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cover of episode DOUBLE BILL: A Monkey For Mayor / A Screw Loose At 17,000 Feet

DOUBLE BILL: A Monkey For Mayor / A Screw Loose At 17,000 Feet

2023/10/13
logo of podcast Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
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哈特尔普尔镇的猴子市长故事，从一个看似荒诞的玩笑开始，却引发了人们对领导力选择机制的深刻思考。故事讲述了哈特尔普尔镇的足球俱乐部吉祥物“猴子”意外当选市长，候选人Stuart Drummond没有任何从政经验，却凭借其独特的竞选方式和后天的努力，成功地完成了两个任期，并获得了民众的认可。这个故事并非单纯的娱乐轶事，它巧妙地结合了彼得原理，即能力强的员工往往会被提升到其不胜任的职位，从而引发了对传统领导力选拔机制的质疑。作者认为，随机选择在一定程度上可以提高治理效率，因为这能够避免彼得原理的负面影响，并为那些原本没有机会进入领导岗位的人才提供机会。同时，这个故事也体现了哈特尔普尔人民的幽默感和自嘲精神，他们将曾经的错误变成了集体认同和自豪的来源。

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The story of how the people of Hartlepool, during the Napoleonic Wars, mistook a monkey for a French spy and hung it, leading to the town embracing the story as a source of civic identity and later adopting a monkey mascot for their soccer club.

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This week, we've twice the storytelling fun for you: two Cautionary Tales shorts, previously only available to Pushkin+) subscribers.

A Monkey for Mayor: It was supposed to be a publicity stunt, but when the man who dressed as Hartlepool United’s monkey mascot stood in a mayoral election... he won. Actual politicians predicted disaster - since thousands of workers and millions of dollars were now in the hands of a complete novice.

But H’Angus the Monkey proved to be a more effective leader than anyone had predicted, raising interesting questions about how we select the best people to be our managers and our mayors.

And

**A Screw Loose At 17,000 Feet: **Can you tell the difference between an A211-7D bolt and an A211-8C? Well, nor could the tired and stressed engineer fitting a cockpit windshield to Flight 5390. The difference is tiny, but the consequences of muddling them up - which played out at 17,000 ft - were dramatic.

Such design flaws are common - and result in far more loose aircraft windows than you would imagine.

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