[Photo by Annie Spratt at Unsplash]
Commentary by management consultant Michael Wade on Leadership, Ethics, Management, and Life
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
"Do You Paint Houses?"
The trailer for "The Irishman."
Are They Doing Their Best?
Once upon a time (it could have been last month or 12 years ago) while reviewing the work of an executive, I asked myself, "Is this person doing his best?"
My first answer was: "No. He's making elementary mistakes in certain areas."
My second question was: "What if he truly doesn't know any better and this is his best?"
My third question was: "What if he knows it's sloppy work but he simply doesn't care?"
The initial question was a good one and it sparked the others.
Incidentally, I later decided the second question was closer to the mark.
[Photo by Jim Reardan at Unsplash]
How to Remember Certain Chores
The solution is simple: do something entirely different.
[Photo by Form at Unsplash]
Tuesday, July 30, 2019
Great Memoirs - A Series
One of the best books I've ever read.
Caveat
The more we try to turn history into anything other than an enumeration of accounts to be enjoyed with minimal theorizing, the more we get into trouble.
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Monday, July 29, 2019
Don't Read Before Bedtime
Recently started. Don't read before bedtime. The techie items and the possibility of a major war are especially disturbing.
There is a reason why this book has become recommended reading for military officers.
Cottage Books
Kurt Harden at Cultural Offering is seeking the titles of possible "cottage books" - books that will sit on the shelves of a cottage that you occasionally rent out.
My nominees would be:
- The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
- Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
- The Flame Trees of Thika by Elspeth Huxley
- A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
- Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie
- Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
- First Among Equals by Jeffrey Archer
- Let's Not Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
- Dirty Beasts by Roald Dahl
- White Teeth by Zadie Smith
- An Open Book by John Huston
- The Outsider by Frederick Forsyth
- Restoration by Rose Tremain
- John Adams by David McCullough
- The White Album by Joan Didion
- A Good Man in Africa by William Boyd
- Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
- Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat.
- Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
- Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
- I, Claudius by Robert Graves
- The Comedians by Graham Greene
- Middle Passage by Charles Johnson
- The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
- Journey into Fear by Eric Ambler
[Photo by Drew Coffman at Unsplash]
Great Memoirs - A Series
One need not agree with Galbraith's theories of economics to find this book to be a very enjoyable companion.
Sunday, July 28, 2019
Find Something Beautiful Today
[Photo by TL at Unsplash]
Saturday, July 27, 2019
Going to the Balcony
Few practical ideas are more obvious or more critical than the need to get perspective in the midst of action. Any military officer, for example, knows the importance of maintaining the capacity for reflection, even in the "fog of war." Great athletes can at once play the game and observe it as a whole - as Walt Whitman described it, "being both in and out of the game." Jesuits call it "contemplation in action." Hindus and Buddhists call it "karma yoga," or mindfulness. We call this skill "getting off the dance floor and going to the balcony," an image that captures the mental activity of stepping back in the midst of action and asking, "What's really going on here?"
- Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky in Leadership On The Line: Staying Alive Through The Dangers of Change
Looking Back
We are now in a position to address the question posed in the Preface: whether the failure of Communism "was due to human error or to flaws inherent in its very nature." The record of history strongly suggests the latter to be the case. Communism was not a good idea that went wrong; it was a bad idea.
- Richard Pipes as he concludes his book, Communism: A History.
- Richard Pipes as he concludes his book, Communism: A History.
Great Memoirs - A Series
The great film director's story. It is hard to resist a book with paragraphs such as this:
My life is composed of random, tangential, disparate episodes. Five wives; many liaisons, some more memorable than the marriages. The hunting. The betting. The thoroughbreds. Painting, collecting, boxing. Writing, directing and acting in more than sixty pictures. I fail to see any continuity in my work from picture to picture - what's remarkable is how different the pictures are, one from another. Nor can I find a thread of consistency in my marriages. No one of my wives has been remotely like any of the others - and certainly none of them was like my mother. They were a mixed bag: a schoolgirl; a gentlewoman; a motion-picture actress; a ballerina; and a crocodile.
