#BreakingPoint talking points

 3:57 Steve says mistake number one

This should be the patient zero of mistakes, a manager shouldn’t have to be with his team 24/7 in order for them to do the job they are being paid for.  The manager’s deputies in his absence should be able to take over the responsibilities as and when required.  If this doesn’t happen then you can’t call it effective management, staff should show enough maturity to do their job without constant supervision. Granted that these guys are very young and they would need more supervision than older people, part of the management process should also include people/environmental training to teach them how to deal with losing and toxic environments.

5:54 interaction between Dardoch and Piglet

Piglet reminds dardoch that he mentioned he wanted to win summer split and should focus on practising more.  Dardoch responds with “not anymore”, Loco should have jumped in right away to question Dardoch by what he meant by that.  This was a clear lack of motivation this can kill team morale especially when their shotcaller has no motivation to win.

8:10 Loco addressing how “good” players are affecting the “weaker” players

This is something that should have been addressed individually in private not in front of the other players.  When piglet says “maybe” to his question loco should have challenged him rather than just accepting that this was the best he was going to get out of Piglet.  He should have asked what he meant by maybe as this would have helped ease the other players concerns that loco was playing favorites.

10:00 Dardoch talking about Piglets actions in korea

If this was true about piglet not playing outside of scrims, Loco should have stamped this out after the first time it happened there should have been a fixed timetable of scrims as well as non scrim playing time. The players needed to be reminded they weren’t in korea for a holiday they were on a business trip.

17:33 Matt’s lack of confidence in calling out other players

This is common in teams with large overbearing personalities, certain members will feel that they don’t have the right to speak out because of their own flaws.  It should be made clear that not all the players are perfect and calling out other players is not a direct attack on them which results in backlash.  Loco makes it clear that your skill level does not mean whether or not you give constructive criticism.  Its everyone’s responsibility to chip in not just the coach’s.  Loco is quite dismissive of Matt.

21:36 Matt wanting to be friends

For people working together and living under the same roof for the best of a year they are expected to have a level of comradery.  However it’s not always possible to be friends with everyone you work or live with that’s why companies spend of money on mandatory team building days.  Although you may not be friends with each other you can’t be dismissive and/or hostile to each other if you are all trying to aim for team success there has to be some positive team dynamic.

28:00 Loco and Dardoch arguing about checking out in the game

Loco was being riled up when talking to Dardoch.  Dardoch was being difficult during the conversation but Loco as the Coach and senior member of staff in that room should have controlled the conversation and moved it on to solution rather than just keep mentioning the problem

30:00 thorin talking about Dardoch

Thorin hits the nail on the head with his reasoning as to why dardoch was behaving the way he was.  Dardoch was the MVP and the main issue was that he knew he was the MVP and was using that as leverage in his relationship with Loco.

34:00 steve listing issues (dardoch)

This conversation was one that should have taken place in private.  Steve called Dardoch immature in front of his peers and colleagues, this was going to elicit a reaction. Loco needs to be more calm when dealing with Dardoch, Dardoch clearly knows how to wind up Loco and does it very effectively and is not very good at hiding it as Dardoch and others in the room picked up on his body language. Steve brings this up very effectively and provides an alternative to how loco should be acting. 

  

 48:38 thorin on dardochs return

Thorin again gets it right.  By subbing dardoch and having him return after his replacement performs very poorly gave him an elevated sense of self-importance.  This can be seen in the video where he gives the opinion that TL would have been relegated without him.  This doesn’t solve any of his behavioural problems and potentially makes them worse. This is seen in the following clip with the CLG game where Dardoch gives up very easily on comms and demoralises the entire team.

1:13:07 post game fan meet

Dardoch refused to go to the fan meet.  They should have gone as the full team or they should have all stayed back.  By leaving Dardoch on his own it gives him time to stew and its not healthy to do this after an extremely disappointing loss. Also the conversation Dardoch was having was a conversation that needed to be had with the team not just with an individual player.

1:16:30

Dardoch’s sense of self-importance is hurt here when Steve cuts him off and scolds him for swearing. Steve is correct in controlling the conversation and getting his point through.  Dardoch does not seem very interested at all and chooses to be petulant however his reaction to how steve may be due to age and lack of maturity as a result of this.  His reaction may be explained by the sacrifices he’s made in order to become a professional league of legends player.

