A dry biscuit is that.  It is not chocolate cake. It never will be.

We also need to bake the cake. Happiness is the cake. Not a line of eggs, sugar and flour on the kitchen table.  It is a baked cake.  It is the product of interacting parts mixed sensibly.

Poiesis

I didn’t know that poetry means making.  Auto-poiesis is the poetry of ourselves. The constant interplay between structure (me) and function (the world).

In yesterday’s ScAm,

(http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=moral-call-of-the-wild&sc=CAT_MB_20091202), Wesley Schultz reports research showing that when people experience nature, apart from the obvious health benefits and good feelings, they also come to be less focused on themselves and more on others. Marcial Losada found that most business teams show significantly more self-focus than other-focus but the most successful teams balance self and other focus equally.

In “Bowling Alone”, http://www.bowlingalone.com/Robert Putman showed that watching television reduces community engagement, but it is increasing. In office after office we see people stuck at their desks staring at computer screens. Is it any wonder that they feel alone and that self-interest is the only interest, even though it does not satisfy. In those circumstances, it is up to the leadership teams to lead the way.

So maybe we should have more meetings outside, even in the park or al least put plenty of flowers and plants in our meeting rooms. It seems that these things do have a measurable positive impact. By making the workplace healthier and more natural, we make it measurably more effective.

Didier Marlier writes a good blog about Leadership and Change. On his blog he has invited Marcial Losada to explain his rersearch. You can follow the link here. http://blog.enablersnetwork.com/2009/11/01/marcial-losada-explains-his-research-for-our-blog-readers/

I was interested by something I read recently by Anders Ericsson, possibly in Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers”, about how people really achieve expert mastery. It made me wonder about how teams achieve team mastery and how Dialogue Life can help.
“As a rule, experts practice things differently. Better than the rest of us, and similar to each other.” Anders Ericsson
Anders Ericsson “Many individuals seem satisfied in reaching a merely acceptable level of performance, such as amateur tennis players and golfers, and they attempt to reach such a level while minimizing the period of effortful skill acquisition. Once an acceptable level has been reached, they need only to maintain a stable performance, and often do so with minimal effort for years and decades.”
Anders Ericsson “Deliberate practice presents performers with tasks that are initially outside their current realm of reliable performance, yet can be mastered within hours of practice.”
Most of the knowledge and skill that distinguishes the best froim the rest is tacit knowledge that either cannot be made explicit or takes too long to explain. It also varies so subtly, but importantly, when it is affected by a varying context that itself cannot be desribed in sufficient detail in time to remain relevant. This tacit knowledge can only be developed through repeated practice and experience. When this learning takes place in a small team, each learner interweaves more vicarious and personal experience than they can obtain alone. They can see how others deal with a common situation and what happens. The actions of others opens their minds to alternative ways of behaving that may not have occurred to them spontaneously. Often they realise what they did not know before and why it is important. They do not need to make their ignorance explicit, so they can internalise their learning quickly and easily without embarrassment.
Dialogue Life helps teams to become expert at teaming. It gives timely feedback so that teams can learn how they are behaving and how their behaviour affects team performance. Team performance is the product of all the team members’ individual behaviours, each of which is, at least partially, the outcome of each other’s behaviour. Dialogue Life’s systemic approach recognizes that the actions of each team member simultaneously depend on and affect every other team member.
Many tools help people in teams to understand and value their differences. Relevant diversity is vital to help teams perform. Dialogue Life shows teams how to make the most the diversity they have and how to turn the differences into solid performance.

 In Harvard Business Review 2007 Ericsson et al wrote, “Real expertise must pass three tests. First, it must lead to performance that is consistently superior to that of the expert’s peers. Second, real expertise produces concrete results. Brain surgeons, for example, not only must be skillful with their scalpels but also must have successful outcomes with their patients. A chess player must be able to win matches in tournaments. Finally, true expertise can be replicated and measured in the lab. As the British scientist Lord Kelvin stated, “If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.”