Quick Looks
The trailers for:
- "Unbelievable."
- "Algiers."
- "Night Hunter."
- "The Fanatic."
And the winner, hands down, is "Algiers."
First Paragraph
In spring 1989 a group of students from the Memorial Society entered a pine forest near Barnaul in western Siberia carrying shovels and tarpaulin bags. They were seeking the site of a mass burial ground of Stalin's victims. There had long been rumors about burial pits in the area. But before perestroika, few had the courage to search for them.
- From It Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway: Russia and the Communist Past by David Satter
- From It Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway: Russia and the Communist Past by David Satter
The Most Bizarre Museum Story in Years?
He leaves after months of protests over his business’s sale of tear gas to the federal government, which used it to control crowds trying to enter the country illegally via Mexico.
I'm not sure about this one. There are a lot of bizarre museum stories out there.
I'm not sure about this one. There are a lot of bizarre museum stories out there.
Friday, July 26, 2019
The Music of Hans Zimmer
From Prague: "The Da Vinci Code."
Great Memoirs - A Series
Diplomat George Ball was the man in the room with many of history's greatest figures. Beautifully written. Open to any page and you can quickly be engrossed.
Judgment Call
I will carefully listen to what they say (and mean), ask questions (probably lots), and then give my advice (as clearly as I can).
They may not take my advice. That's fine. My job is to advise, not direct.
They may not even like my advice. That's fine too. My job is to give honest advice and honesty is not always tactful.
They may wonder how I reached my conclusions. That's trickier. Although I can often cite reasons there are times when intuition based on years of experience is involved and the reasons may be much hazier. I may not even know the precise reason but I know what I would do and what I would not do. I can say, however, that those are the times when the accuracy of my analysis is very high and when my recommendations are almost always on target.
As an old dog, I know that not all dark alleys are dark. Some are clean and well-lit.
Thursday, July 25, 2019
Management and Mueller
I'm reading The Mueller Report, Not surprisingly, it is a prosecutor's document with the strengths and weaknesses that implies. Given the way the investigation was structured, I am not surprised by Robert Mueller's performance at the House hearings other than he should have been far better prepared for some of those questions. We can now expect that his associates, who may have been far closer to the preparation of the report, will receive greater attention.
Law professor Alan Dershowitz's view, coming not surprisingly from a defense attorney's perspective, is that a commission, not a special counsel, should have been appointed. With a commission, there could have been open hearings in which all sides could have presented - and argued over - the evidence. I agree. [One wag noted over a year ago that the idea of appointing a special counsel always sounds good for 24 hours.]
With a management consultant's bias, I believe this is an example of how organizations rush into taking an action without considering the system that is being employed. The old line that organizations get the results they are designed to get should be painted above conference room doors. We have gotten the product of a special counsel.
Repeat: we have gotten the product of a special counsel.
And that, however well-intended, has both the benefits and limitations of that structure.
Law professor Alan Dershowitz's view, coming not surprisingly from a defense attorney's perspective, is that a commission, not a special counsel, should have been appointed. With a commission, there could have been open hearings in which all sides could have presented - and argued over - the evidence. I agree. [One wag noted over a year ago that the idea of appointing a special counsel always sounds good for 24 hours.]
With a management consultant's bias, I believe this is an example of how organizations rush into taking an action without considering the system that is being employed. The old line that organizations get the results they are designed to get should be painted above conference room doors. We have gotten the product of a special counsel.
Repeat: we have gotten the product of a special counsel.
And that, however well-intended, has both the benefits and limitations of that structure.
The Style of Boris
The Spectator: Jeremy Vine with "My Boris Johnson Story."
[HT A Large Regular]
Photo by James Giddins at Unsplash]
Update: The BBC list of who is in his Cabinet.
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
First Paragraph
In early March 1998, Bill Gates, Andy Grove, and Steve Jobs, the CEOs of Microsoft, Intel, and Apple, posed together at a party in New York City celebrating the seventy-fifth anniversary of Time magazine. This had never happened before and would never happen again. The resulting photograph is the only one ever taken of the three together when they were all running their respective companies. Most astonishing were the tuxedos! For one night, Jobs had shed his black mock turtleneck and jeans, Grove his leather jacket, and gates his habitual sweater and slacks.
