Catholic Charities Drops All Spousal Benefits

According to a story in Employee Benefit News (May, 2010), the Catholic Charities of Washington, D.C. stopped offering benefits to its employee's spouses after Washington, D.C. legalized same-sex marriages.  It will no longer offer benefits to the spouses of future employees, current employees who get married in the future, or current spouses who aren't already enrolled in the benefit plan.  "As a Catholic social service organization, we follow the teachings of the Catholic Church," stated a official of the organization.

So why does this hit the "Thinking Tracks" blog -- it's more relevant to the HR Tracking blog (it's posted there too)?  Simply because the article starts with the statement that when the same-sex marriage law took effect, some "local employers and residents took note of a serious unintended consequence."

I know that I can easily be accused of repeating Lisa Scottoline's quote too often -- frankly I think I need to repeat it -- with examples -- every day.  But it applies -- again!! -- here:  This is something that was easily predictable.  "You’re a lawyer, Victoria, and you know about foreseeable consequences. If you can foresee the consequences, you are charged with intending them, are you not?"

A Minister of Thinking

Master thinking Edward de Bono, creator of Six Thinking Hats and Lateral Thinkng, issued a call that "all governments should have a miniser of thinking Every organization can have a thinking officer. Thinking needs to be taken as seriously as finance or legal affairs."

Good Thinking!!!

UC: School Webcam Spying

In a Yahoo/AP news report from early February ('10), federal authorities are investigating a Pennsylvania school district accused of secretly switching on laptop computer webcams inside students' homes. The school district has acknowledged remotely activating webcams 42 times in the last 14 months, but contends it was only to "find missing student laptops." A student has filed a federal lawsuit alleging invasion of privacy. Exactly what happened is still unclear -- each side has its own version of what did or did not happen. One thing is clear: parents were not informed in the permission forms they signed for the computers that this "remote activation" was possible.

One line in the story makes our point clearly: "The Pennsylvania case show how even well-intentioned plans can go awry if officials fail to understand the technology and its potential consequences (emphasis added)."

Comment: I cannot guarantee that the use of an Implications Wheel process would have revealed this as a possibility -- but I'm betting it would!

Waiting in Line

A study in the journal NeuroQuantology (2/10) found that people forced to wait, for example in line, experienced the time spent as being far less if they were amused and distracted.

Comment: I suppose it's nice to have research on even those things we already know. But the article should at least give credit to some other, most likely to include Disney, for knowing this to be true all along. The reality of how Disney has management lines over the years demonstrates this much more realistically than this "research project."

UC Track: Big Fines for Airline Delays

According to a WSJ (12/22/2009), "Airlines Face Big Fines for Delays." The new rules, which will take effect in April, 2010 could include fines as much as $27,500 per passenger. On a plane carrying 120 passengers, a three hour delay could result in a $3.3 million dollar fine.

Airlines will be forced to comply with the new rules, "even though we believe it will lead to unintended consequences -- more canceled flights and greater passenger inconvenience." Again, it is easy to remind everyone of the "signature" quote on the title page... Why do we continue to allow creation and implementation of "rules" that have consequences, both positive and negative, that can be clearly identified -- before the "rules" are implemented?

UC Track: Health Care

Health care reform is critically needed in this country -- yet it appears we are going to be unable to create reform that is not built on political issues more than it is based (as it should be) on an objective assessment of needs, costs, and solutions. Maybe not possible but...

According to a recent posting from Employee Benefit News, one of the biggest issues of the current health care reforms are "unintended consequences feared." I don't have to repeat the quote that is prominantly posted on the title page of "Thinking Tracks." I can repeat the simple challenge: why are we unwilling to carefully examine the potential implications, both positive and negative, that are associated with every aspect of something as important as health care?

Music Unlocks Memories

An article in the WSJ (11/17/2009) presents a compelling report of how music appears to help patients, from stroke victims to dementia patients, recall memories -- or in some cases help regain skills. Stroke victims have been aided in recovery by music as they recovered walking skills. Dementia patients have recovered seemingly lost memories and even regained some cognitive function with the aid of music -- even when they've lost memories of names and faces.

The power of music...

The Brain: Success versus Failure

According to a Headlines posting in Scientific American Mind (November-December 2009), the amount of dopamine released in the brain when we've had success completing a task improves neural processing and encourages similar or better performance when repeating the task. "Success has a much greater influence on the brain than failure."

However, as the research notes, (information which is very consistent with others like that discussed in Mindset), this means we need to pay more attention to failures, "consciously encouraging our brain to learn a little more from failure than it would be default."

More Research on Multi-Tasking

According to a "Headlines" posting in Scientific American Mind (November-December, 2009), still another research stufy adds evidence to the postion that we cannot really "multi-task." What's interesting about this research, however, is that it narrows what we know about why. The research shows that it is the prefrontal cortext of the brain that can only handle one item at a time. Through training and practice, it appears we can speed up the ability to quickly switch from one task to another (what's becoming known as "switch-tasking") but this latest MRI-based research states we will never be able to develop true multi-tasking ability.