 Marcial Losada has shown that teams that have become expert at applying the three key behavioural ratios do produce performances better than other good teams. They do produce concrete results. And their expertise can be replicated and measured in the lab.

Do people have just the ‘intelligence’ they inherited,  or has everyone the opportunity to grow their intelligence by doing things and practices that develop it?
How would people feel if they have the responsibility of determining their own ability?
Carol Dweck in her book Mindset says that people who have a ‘fixed’ theory of intelligence are mainly concerned with how intelligent they are and prefer tasks that they can do well and avoid task where they might fail. People who believe in growth or expandable intelligence want to challenge themselves even if they fail at first.

Cordelia Fine in “A Mind of Its Own” shows how people genuinely believe that they achieve their successes because of their ability and talent and that other people or uncontrollable events cause their failures. People also believe that their weaknesses are so common that there is little one can do about them, but that their talents are rare and valuable. Nearly everyone agrees with that last finding and thinks that it applies more to other people than to themselves….

Justin Kruger and David Dunning found that “people who are unskilled suffer a dual burden.” Not only are they wrong, but their incompetence prevents them understanding how mistaken they are.

Daniel Coyle in The Talent Code http://thetalentcode.com/ describes how deep practice, mindfully dismantling how a skill develops and practising it minutely builds skill. Specifically he argues that every skill is created by chains of nerve fibres carrying tiny electrical impulses through ionisation. Daily, sustained practicing develops myelin sheaths along the nerve fibres. Myelin insulates fibres so that the signal is stronger and faster. It also helps the synapses revert to their original state more quickly to be ready for the next signal.

With strong myelin sheaths, impulses can accelerate from 2 to 200 mph and refraction times (the delay between being able to accept new impulses) reduces by up to 30 times. The combined effect increases mental and skill capability by up to 3000 times. On top of that capability gain, comes the ability to co-ordinate and synchronise actions and thoughts. And on top of that come both the ability to see and respond to patterns and the freeing of the conscious mind to consider and evaluate. The key points to me are that:

1. This is universal. It applies to all people and all skills.
2. Age does matter. Myelin grows most and most quickly in adolescence and starts to decline in the 50’s, but the ability to grow it endures.
3. It takes time and sustained practice. This is the basis of the contention in Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” by K Anders Ericsson that mastery is the result of 10,000 hours of mindful practise. A sub-argument is that it takes about ten years because you cannot practice mindfully much more than 3-4 hours a day, 20 hours a week or 1000 hours a year.

Now that mindful practise is best done at the limit of what you can already do, when it takes real effort and concentration. For that you need time, a ’safe’ environment in which you get non-judgmental feedback (not judging you the performer, but actively judging the performance) and a belief that you can do better. Which takes us back to beginning. From “Having to Doing”

I was reading “The Wisdom of Crowds” over the weekend and it made me think about the importance of balancing interest in Self with interest in Others. In the book, Surowiecki’s point is that good decisions come from integrating as many different views as possible, when those views are genuinely different, which means coming from different backgrounds, incorporating different assumptions, representing different ways of thinking.

Marcial Losada found that in low performing teams only one question was asked for every twenty opinions that were offered and that people in the team showed only one thirtieth as much interest in other people as they did in themselves. I have seen those teams, where people read reports texts and emails while others present to a vacuum and then instead of engaging in dialogue, people just push their own views, listening just long enough to others to decide if they are for or against before repeating their own opinion or attacking the other person’s argument (and sometimes the person).

In these ‘teams’, the decision goes to the most articulate, the most powerful, the most confident or the most intimidating, who is rarely the most correct. Non-conforming views are suppressed or explicitly rejected. I think it is unlikely that many people in the team will stay engaged for long with such decisions, but they will fear expressing their doubts and anxieties. They may comply with the decision, but they are unlikely to commit fully to it and to be resourceful, creative or resilient in implementing it. So, although the powerful advocate will feel early success from getting their own way and ongoing success when they see implementation beginning, they will suffer frustration and disappointment later when the project gets stuck and fails. They will typically blame the implementers creating a negative and disengaging cycle that shrinks people’s cognitive ability and emotional connectedness and undermine the team’s general capability to perform.

