July 22, 2024
Good morning!
The Brits held us captive for each of the last two weekends; at least it was only during the early morning hours. Do you have your favourite chair or couch perfectly-positioned? Kinda ironic, isn’t it… to be watching the most athletically-gifted humans in the world while seated or lounging? Though, anecdotally, we observe an increase in tennis, basketball, soccer, hiking, and other neighborhood activities when a major athletic event is on the television.
- Cheetos as a bellwether!
- Why not?
- Pepsico reported recently that sales of its salty, orange-dusted, crunchy morsels were down 4% compared to one year ago.
- Do the math… at this rate we will be without Cheetos in 20 years or less.
- Do your part, people, get out to the WalMarts and other retail centers to buy more Cheetos.
- You will be helping the economy and a certain CEO to sleep better.
- Have you ever been to one of those dog parks, the ones where the hundts are off-leash?
- The culture there among the humans is interestingly different.
- If you plan to still be alive in 2084 you might experience the Earth’s population starting to decline for the first time since the Bubonic Plague. (United Nations)
- Year after year, season after season, vanilla is the most popular ice cream flavour in the United States (Instacart)
- Followed by: Chocolate, _____________, Strawberry, and ______________. (Fill in the blanks… I didn’t get them, either.)
- Why then is vanilla; e.g., plain vanilla, often used as a pejorative?
- Who eats the most ice cream?
- The citizens of Vermont, apparently by a long shot.
- Re. Southwest Airlines — and/or Boeing: Isaac might have been the first to suggest it: What goes up will sooner or later come down.
- (Actually, that might have been Galilei with Isaac adding more vocabulary to the theory.)
- Is there a secret sauce to becoming a superpower? The next Apple or Amazon or Microsoft or Google or Nvidia?
- The so-called experts would suggest there is — and it’s been brewing or simmering on the stove for centuries, if not millennia.
- So, what is it?
- A couple of generations ago we were all reading, In Search of Excellence by Peters and Waterman — still a good read, maybe essential.
- And now the sauce purports nothing new except maybe vocabulary — here it is:
- Vision (You can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’re going!)
- Leadership
- The right people
- Culture
- Mindset (Here at Without A Vision we call that attitude, wellness, or morale)
- Technology
- Organizational Structure
- Routines (Here at Without A Vision we call that doing the right thing at the right time in the right way for the right reason)
- The above is informed by Mendelson, Etc., et al, 2024 — but if you want to learn/ know more, contact us.
- “Today’s CEOs operate in an increasingly high-risk environment, expected to tackle more complexity, and make bigger swings with no second chances.
- This has taken a toll: the average tenure of an S&P 500 CEO is at an all-time low.
- When the pressure is on, how can CEOs reinvent themselves, along with their organizations?” (Kaas, Maor, Etc., et al., 2024)
- The book: The Journey of Leadership: How CEOs Learn to Lead from the Inside Out.
- Energy: Positive energy creates employee engagement, alignment, and conviction. (Torres, Etc., et al., BCG, 2024)
- The most effective leaders are those who can inspire others to think beyond their limitations and to believe in something bigger than themselves.
- Energy is closely related to employee engagement, the willingness of people to commit discretionary effort to their jobs.
- When you walk into a high-performance organization you can feel the difference.
- Energy can unlock latent capacity in an organization by creating a sense of urgency and expectation and by providing a laser-like focus on the most critical initiatives.
- “One of the primary responsibilities I have as CEO is to create a positive energy environment.”
- “Momentum and energy are related to having people motivated to achieve results.”