The promise of a three course meal

I was invited to attend a talk/presentation recently.  Now I must admit I can’t really remember the exact title of the whole thing but it was related to ISIS and how they operate and recruit as well how they were created and how they expanded, you kind of get the gist of what it would have been about. It involved a number of speakers even more PowerPoint slides and my favourite thing a three course meal.  My invitee made it very clear to me that it starts at 6:30pm sharp and to arrive early as it would get busy near the entrance and I would struggle to get in and so on.  I rushed to the venue straight after work worried that my 6:20pm arrival would mean that I was already too late and would have to fight my way through a crushing mob to get to my allocated table.  When I got there it was quite orderly with everybody queueing up and waiting to be seated but I could sense that this event was in no way going to be starting at 6:30pm.  I got shown my seat after some initial confusion and I looked around and less than 20% of the people had arrived.  That’s when I set the timer to see when the event would start.  Honestly it started a lot quicker than thought it would we were only a mere 50 minutes late.      

Although I must admit at first my intention of attending was solely food related (note for anyone who wants to invite me anywhere if you have food that’s a guaranteed yes on the RSVP from me) listening to the actual speakers was quite interesting.  I’ll be completely honest here not all the speakers were very enlightening or even interesting and I suspect were used as filler to keep people interested until the food arrived.  A handful really caught my attention, one was a young Syrian lady with an American accent who was currently studying for her PhD.  She started off by mentioning how ISIS came about and how they managed to spread so far so quickly.  She drew military and economic links between them and Assad and how ISIS were selling oil etc. to the Assad regime and in return they were pre-warned about bombing raids.  She made a point to say that Assad was using ISIS as a method to bolster his standing on the world stage by telling the world “look at me I’m fighting the terrorists” whilst at the same time acting as an enabler for these very same terrorists.  All this was very fine and well.  Now for this next bit I might be completely wrong as I was tired and my legs were cramping up due to the way everyone was bunched together at the table.  She started talking about the Free Syrian Army and how they were the only ones fighting the good fight.  She wanted the UK government to arm/support them as they were the ones who could end ISIS/Assad.  Now the mistake a lot of people make here is that they think that the FSA is one group whereas in reality they are a loose conglomerate of smaller groups fighting together at one point and against each other at other points.  Now I’m no expert in geopolitical security but even I know it’s not a brilliant idea to arm a group of people who are one stray bullet away from fighting amongst themselves. You just need to look at Libya for a real world example of this.  The points the young lady made were very well made and she was extremely articulate and composed even after multiple mishaps with the mic.

Another person who caught my attention was a gentleman from an organisation which helps ISIS defectors return to normality back in their home countries.  He gave insight into how ISIS recruiters worked as he claimed to be in contact with a number of them and gave stats and figures as to how many people get recruited and motivations for recruitment.  It was informative, well-structured and he clearly came across as someone who knew what he talking about.  Then it all went wrong ever so slightly, he said he had done a brain scan on some people who had returned from ISIS to see if there was anything wrong with their brains that was causing them to join ISIS.  At this points alarm bells started ringing as this reminded me of scientific racism used to justify slavery and other atrocities in the past.  So the speaker put a slide on with 4 brain scans each with different parts highlighted and coloured in.  After giving everyone a moment to take in those slides he then announces that after painstaking research he has found that ISIS followers have the same brain as everyone else.  I’ll give you time to read that sentence again.  Would you look at that! One person has the same physical brain structure as another person, what a mind blowing discovery.  I can only imagine how many research dollars were wasted on such futile work.  The aspect that really got to me was that the slide with the brain scans was given no explanation whatsoever and just left up there on the main screen.  Anybody who had not heard the speaker’s fantastic revelation or had simply switched off would have come to a completely different conclusion just looking at those slides.  I guess pseudo-science is still well and truly alive.  The next speaker a jovial looking man named Janghir shared my sentiments when it came to the brain scans as he was quite clearly angry during his part of the talk.  After speaking to him at the event it turned out that he wasn’t a big fan of pseudo-science either and drew comparisons between the brain scan guy and how the Nazis were justifying what they were doing to other ethnicities using “science”.  Janghir thankfully kept his talk short and to the point because at this point we had been sitting in a warm dark hall for the best part of 100 minutes and I don’t think people had much stamina to endure any more presentations.  It also didn’t help that we could now smell the food and the waiters were looking like a bunch of greyhounds ready to be set loose at a race.