Again we see how the three behavioural ratios interconnect and reinforce each other and why is so important for the team to ask as many questions as they advocate opinions and to balance interest in Self with interest in Others, which can be done best by believing that other people have positive contributions to make and that difference itself is a positive attribute.

My love affair with the Mencia grape is officially out of control.  Tasting through more of these wines at Toro (which is by the way Ken Oringer’s restaurant serving very serious food in a relaxed but energy charged atmosphere…sitting on my top ten all-time list for “simply delicious” and a winning choice for Beantown foodie indulgence) convinced me that my first few experiences with these wines from Bierzo and Ribeira Sacra were representative of how well the grape generally performs.  It’s hard to describe, but Mencia appears to combine the ability to offer up classically structured red wine with flashy richness and old world earthiness at an early age without seeming overly extracted or too alcoholic.

At Toro this week, two more Mencia based wines rose to my hit list.  The first, 2007 Losada, was the more immediately alluring of the pair.  Coming from vines in the 50-80 year range, the wine was BLACK in color and gave aromas of licorice, raw meat, flowers, cigar box, and burning embers.  If that does not grab your attention, the flavors of rich deep black cherries are accompanied by a mouthfeel that is pure silk without a single hard edge and you are amazed that such a soft package can taste so thick and carry such a big stick.  This wine is just too exciting, hitting high notes and low notes in a symphony of expression.  I don’t know how long it will last in the cellar or how much better it can get and considering the round softness of the wine today I would not feel bad about drinking up now.  This wine sells for between $20-$25 retail but I can not find it anywhere.  Please let me know if you can source some, I am an eager buyer!

This next wine, Jose Palacios’ 2007 Petalos, is also composed of 100% Mencia fruit from older vines.  This is a more classically styled wine of significant depth and a nose of perfumed flowers, rich berries, and creosote.  The wine is loaded and packed for the ages with a tremendously rich and long finish.  I do think this wine, while showing so well now, should  improve on its way to maturation and will show more pretty flavors at advanced stages when it might also reveal even more about its terroir.  You will need to restrain yourself, but lay some down now for 5-10 years later.  It should be easy to find this wine in the $20 range since it is widely available right now. 

Enjoy!

Título original: Madame Bovary.
Autor: Gustave Flaubert.
Primera publicación: 1857.
Traducción: Augusto Díaz Carvajal.
Edición: Editorial Losada, Clásicos Losada

Durante mucho tiempo este libro me fue recomendado.
Muchos me decían que, interesándome la literatura que trata sobre la mujer, este libro seguramente me parecería interesante.
Otros, simplemente, lo recomendaban como clásico.
Por fin, recientemente, me hice del libro y del tiempo para leerlo.
Más allá del escándalo, la repercusión y de todos los componentes externos a la obra, quise disfrutar del tan prometido deleite de la lectura de este clásico.

Primero, noté un estilo, un modo, que me transportaban página a página con un creciente interés… cuando, por otro lado, la temática no alcanzaba a interesarme del todo.
Luego, la brecha se acentuó.
Podía apreciar, en todo momento, que me hallaba frente a una obra de arte impecable, lamentaba constantemente no estar en condiciones de leer el original en francés… pero la trama no sólo no me atrapaba, sino que hasta dejé de leer el libro (por motivos personales) durante semanas, y al retomar lo hice como si nada.
La historia no me parecía tan interesante, pero recordaba cada uno de los detalles. ¿Cómo podía esto suceder?

Promediando la lectura me di cuenta de un detalle: no había establecido ningún tipo de vínculo afectivo con ninguno de los personajes. Entonces, la suerte de todos ellos me era absolutamente indiferente.
Lejos estuve de abandonar el libro, seguía sintiendo el deseo de leerlo.