- From Strategy Rules
Crank It Up
Mississippi Fred McDowell with "You Gotta Move."
Lyndon
LBJ's last interview with Walter Cronkite.
I always felt this was Johnson's best performance on television and that he would have been more effective as president if he'd adopted that format for discussion of major issues. Instead, his formal speeches from lecterns were usually boring and conveyed none of his personal power.
I always felt this was Johnson's best performance on television and that he would have been more effective as president if he'd adopted that format for discussion of major issues. Instead, his formal speeches from lecterns were usually boring and conveyed none of his personal power.
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Two Important Questions
Two questions that often are not directly and seriously considered:
- What type of experience has this person had?
- What type is this person lacking?
It's Boris
Boris Johnson is the new British prime minister.
The British political scene is always interesting but now it is moving into a fascinating stage.
The British political scene is always interesting but now it is moving into a fascinating stage.
Crisis and Decency
USA Today: Glenn Reynolds sees the best in the wake of a fatal car accident in Tennessee.
It Depends On the Office
Walk into a library anywhere in the world and you'll notice the same thing: It's quiet and calm. Everyone knows how to behave in a library. In fact, few things transcend cultures like library behavior. It's a place where people go to read, think, study, focus and work. And the hushed, respectful environment reflects that.
Isn't that what an office should be like?
- Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson in It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work
[Photo by Mollie Silvaram at Unsplash]
Monday, July 22, 2019
Success and Destruction
Business success contains the seeds of its own destruction. Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.
- Andy Grove
First Paragraph
It came down to this: if I had not been arrested by the Turkish police, I would have been arrested by the Greek police. I had no choice but to do as this man Harper told me. He was entirely responsible for what happened to me.
- From The Light of Day by Eric Ambler
- From The Light of Day by Eric Ambler
Lion of France
Charles de Gaulle was perhaps the most thoughtful and impressive statesman of the twentieth century. His only possible rival in this regard is Winston Churchill, another statesman-thinker, though Churchill presided over a longstanding, stable, and free political order in the United Kingdom, something on which de Gaulle could not depend in the French case. De Gaulle has been the subject of fine biographies in the past, among them a somewhat mythologizing three-volume work by Jean Lacouture, a well-researched but less than sympathetic account by Eric Roussel (who clearly prefers the supranationalist Jean Monnet to de Gaulle’s passionate partisanship for the nation), and a more popular and readable account in English by Jonathan Fenby. Added to these now is this superb and equitable portrait by the British historian of twentieth-century France, Julian Jackson.
Read the rest of Daniel J. Mahoney's review in City Journal.
Read the rest of Daniel J. Mahoney's review in City Journal.
Sunday, July 21, 2019
Find Something Beautiful Today
[Photo by Joel Barwick at Unsplash]
Saturday, July 20, 2019
Sign Me Up
The extended Comic-Con trailer for "Star Trek: Picard."
The Risk of "Infinite Jest"
I confess that when it comes to choosing books, size matters. The other day I was considering the purchase of Infinite Jest and the reason I returned it to the shelf was the question: "Do I really want to spend that much time with this giant?"
It seemed more infinite than amusing.
Don't misunderstand me. I've heard great things about the novel and will probably tackle it some day.
But not now.
And yes, I frequently read mega-volumes - Tolstoy's War and Peace and Hersey's The Wall are on my re-read list - but those had a guarantee of greatness before I started them.
With books of unknown quality, more is less.
In the days of extensive business travel, I always had an Elmore Leonard or Ed McBain novel within reach. Those were quick and very well-written reads that would keep me entertained from New York to Phoenix.
And they were conveniently small. Imagine trying to cram Infinite Jest into your briefcase.
Haunting
Art Contrarian looks at the paintings of Joseph Wright of Derby.
Above is "Bridge Through a Cavern, Moonlight - 1791."
