Culture of Growth

February 27, 2023

Good morning! The COVIDs plague, RSVPs, a blizzard in Los Angeles, bird influenza, train wrecks… and now we have a murderous bear high on cocaine!
Be on the sharp lookout for Sharknados! Here we are almost done with February — and it will be time to make important decisions once again. (Big sigh of relief!)  The national pickleball tournament will go on despite the snow! More than 1,000 professional and amateur pickleball players will converge in suburban Minneapolis throughout this week. What are your thoughts on baseball’s new ghost runner?

• According to The Economist (February 2023), democracy as a model of government has stagnated.
  • Approximately 46% of the world’s people live in some form of democracy, most of those less than perfect…
  • and fully 37% live in varying degrees of an authoritarian regime.
  • Among the most democratic societies:  Canada, Australia, Chile, New Zealand, Spain, France, Japan, and the four (five) Scandinavian countries
• Do you have a culture of growth and development in your organization?  (Eades, 2023)
  • Organizations don’t grow, people grow, and they grow organizations;
  • If leaders prioritize culture, team members will gladly give the best version of themselves daily;
  • Change is inevitable; growth is intentional;
  • Failure is not final, failure is feedback;
  • When new positions open up, consider hiring from within.
• “The true rule in determining to embrace, or reject anything, is not whether it have any evil in it; but whether it have more of evil, than of good…
  • …there are few things wholly evil, or wholly good.
  • Almost everything, especially of governmental policy, is an inseparable compound of the two;
  • so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded.”  (A. Lincoln)
• A traumatic event can literally change the way our brain functions and have unexpected physical manifestations.  (Kolk)
• Some areas of the United States are five times (5x) more productive than areas of least productivity.  (McKinsey)
  • Look no further than North Dakotah, California, and Washington.
  • (We are blessed and awed to witness first hand the growth in North Dakotah.)
  • To read and ruminate on the entire fascinating report:  $10 Trillion Productivity
  • McKinsey estimates the opportunity in front of us; i.e., $10,000,000,000,000 in GDP growth — equivalent to $15,000 per household — is based on returning to historical levels of productivity not seen since the 1950s and 1960s
    • Question is, are we interested?
    • Since 2005, United States labor productivity has grown at an annualized rate of 1.4 percent (1.4%) — down from 2.2 percent (2.2%) decades earlier.
    • Success will require concerted action, including unlocking the power of technology and improving workforce reskilling and labor mobility.
    • “… if the United States economy were a car, the engine has been sputtering for awhile… productivity growth has averaged just 1.4 percent (1.4%)…”
• Prediction/ Observation:  Those annoying automatically generated Out of the Office messages are no longer de rigueur or necessary.
• In a five-way tie for 45th place, Tiger Woods took home a $59,000 purse at last week’s Genesis tournament.
  • How do you suppose he will spend it?
• A preliminary primer on the consequences of Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine thus far:  (Michaels, Fidler, Etc., et al.)
  • The N.A.T.O. (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) alliance has been revived;
  • Fresh tactics are likely to be replicated;
  • The United States industrial base has gotten a boost;
  • The United States has rejuvenated its influence worldwide;
  • Russia and China have renewed/ strengthened their alliance;
  • Energy flows have shifted around the planet;
  • Russian finances have been cut off from much of the rest of the world;
  • The prices of nearly everything have increased.
• We often forget:  Fascinating story about the Erie Canal in the March 2023 edition of The Smithsonian; don’t miss it!

These accumulate from week to week… I can’t bear to take leave of them… these are not required re-reading:

If the media are writing the first draft of history, how important is it for them to get it as accurate as possible?

“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)

“When the sea was calm, all boats alike / Showed mastership in floating.”  (The Bard)

“Vision is equal parts inspiration and aspiration.” (YT)

“We’re in an epidemic of distraction and disconnection.”  (Richards, 2023)

“Maybe love shouldn’t be such hard work.”  (Zellweger in Jerry Maguire, 1996)

Rivers never go in reverse… so, try to live (and work) like a river. forget your past and focus on your future.  (Unknown)

“I’m irrationally optimistic.”  (Brooks on 2023)

“Flexibility is here to stay.”  (Sinek on the future of work for 2023)
“I’m an expert at listening — but I sucked at listening when it came to my family and friends.”  (Sinek)
(From M.I.T. Sloan, 2022) –“…When inaccurate or wrong information is repeated, an illusion of truth occurs.  People believe repeated information to be true — even when it is not.”

“It is startling to realize that other countries have nationalistic slogans of their own, none of which are, ‘We are number two’!”  (Sedaris)