Extraño, muy extraño.

Llena de contradicciones me siento a escribir estos apuntes, sobre este libro que me encantó… y que no podría haberme interesado menos:

y en el secreter, junto a la ventana, erguíase un florero con un ramo de azahar, ceñido por una cinta de raso blanca; era un ramillete de novia, el ramillete de la otra. Emma lo miró, y Carlos, al notarlo, se apoderó del ramito y se lo llevó al desván, en tanto que Emma, sentada en un sillón, mientras lo iban preparando todo, pensaba en su ramillete, embalado en una caja, y preguntábase, soñando, qué sería de él si por casualidad ella muriera.

Emma, sintióse íntimamente satisfecha al verse tan pronto llegada a ese raro ideal de las existencias melancólicas, nunca alcanzado por los corazones mediocres.

¿No debía el hombre, por el contrario, conocerlo todo, sobresalir en múltiples actividades, para iniciar a la mujer en las energías de la pasión, en los refinamientos de la vida y en todos los misterios?

El porvenir era un pasillo oscurísimo, con una puerta cerrada en el fondo.

Emma no parecía satisfecha, y por lo general conservaba en las comisuras de la boca esa rígida contracción que arruga el rostro de las solteronas y de los fracasados ambiciosos.

El deber no es otro que sentir lo grande, adorar lo bello y no aceptar, con las ignominias que nos impone, todos los convencionalismos sociales.

Hay que conbatir -pensaba- las frases exageradas, encubridoras de sentimientos mediocres.

todo mentía. Bajo la sonrisa se oculta el bostezo de aburrimiento, la maldición bajo la alegría, el hastío bajo el placer, y los más sabrosos besos sólo dejan en la boca el irrealizable deseo de una voluptuosidad más alta.

Todos, incluso ella, le eran insoportables.

¡Bah, qué poca cosa es la muerte! -pensaba-. Voy a dormirme y asunto terminado.

SEBASTIÁN LOSADA BESTARD

El “pipiolo” llegó al Espanyol cedido del R. Madrid con 20 años con la intención de coger experiencia y aprovechar la oportunidad que le brindaba el club espanyolista al jugar competición europea. El madrileño, empezó de suplente en el equipo de Clemente pero las rondas finales de la UEFA,semifinal y final fueron su trampolín hacía la élite al marcar en ambas rondas 3 goles y ser una de las referencias de la gran campaña europea del club perico.

Tras finalizar volvió al R. Madrid en el cual no tuvo muchas oportunidades de jugar y posteriormente fue a diversos equipos sin gozar de mucha suerte. Como en el Espanyol jamás rindió.

Fue internacional absoluto con España. Se retiró sorprendentemente, con tan sólo 27 años, al sentirse desmotivado como jugador profesional. Tras su paso por el fútbol, acabó la carrera de Derecho para dedicarse a la abogacía. Intentó llegar a la presidencia, sin éxito, de la Real Federación de Fútbol Español en el año 2004.

PARTIDOS DE LIGA 

PARTIDOS EN EUROPA  

1 VEZ INTERNACIONAL CON ESPAÑA (NINGUNA REPRESENTANDO AL RCDE)

FINALISTA DE LA COPA DE LA UEFA (1988)

Losada marcando de cabeza uno de sus dos goles en la Final de la UEFA en el partido de ida en Sarrià frente al Leverkusen

Hoy en la rueda de prensa de Mareo el primero en hablar fue un chico del Sporting b, se enfrentan al Lugo este sábado y al preguntarle sobre los peligros de este equipo destacó la parte ofensiva y en concreto un nombre que llamó poderosamente mi atención: el “chino” Losada.

Roberto Losada Rodríguez, apodado el chino, nació en Vigo (Pontevedra) el 25 de Octubre de 1976.
Este delantero de 1,80 destacó en la temporada 94-95 en el Oviedo B y desde la siguiente temporada hasta la 2003-2004, que marchó al Valladolid, perteneció al primer equipo del Real Oviedo, salvo su cesión en la 98-99 al Toledo y en 2001-2002 fichó por el Mallorca, volviendo a la temporada siguiente.
Los críticos lo describían como: jugador rápido al que le gusta tener el balón en los pies y con un gran disparo desde fuera del área.