First Paragraph
I'm a senior at Cesar Chavez High in San Francisco's sunny Mission district, and that makes me one of the most surveilled people in the world. My name is Marcus Yallow but back when this story starts, I was going by w1n5t0n. Pronounced "Winston."
- From Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
- From Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Weekend Leadership Reading Assignments
Wally Bock has an assortment with a particular focus on artificial intelligence.
[Photo by NeONBRAND at Unsplash]
Friday, July 19, 2019
Perspective
These deep thinkers were the only people he could not stand to be around for long, these people who’d never manufactured anything or seen anything manufactured, who didn’t know what things were made of or how a company worked, who, aside from a house or a car, had never sold anything and didn’t know how to sell anything, who’d never hired a worker, fired a worker, trained a worker, been fleeced by a worker — people who knew nothing of the intricacies or the risks of building a business or running a factory but who nonetheless imagined they knew everything worth knowing.
- From American Pastoral by Philip Roth
Time Well Spent
For regular doses of wisdom, get thee to The Sovereign Professional.
[Photo by Giammarco Boscaro at Unsplash]
Candor and Job Announcements
Unfortunately, I have yet to see this candor in job announcements:
Although it might help if you can meet the degree and experience "requirements" listed in the above announcement, they really aren't needed to do this job. The fact is that if you are reasonably intelligent and have a positive attitude, strong communication skills, and a willingness to learn, we can easily teach you the basics in three weeks.
Four weeks at the outside.
For My Fellow Political Junkies
Here's a clip from "Primary," a documentary on the Democratic presidential race in 1960. The clip shows John Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey.
Thursday, July 18, 2019
Back By Popular Demand
Hans Zimmer and friends perform "Time" from the film Inception.
A Rare Argument for Privacy
Radio celebrity and host Howard Stern's statement when, rather than fill out financial disclosure forms, he withdrew as the Libertarian candidate for governor of New York in 1994:
"While I've told you everything about myself, and I've been telling you about myself since the first day I started broadcasting, there's only one fact I never revealed. I never told you how much money I made, I never told you how much money I have in the bank. And the reason I never told you how much money I have in the bank is because it's none of your business."
"While I've told you everything about myself, and I've been telling you about myself since the first day I started broadcasting, there's only one fact I never revealed. I never told you how much money I made, I never told you how much money I have in the bank. And the reason I never told you how much money I have in the bank is because it's none of your business."
First Paragraph
If we want to change a world with too many leadership failures, too many career derailments, and too many toxic workplaces, we must begin by acknowledging the facts and understanding why we are where we are. Only then will we begin to enjoy long-delayed progress. Myths and inspiring stories can be comforting, but they are worse than useless for creating change.
- From Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time by Jeffrey Pfeffer
[Photo by Rommel Davila at Unsplash]
Just Another Week in Florida
The trailer for "Crawl."
Bell Bottoms, For Example
A Layman's Blog has been taking us back to the days of Woodstock.
The change came and it wasn't all that pleasant.
The change came and it wasn't all that pleasant.
Making Happiness Your Priority
A Large Regular has a clip of the Naval Ravikant interview on The Joe Rogan Show.
There's also a link to the entire interview.
There's also a link to the entire interview.
An Age Besotted or the Sleeper Curve?
Ours is an age besotted with graphic entertainments. And in an increasingly infantilized society, whose moral philosophy is reducible to a celebration of "choice," adults are decreasingly distinguishable from children in their absorption in entertainments and the kinds of entertainments they are absorbed in - video games, computer games, hand-held games, movies on their computers and so on. This is progress: more sophisticated delivery of stupidity.
- George Will
Where most commentators assume a race to the bottom and a dumbing down - "an increasingly infantilized society," in George Will's words - I see a progressive story: mass culture growing more sophisticated, demanding more cognitive engagement with each passing year. Think of it as a kind of positive brainwashing: the popular media steadily, but almost imperceptibly, making our minds sharper, as we soak in entertainment usually dismissed as so much lowbrow fluff. I call this upward trend the Sleeper Curve, after the classic sequence from Woody Allen's mock sci-fi film, where a team of scientists from 2173 are astounded that twentieth-century society failed to grasp the nutritional merits of cream pies and hot fudge.