 A special mention to the final speaker Anjum Anwar who I can only describe as chilli in a sea of vanilla speakers.  She got up there and started off by threatening the master of ceremony with a beating as she didn’t have enough time to do her full presentation as they started late.  She unlike most of the other speakers put the burden of responsibility not on the state or a group but rather on the individual.  She made it very clear that if your child is caught up with ISIS then as a parent you have clearly not done your duty.  She gave an example of a mother whose son was in trouble with the police over this and when the mother was questioned about her son’s interaction online she simply said “every time I asked him what are you doing, he just replied he was doing homework”.  This is something that strongly resonated with me as I see this a lot.  No longer can parents use the excuse that they “don’t understand these computers” or “we don’t know because we never had this stuff when we were growing up” there are multiple resources to help people get to grips with modern technology ranging from community workshops to self-help magazines.  As parents it’s your responsibility to make sure you know what your child is doing online as well as offline.

Jolly day out :D

My work does this community outreach programme called Think Big where they take random people like me and then take us to help out voluntary organisations, charities etc.  What follows is my experience from when I was chosen to go. 

I set off from my sunny Hometown nice and early and got to the train station 20 minutes before my train left for Manchester, luckily for me I met someone I know who informed me that I was waiting on the wrong platform 3 minutes before my train arrived.  Thank god for long legs! I got to the right platform exactly one minute before my train arrived.  I crammed myself into the train and set off on my adventure.

 

I got to Manchester about 25 minutes before the event started and proceeded to make my way on what I thought was the correct route to MMU All Saints campus.  After recognising some of the local landmarks it dawned on me that I was completely and utterly lost so I proceeded to make way back to the train station and once there set off in the opposite direction to which I had originally taken.  This was also the wrong way.  Luckily I met a helpful man selling Big Issues who escorted me to the university.  To my eternal shame I did not buy a Big Issue from him I just thanked him and went on my way.

 

I found the correct building after a lot of map reading failures and backtracking and I was actually there 2 minutes earlier than the allotted time.  I strolled over to reception and spoke to the security guard who informed that there no such thing as Think Big or Young Enterprise on his schedule, I kept my cool and asked him if there were any schools or colleges attending that day and he informed me there was a college which was coming at 9 o clock and he proceeded to point me in the direction of a lecture theatre where the supposed gathering was taking place.  I entered the lecture room and in the pitch black fumbled around for a light switch, I switched the lights on and then I waited and waited and waited.  After about 15 minutes it dawned on me that maybe I was in the wrong place as it was past 8:45 and still no one had turned up other than me, so I went back out to the reception where I met the Young Enterprise organiser called Jonny who saw my Think Big t-shirt and ushered me up a flight of stairs and into a room where I was greeted with blank stares from a group of university students who were also volunteering.  I looked around eagerly hoping to see one of my other colleagues hovering between the students.  Unfortunately they were as lost as I had been, they had been refused entry into the university car park and had to find a NCP car park, when they did manage to get to the building the security guy had no idea why they were there and had to be rescued by our gallant knight Jonny.  As well as us there was also a lady representing Cadburys. 

 

We were given our briefs and told that most of the heavy lifting will be done by the university students as they had done this before and we were just to move between the desks and give help as and when required.  The Young Enterprise kids were made up of students from three schools from the Greater Manchester area.  The students were split up into groups of 6 and given a budget of £200 million to spend.  They had to create an airline and then try to sell tickets to travel agents for their airline and do a presentation at the end about how much they had made and how long it would take for them to recoup the money they had spent.

 

The students had to create an airline from scratch, they had to make a name, design a logo, uniforms for their staff, pick one destination, pick a suitable aeroplane and work out the profit/loss for all this.  My job was mainly to help the students plan their airline and make sure they understood what they were doing.  I also helped the students work out how much everything was going to cost as well help them plan destinations.  The most fun part of the day was when the volunteers had to pretend to be travel agents and haggle with the kids to get low prices for seats, turns out you can get a return flight to Florida for £70.  All in all it was an enjoyable day for all those involved.

 

On the way home I decided to go for a stroll through China Town as it was a very nice day.  This was when I got a message from work which showed that the call centre had calls queueing, and it was just plain hectic at work.  I gave a small smile, switched off alerts, slipped my phone in my pocket and proceeded to buy a Cornetto. ;D