Al llegar a casa me he puesto a buscar más información sobre él ya que le había perdido la pista en Segunda División con el Valladolid.
Permaneció en el Valladolid desde 2003 hasta la temporada 2006-2007 donde marchó en el mercado de invierno a Las Palmas, pero decidieron prescindir de sus servicios en verano de 2007 durante la pretemporada, por lo que tras rescindir contrato se fue al Lugo donde sigue jugando en la actualidad.

Tenía un gran potencial pero las lesiones y mala fortuna fueron diluyendo su carrera, acabo mal con buena parte de la afición oviedista, y en Valladolid tambien le guardan rencor como se ve en esta noticia en la que bromean sobre su visita y temen que se quede. En Las Palmas no convenció y en Lugo llegó como mediático pero en su primera temporada no aportó el rendimiento esperado, pese a ello confiaron en sus capacidades y esta temporada es el máximo anotador del equipo con 10 tantos, pero tambien es el jugador mas veces sustituido.
Ha sido 2 veces internacional con España, actualmente se le convoca en la selección de Galicia, ha sido el primer jugador del Lugo convocado por ella.

Viendo el rendimiento ofrecido en 2ªB no me parece una locura que pudiera ser un futurible del Real Oviedo para apuntalar la delantera en esa categoría, pese a tanto trayecto aun tiene 32 años y parece que ya ha estabilizado la decadencia que le fue alejando de la élite del fútbol, espero que tenga suerte en el Lugo y antes de retirarse pueda volver a jugar en 2ª División.

By Marianne Hughes

I have been boning up on systems theory and thinking because of an upcoming presentation that I will be delivering and because I am so interested in applying its wisdom to our own organization.. Oh to find the trim tab!!!!!

So, I am seeing everything through the systems lens when I stumble across this article on positive emotions and there it is in black and white with systems sprinkles to go. See below!

As background: Two distinct psychological states are positive emotions which are triggered by our interpretation of our current circumstances and pleasure which is what we get when we give the body what it needs right now!! Positive emotions tell us what we need emotionally, what our future selves might need. They help us broaden our minds and build our resources…they have that go-forward quality.

Happiness is the overall outcome of many positive emotions which are more narrow, more day to day, moment to moment. It’s not about being happy in general but focusing on being positive day to day which ends up building up our resources so that we can become the best version of ourselves.

It’s one thing for individuals to build their resilience through focusing in the day to day on their strengths and assets, practicing kindness, expressing gratitude, staying in the moment but how does this work in groups?

In a study of 60 work teams conducted by mathematician Marcial Losada it was shown that the really high performing teams had a ratio of 6:1 positive to negative statements where as the low-performing teams had ratios of less that one to one i.e. more than half of what was said was negative. The high performers had an even balance between asking questions and advocating for their own point of view and an equal measure of focusing outward and focusing within the group. The low-performers were essentially not listening and simply waiting for their turn to talk.

He then looked at the behavioral data and wrote algebraic equations that related the positive and negative behaviors to each other and discovered that these equations matched the very famous equations called the Lorenz system. Familiar to us from our reading on systems, Edward Lorenz is the scientist who identified the famous “butterfly effect” the idea of an attractor…an identifiable pattern or hidden coherence that appears in all that is incoherent. Some attractors are strong and some are weak. In this case Losada discovers that underneath the dynamics of the high-performing team was a “complex chaotic attractor” which produces unpredictable or novel outcomes. Underneath the structure of the low-performing teams was a “fixed pint attractor” that caused the team to spiral to a dead end.

And, p.s. there is research that shows that when married couples are in a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative emotions they are in a solid relationship.

