Musings on a Monday Morning from Mike Mullin…

The weekly Newsletter of Without A Vision Consultancy LLC

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January 13, 2019 – Well into Winter

Good morning!

• Remember that old story about the homeowner attempting to repair his own dishwasher to no avail?
  • Frustrated, he finally phoned the plumber.
  • The plumber arrived with his tool kit, got down on the floor, took out a flashlight, and explored the situation.
  • Shortly thereafter the plumber gathered a hammer from his tool kit and administered three whacks to the errant machine.
  • The machine whirred and operated perfectly.
  • The plumber then presented an invoice to the homeowner in the amount of $150.
  • “What?! exclaimed the homeowner, you’ve been here less than five minutes and all you did was to give three whacks!  I want an itemized invoice!”
  • Whereupon the plumber provided an itemized invoice:
    • Three whacks:  $5
    • Knowing where to whack:  $145
    • Total:  $150
• I love to explore a city right down at ground level — on the sidewalks, in the alleys, and the streets.
  • The city where I live — St. Cloud, MN (U.S.) — is relatively small (maybe 30 square miles) and so I’ve hiked most of it, some parts of it hundreds of times.
  • Surprises and befuddlement always await, among them:
    • A majority of pedestrian surfaces are treacherous, many impassable — especially in winter; this doesn’t seem right.
    • Many engines in vehicles are running, spewing exhaust (all seasons) — with or without occupants — curbside, in driveways, and in random places; this puzzles me.
    • A pedestrian in a crosswalk is rarely complimented, rarely receives a friendly wave or smile, rarely is worthy of a yield.
    • The large assortment of miscellaneous items on the curb — free for the taking.
• When was the last time you visited with a business owner (or worker) directly affected — good or bad — by the tariff war?
  • Last week I experienced an erudite, compelling first-person account of the impact on a business that had grown by double digits annually since 1981, from one person to 550 employees, almost 40 years of success, and now overnight in survival mode or worse.
  • Will anyone take notice?  Let’s hear from those affected in good ways; it doesn’t appear to be the farmers.
  • By the way, who has access to the billion$ of tariff money — and for what is it being used?
• “As CEOs try to navigate the crosscurrents (of change), they are being forced to summon many new skills.”  (Wall Street Journal, 2019)
  • “Over the past decade the CEO of choice was one who understood the balance sheet… over the next decade you’re going to need someone who can drive both a business agenda and a much broader stakeholder agenda.” (Korn Ferry)
• “Children are the likeliest age group in the United States to experience poverty.”  (The Economist, 2020)
• Freedom of the press (should be) among our basic and most-cherished freedoms because it protects us FROM government tempted to do dumb (or worse) things.
  • It also encourages collaborative free expression, and what might be called progress toward the common good.
  • The common good; i.e., “… promote the general welfare…” is enshrined in our Constitution, it’s among our cherished values.
  • We need excellent journalism featuring moderate, rational, and accurate information — and we need to expect to pay for it.
  • As we think about it, that’s where we might have gone wrong these last twenty years — expecting to get information for free — and now we get what we pay for.
  • Local and regional freedom of the press has suffered the most — mostly because of the loss of financial support for that freedom.

It should be of some comfort knowing the #1 book of all time checked out from the New York Public Library is Keats’ The Snowy Day.  If you haven’t read it in awhile, take time today.

Schedule a no-obligation, no-cost initial exploratory visit with Without a Vision Consultancy today.

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