February 13, 2023
Good morning! We are landing smack dab between two important feasts: Happy Birthday #214 to Mr. Lincoln… cut down in the prime of life at age #56… (Hero or villain?) and Happy Feast of Saint Valentine, IF you do that one. Ann Rutledge was Abraham’s first sweetheart, but she died tragically at age #23 before they could marry. Will you be taking in the Vermeer exhibition?
- There are no words to add solace to the tragedy in Turkey and Syria.
- These natural disasters used to be called, “acts of God“, but more often nowadays are blamed on other things and/or people.
- As far as we know we don’t have readers in that part of the world, but we nevertheless send our sympathy and fervent hope.
- The doomsday scenario playing out in the desert Southwest of these United States is not unlike one of those ubiquitous cinematic asteroids headed our way — and there is not much we can do about it.
- Change its path with an exploding nuclear device? (That NASA test seems to have worked in a miniscule sort of way.)
- The challenge with water — especially fresh and safe water — is you can’t do much to readily make more of it.
- The situation is being described as an unavoidable bankruptcy (Larson), which is a very helpful way of understanding it.
- The liabilities of the Colorado River (people who were promised water by way of a treaty, aka, business arrangement a century ago) far outdistance the river’s assets (the volume of water in the river, including all reasonable future estimates).
- In the business world this would be a situation for bankruptcy.
- The river says, “I can’t pay all of these obligations and I don’t see a way of that changing.”
- And then the judge says, “So, everyone will get just half of what they’re owed… and then everyone will survive and rebuild from there.”
- But, that’s where Larson’s very helpful analogy runs out of steam, for obvious reasons.
- An entrepreneur is not just a job title, but a mindset. It’s about taking calculated risks to turn a vision into reality, and thereby making a lasting impact in the world. (Batra)
- How often do you meet (visit) one-on-one with your direct reports?
- (From M.I.T. Sloan) — the biggest disconnect between supervisors and those direct reports is a failure of the supervisor to share and explain the context of the employee’s work in relation to the big picture; i.e., the organization’s strategy.
- Secondarily, a somewhat related area of disconnection is discussion and information regarding the organization’s long-term goals. Guess what? Strategy again!
- Supervisors overestimate and put too much emphasis on personal matters outside of the work place; i.e., an attempt at demonstrating care and concern which is perceived by the supervisor to be much more important to the employee than it really is — at least when compared to other things.
- Always more to learn, always more to learn.
- We are beginning to see suggestions about returning to the Socratic method of instruction and learning?
- Why oh why did we ever depart from it?
- The return is being hailed as the only way to skirt around the plethora of technological cheating tools.
- Teacher with pupil, questions, half-correct answers, go deeper… THINK.
- The most common reported applications of robotic technology in the work place are for sorting, palleting, stacking, moving, receiving, unloading, Etc. (McKinsey Global Industrial Robotics Survey, 2022)
- The least? Highly skilled labor such as welding or soldering.
- “Tell the truth, tell it all, tell it now.” (Holtz)
- We were thinking about opining on this subject, but perhaps it’s not necessary given the instructional trifecta up above.
- Most recently, Southwest Airlines comes to mind. Now it is saying, “We messed up.”
- Are you guilty of corporate speak? Hope not. Let’s stop with the generic, “… the safety of our ________ is our first priority…” We can do better.
“I am bound to say that in all the accounts which you have been so good as to give of my own small achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities. It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.” (Doyle, Holmes to Watson)