It seems that no matter what corner one turns…you come up against the same wise messages be still, be focused, be grateful and breathe.

]]> http://popularesdesada.wordpress.com/2009/04/24/el-pp-exige-que-tras-la-rectificacion-de-losada-se-afronte-una-mejora-global-del-servicio-de-buses-urbanos-en-la-ciudad/ Fri, 24 Apr 2009 13:24:31 +0000 popularesdesada http://popularesdesada.wordpress.com/2009/04/24/el-pp-exige-que-tras-la-rectificacion-de-losada-se-afronte-una-mejora-global-del-servicio-de-buses-urbanos-en-la-ciudad/ http://flowingmotion.wordpress.com/2009/04/21/pull-organizations/ Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:17:56 +0000 Jo Jordan http://flowingmotion.wordpress.com/2009/04/21/pull-organizations/

The military do pull management so why don’t commerce & industry?

As I left Xoozya at the end of my first day, I encountered an old college mate in the car park talking spiritedly with other Xoozyians about a concept I hadn’t heard before: “recon pull.”

I just have to hear the word “pull” for my ears to prick up.  Pull marketing vs push marketing.  Pull HR vs push HR.  “recon pull” sounds military, and so it was.  And old military too – of at least WW II vintage.  The phrase ‘command-and-control’ may come from the military but they aren’t wedded to the push models of commerce & industry.

Recon pull

“Recon pull”, as much as I have gathered so far, means local action that is taken by forces on the ground who vary their orders to suit the situation they find – within the broad framework of the “commander’s intent”.

Googling this term once I got home, I found one theorist distinguished “Soviet” and “German” models of military structure.  Interesting – I’ve always contrasted Soviet and Chinese models of insurgency and German and Anglo-Saxon models of organization.

Anyway, the Soviet-style model assumes that we plan in advance and execute the plans as agreed because it is not possible to adjust to circumstances as we go.  The German model assumes that a high degree of adjustment will take place.

Another author also attributed this school of thought to Sandhurst.

“We have learned,” responded the authorities at Sandhurst, “that a wild young man can learn wisdom as he grows older—if he survives—but a spiritless young man cannot learn the dash that wins battles.”

The German corollary is:

“The King made you a major because he believed you knew when not to obey.”

A “recon pull” model is consistent with both these philosophies.  Troops on the ground seek a weakness in enemy lines, break through, and pull the rest of the troops in behind them.  Within this model, if they are given an order and they realize it would be unwise to follow through, they stop without further instruction.  It they see an opportunity consistent with the commander’s intent, they grab it without further instruction.  Hmm, this is supposed to be consistent with English common law.  Everything that is not forbidden is allowed.  Roman law is the opposite.  Anything that is not allowed is forbidden.

The investment in ‘organization’ and ‘communication’ in the ‘Soviet’ and ‘German’ models is quite different.  In a model that assumes local decision making, everyone must be well trained.  They are also trained to act rather than not to act.  As a general rule, sins of omission are believed to be worse than sins of commission.

Well, would this idea of “recon pull” apply to other organizations?

Mmm, in the military world, there is a sense of  ’ground’ to capture and an enemy to defeat.  Neither is particularly relevant to a young organization.  The market is not necessarily stable and consistent. (Military minds might say that about the ground too.)  There also isn’t an enemy.  In a young organization, we are rather, creating ground, or weaving a new set of relationships.

Commander’s intent

And what would be the commander’s intent?  A company like Google has a vision – to organize the world’s information.  It sounds concrete enough but it isn’t really. And it is probably also constrained by habit.  One day, someone will have a new vision that undermines the foundations of what is a fresh and innovative vision today.

