READING PASSAGE 2: Graffiti

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The word ‘graffiti’ derives from the Greek word graphein, meaning to write. This evolved into the Latin word graffito. Graffiti is the plural form of graffito. Simply put, graffiti is a drawing, scribbling or writing on a flat surface. Today, we equate graffiti with the ‘New York’ or ‘Hip Hop’ style which emerged from New York City in the 1970s. Hip Hop was originally an inner-city concept. It evolved from the rap music made in Brooklyn and Harlem in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As Hip Hop music emerged so did a new outlet for artistic visibility. Keith Haring began using posters to place his uniquely drawn figures and characters in public places.

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At about the same time as Keith Haring, a delivery messenger began writing ‘Taki 183’ whenever he delivered documents. Soon his name was all over the city. This claim to fame attracted many young people, especially those involved with rapping, and they began to imitate ‘Taki 183’. Graffiti was soon incorporated into the Hip Hop culture and became a sort of triad with rapping and breakdancing. New York City was inundated with graffiti during the late seventies and early eighties, but as media coverage faded so did the graffiti. Then, in the mid-eighties, a national TV programme did a graffiti story and set off a graffiti wildfire which has since gone global.

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In the past, graffiti artists usually worked alone, but the size and complexity of pieces, as well as safety concerns, motivated artists to work together in crews. A crew is headed by a king or queen who is usually that person recognised as having the best artistic ability among the members of the crew. Graffiti has its own language with terms such as piece, toy, wild-style, and racking.

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At first pens and markers were used, but these were limited as to what types of surfaces they worked on, so very quickly everyone started using spray paint. However, the spray nozzles on the spray cans proved inadequate to create more colourful pieces. Caps from deodorant, insecticide, and other aerosol cans were substituted to allow for a finer or thicker stream of paint. As municipalities began passing graffiti ordinances outlawing graffiti implements, clever ways of disguising paint implements were devised.

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As graffiti has grown, so too has its character. What began as an urban lower-income protest, graffiti now spans all racial and economic groups. There is no general classification of graffitists. They range in age from 12-30 years old, and there are male and female artists. Styles have dramatically evolved from the simple cursory style to intricate interlocking letter graphic designs with multiple colours called ‘pieces’.

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Graffiti shops, both retail and on-line, sell a wide variety of items to taggers. Over 25,000 graffiti sites exist on the world wide web; the majority of these are pro-graffiti. Graffiti vandalism is a problem in nearly every urban area in the world. Billions of dollars worldwide are spent each year in an effort to curb graffiti.

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While most taggers are simply interested in seeing their name in as many places as possible, some taggers are more content to find secluded warehouse walls where they can practise their pieces. As graffiti was introduced to the art world, two trends happened. Furthermore, more progressive cities have recognised the talent of graffitists by providing a means for them to do legal graffiti art.

READING PASSAGE 3: Star Performers

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The difference between companies is people. With capital and technology in plentiful supply, the critical resource for companies in the knowledge era will be human talent. Companies full of achievers will, by definition, outperform organisations of plodders. Ergo, compete ferociously for the best people. Poach and pamper stars; ruthlessly weed out second-raters.

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The point was illuminated in brilliant relief by Enron, whose leaders were so convinced of their own cleverness that they never twigged that collective intelligence is not the sum of a lot of individual intelligence. Enron believed in stars because they didn’t believe in systems. But companies don’t just create: they execute and compete and coordinate the efforts of many people, and the organisations that are most successful at that task are the ones where the system is the star.

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Group performance suffered as a result of tensions and resentment by rivals within the team. One respondent likened hiring a star to an organ transplant. The new organ can damage others by hogging the blood supply.

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The result of mass star hirings as well as individual ones seems to confirm such doubts. Look at County NatWest and Barclays de Zoete Wedd, both of which hired teams of stars with loud fanfare to do great things in investment banking in the 1990s. Both failed dismally.

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That will be no surprise to those familiar with systems thinking. W Edwards Deming used to say that there was no point in beating up on people when 90 per cent of performance variation was down to the system within which they worked.

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Significantly, Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira and Robert Pires are much bigger stars than when Arsenal bought them, their value enhanced by the Arsenal system. At Chelsea, by contrast, the only context is the stars themselves. Even Real Madrid’s galacticos are being outperformed by less talented but better-integrated Spanish sides.

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So if not by hiring stars, how do you compete in the war for talent? You grow your own. This worked for investment managers, where some companies were not only better at creating stars but also at retaining them.