- Steven Johnson
- George Will
Where most commentators assume a race to the bottom and a dumbing down - "an increasingly infantilized society," in George Will's words - I see a progressive story: mass culture growing more sophisticated, demanding more cognitive engagement with each passing year. Think of it as a kind of positive brainwashing: the popular media steadily, but almost imperceptibly, making our minds sharper, as we soak in entertainment usually dismissed as so much lowbrow fluff. I call this upward trend the Sleeper Curve, after the classic sequence from Woody Allen's mock sci-fi film, where a team of scientists from 2173 are astounded that twentieth-century society failed to grasp the nutritional merits of cream pies and hot fudge.
- Steven Johnson
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
The MacArthur Maxim
Wally Bock gives a vivid example of leadership by example.
Required Reading
At the pinnacle of the Great Terror, the Politburo issued "quotas" to the police authorities, instructing them as to what percentage of the population in their district was to be shot and what percentage sent to camps. For example, on June 2, 1937, it set a quota of 35,000 persons to be "repressed" in Moscow city and Moscow province, of which number 5,000 were to be shot. One month later, the Politburo provided each region with quotas of persons to be "rounded up" nationwide; 70,000 of them were to be executed without trial. A high proportion of the victims of the Great Terror were persons with a higher education considered difficult to control and prone to engage in "sabotage."
- From Communism: A History by Richard Pipes
- From Communism: A History by Richard Pipes
Tuesday, July 16, 2019
28 Things
Abi Travis would buy these on Amazon 100 times again.
Modern Times
TIME: The 25 most influential people on the Internet.
I think that Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit easily belongs on that list.
I think that Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit easily belongs on that list.
From Behind the Vent
Sometimes on the street a woman would pass and you'd hear something from behind the vent in her burqa. Sometimes it was light and flirtatious, sometimes a little darker.
"I was a teacher of Persian," one of them said once from behind her vent. "This is like a death."
- From The Forever War by Dexter Filkins
"I was a teacher of Persian," one of them said once from behind her vent. "This is like a death."
- From The Forever War by Dexter Filkins
Banality of Evil? No.
"...As I dug deeper, I grew more and more uncomfortable with [Hannah] Arendt's explanations. The more I came to know these bureaucrats, the less familiar they became. I realized that this was a group of people completely aware of what they were doing, people with high ideological motivation, people of initiative and dexterity who contributed far beyond what was necessary. And there could be no doubt about it: they clearly understood that their deeds were not positive except in the value system of the Third Reich. They hated Jews and thought that getting rid of them would be to Germany's good. They knew that not everyone thought this way, and they deliberately hid information that might have deterred others from cooperating. While most of them sat behind desks rather than behind machine guns, from time to time some were called upon to face flesh and blood Jews and decide their fate, and this they did, ferociously, without batting an eyelid.
"The facts that stare one in the face, it seems to me, indicate the opposite of Arendt's thesis. There was nothing banal about the evil of Eichmann and his comrades."
- From Hitler's Bureaucrats: The Nazi Security Police and the Banality of Evil by Yaacov Lozowick
"The facts that stare one in the face, it seems to me, indicate the opposite of Arendt's thesis. There was nothing banal about the evil of Eichmann and his comrades."
- From Hitler's Bureaucrats: The Nazi Security Police and the Banality of Evil by Yaacov Lozowick
Monday, July 15, 2019
MAGA Overreaction
At Tax Prof Blog some law professors react to an article by another law professor about a student wearing a MAGA hat in class.
I found the original article to reveal a huge overreaction to what should have been no big deal. Should a professor freak out if a student wears a hat depicting a left-wing position?
Fair Fight
If you find yourself in a fair fight, you didn't plan your mission properly.
- Colonel David Hackworth
[Photo by Henry Hustava at Unsplash]
First Paragraph
On Friday, July 6, 1888, the price of sugar went up from forty to forty-two kreuzers a kilo in Imperial Vienna. On the afternoon of the same day, the gates of Franz Joseph's palace swung open. A carriage swept out onto the cobbles of the Ringstrasse. Many of the strollers stopped, as if they'd been waiting for the canter of these two horses.