The truth is that every employee has a ‘Sandhurst spirit’ to some extent or another, and every employee has a landscape in their mind.  They may not be vigorous or articulate about evangelizing their landscape but they are likely to have one.  Their landscape might also be well protected – to continue to use the military metaphor.  Or in broader terms, change may not be readily possible

Equally, lack of change may be stuckness.  Though the definition of stuckness is somewhat circular, sometimes situations can be unstuck.  This is the subject of Otto Scharmer’s presencing and of the idea behind golfing-movie “The Legend of Bagger Vance“.  Don’t force the shot. Let the shot find you.  Sitting and waiting is sometimes the correct response.  That is, the situation requires it.  Where we feel stuck (here comes the circularity), we argue for a return to listening to the environment.

So what is commander’s intent in a situation like Xoozya?

I think we each have a sense of intent and what is required is the ability or ongoing attempt to describe the world around us in a way that makes sense to others, and that highlights what needs to be done.

Shared understanding of the company

Following this thought process, part of my work as a psychologist is to highlight work in the firm so that people are able to see what is unfolding.

Old techniques for developing shared meaning

Yes, we have traditionally done that for the senior management team.  We carefully organize away-weekends with a series of presentations so that senior managers can understand each others view of the company.  We hold round-robin meetings to facilitate strategic planning to find consensus before final strategy meetings.  We might arrange town-hall meetings for staff.  We might arrange talks and training for staff.  But it is all rather piece-meal – rather Soviet?

Common dashboards

What we need is a set of dashboards so that as people look up from their own work, they can see where everyone else is, and take other people’s activity into account as they re-imagine what the world could look like.  The underlying value proposition or question is whether our own work, individually or collectively is enhanced by knowing what others are doing around us.

If I were to use a mechanical form of evaluation, it might look like this.

1   Is Xoozya committed to profiling the activities of its staff and how often are these profiles updated?

• Because of the amount of work that this entails, it is likely that the profiles will be compiled on a Web2.0 basis.
• As 2.0 websites as compiled by users they tend to be uneven and untidy and I would follow with this question. How is the availability of information reviewed and what is both our a prior and growing understanding of what the information will look like?

2   Do staff look at the profiles and do they feel that looking at other people’s work and having other people look at their work helps them?

• Using an ‘extreme policy option’ technique that I learned from Professor Michael Riley at University of Surrey, are we making reasonable assumptions about human behavior?  What happens when we can see each other’s work-in-progress?  Are we competitive?  Are we cooperative?
• Is emergent behavior more valuable or less valuable?  How can we understand this process?  Can we monitor feedback loops?  And are feedback loops the critical concept?

3  Have we seen generativity or amplification as a result?

• What examples of value-added have we seen?

4   Are we competitive?

• How can we monitor greater value-added?  How can focus attention on economic matters such as use of overheads, salaries, etc.  What is the big picture that we convey to members of Xoozya and does this help them focus on their work and be more creative and productive?

Applied Research of Shared Understandings

Yes, I can see potential research projects here.   For example, do University Departments have shared understandings of their work across their discipline?  Do Universities have shared understandings across their Departments?  Do students share these understandings?  Do local people share this understanding of their university?  Do professions have a shared understanding of the frontiers of their field?  Do the Departments, for example, who have common understanding of their frontiers amplify each others work more than other Departments?

And in companies, do the employees share an understanding of the common frontiers and how can we communicate those frontiers?

And is this the right way to think about monitoring shared meaning?  Or could we use proxy measures like collective efficacy – that would be easy to measure at least. Monitoring collective efficacy would entail asking which groups in the organization believe which other groups are competent?

Or should we use a model like Losada’s model of happiness?  Could we look at

• interconnectivity of people
• the balance of inquiry and advocacy and
• the balance of interest in one’s own work and the work of others.

If these three variables predict the success of management teams, it is quite likely they predict the success of teams and organizations as well.

My tuppenny’s worth

Yup, this is what I would look for in an organization trying to exploit “recon pull”.

• For substance, a vibrant 2.0 facility where we it is easy to see what other people are working on.
• A review of process based on Losada’s work.  Do we have positivity/negativity ratios of 5:1, does our inquiry exceed our advocacy and are we slightly more interested in other people’s work than our own?

Indeed, this was a good evening’s work from a conversation in a car park.