November 13, 2023
Good morning! As soon as I send this to you I’m on the road to Fargo, always a favourite destination. “Time will not dim the glory of their deeds.” (Pershing) You have to admire the marketing genius who almost overnight transformed muddy, mundane, rubberized floor mats to be romantic, intimate, must-have Christmas gifts. Having driven for more than 800 miles recently through glorious corn and soybean country, it’s good to know the corn is 89% harvested and the beans, 97%. (U.S. Dep’t. Agriculture) We will eat well this winter — if we enjoy tofu and grits.
- Not sure if there is a correlation, but wine production — alarmingly — is at a 62-year worldwide low (weather? drought?) and consumer debt is at an all-time high.
- Was Douglass duped? Out of war would come liberty.
- “I see technology helping frontline employees do a better job more than I see it eliminating those jobs.” (Krishnan, 2023)
- “Modern marketing is the ability to harness the full capabilities of the business (organization) to provide the best experience for the customer and thereby drive growth.” (Esber, 2023)
- There actually IS an I in team.
- Research shows that when dealing with fundamental change, teams that retrain (educate) individuals before focusing on collaboration have better results. (Sherf, et al.)
- Imagine running a factory that assembles electronic devices.
- Your operators work in highly interdependent teams on the assembly lines, and they’re working with a fundamental technological change that you recently implemented.
- Robotic arms and automated machines were put in place to streamline the assembly process, replacing several tasks previously performed by hand.
- This change relieves your operators of mundane work and lets them focus on more complex aspects
- of the assembly process, such as quality control, troubleshooting, and process optimization.
- The employees must adjust to the new work environment… they need to individually learn how to operate and maintain the automated systems
- while also learning how to coordinate differently as a group…
- Overcoming these dual learning and adaptation challenges is key to successful change management…
- Leaders often don’t pay adequate attention to whether, when, or how individuals on their team reskill (educate, learn new stuff)…
- … and when they do, their focus is often on the team as a whole rather than the individual.
- Our study of how teams and individuals adapted to change in a manufacturing company revealed that when individual learning happens first,
- teams adapt more easily to change. (Tsong, 2023)
- Ergo: Reskill (Teach) the individual before the team.
- Successful teaming requires skills at two different levels: Team members need to become proficient in their own tasks, and they need to work well together.
- Professionals in fields such as education, law, technology, and the arts are likely to see parts of their jobs automated sooner than previously expected. (Tam, 2023)
- (Without A Vision note: Is this deja vu all over again — or something new?)
- Bellwether? Foreign firms yanked more than $160 billion in total earnings from China during the most recent six successive quarters.
- The almost exact opposite had been true for more than a decade previously. (Douglas, Soon – 2023)
- Ring true? Paying too much for a meal can add bitterness to each bite. (Pinsker)
- The labor market might be flipping more than it was flopping just a short time ago.
- What had rapidly ascended to a three percent (3%) quit rate — per 1,000 workers — over the last three years is now descending rapidly to just two percent (2%).
- And, that is closer to the norm of the last twenty years. So, anomaly or something else? The COVIDs appear to no longer play a central role.
- You might soon be hearing from HR regarding an early retirement incentive.
- Global demand for fish protein is expected to continue to grow.
- Yet the amount of wild-caught seafood remains flat, with more of the world’s fisheries being pushed beyond their limits.
- Alternative seafoods; i.e., cultivated substitutes for fish, could fill some of the gap and provide high-end protein. (Plant-based lobster?)
- The more popular seafood varieties include shrimp, tuna, and salmon. (Brennan, 2023)
We Were Always Here
There is a magical moment between autumn and winter
when the burgundy-clothed oaks emerge
not suddenly from the distracting
and strikingly intense
red, orange, and yellow colours of the maples and aspen
to claim what has been theirs all along.
Not even the winter dissuades them
as soaring eagles scavenge what remains of summer.
©2021 Michael A. Mullin