- From A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888/1889 by Frederic Morton
- From A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888/1889 by Frederic Morton
Sunday, July 14, 2019
Quick Look
The trailer for "The Name of the Rose" (2019 version).
Bastille Day
Go storm something.
[Photo by Joe DeSouza at Unsplash]
Find Something Beautiful Today
[Photo by Nathan Anderson at Unsplash]
Saturday, July 13, 2019
How to Remember Ross Perot
On the one-year anniversary of his wounding, I joined Alan and his family for a small gathering. He was still in very bad shape, neurologically and physically incapacitated. When I asked his mother, Rosie, what I could do to help, she said she was eager to get him out of the hospital and back home, but struggling with the prospect of transporting Alan to his many medical visits.
Read the entire Dallas News story here.
Read the entire Dallas News story here.
First Paragraph
The marines were pressed flat on a rooftop when the dialogue began to unfold. It was 2 a.m. The minarets were flashing by the light of airstrikes and rockets were sailing on trails of sparks. First came the voices from the mosques, rising above the thundery guns.
- From The Forever War by Dexter Filkins
- From The Forever War by Dexter Filkins
Let's Remember This One
You do your job so everyone around you can do their job. There's no big secret to it.
- Tom Brady
- Tom Brady
Friday, July 12, 2019
Trouble Brewing
Private property in land came to Russia - exclusively to its nobility - only at the close of the eighteenth century; until then, all the land had belonged to the Crown.
- From Communism: A History by Richard Pipes
- From Communism: A History by Richard Pipes
Process versus Event
Don't expect that an event will provide a solution when a process is needed. Likewise don't pretend that a process will do the trick when an event is needed.
It may be "both/and" rather than "either/or."
[Photo by Dan Gold at Unsplash]
Restoration
Open Culture has a video of the restoration of Rembrandt's "The Night Watch."
Thursday, July 11, 2019
Campaign Slogan
Althouse plays the current Twitter game of designing your campaign slogan by using your last name + 2020 + the last text you sent.
Mine is:
Mine is:
Wade 2020
And wise they are to do so.
First Paragraph
With a rap of his gavel on June 27,2018, Chief Justice John Roberts declared another Supreme Court term over, and the nine justices disappeared behind the dark red curtains that hang behind the bench. The assembled journalists politely stood at attention until the last justice was out of view, then rushed to file stories about a non-event - no justice had announced his retirement. Speculation had been running high that Justice Anthony Kennedy, appointed by President Ronald Reagan and nearly eighty-two years old, would be leaving now that a Republican again occupied the White House. Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa had publicly advised the justices that if they were "thinking about quitting this year, do it yesterday." Grassley, and the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee he chaired, would have to manage the intense confirmation process, and with the midterm elections looming, they would need all the lead time they could get.
- From Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court by Mollie Hemingway and Carrie Severino
- From Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court by Mollie Hemingway and Carrie Severino
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
When a Society Loses Its Mind
The examples are numerous. One of the most bizarre:
San Francisco to paint over a George Washington mural.
San Francisco to paint over a George Washington mural.
On the Street
EarthCam: Bourbon Street, New Orleans.
Insightful
In 1994, comedian Dennis Miller described Admiral James Stockdale:
"He's a brilliant, sensitive, courageous individual. But he committed the unpardonable sin in our culture: He was bad on television."
"He's a brilliant, sensitive, courageous individual. But he committed the unpardonable sin in our culture: He was bad on television."
Lee Iacocca
Wally Bock points to some articles about the late Lee Iacocca, the auto industry executive whose personality and skills were widely associated with revitalization and rescue.
He was also an extraordinary salesman: "If you can find a better car, buy it."
He was also an extraordinary salesman: "If you can find a better car, buy it."
Office Politics Reminder: The Difficult May Look Simple
When you do highly demanding work which may seem simple to outsiders, it can be important to brief those who evaluate your performance on just what went into an achievement.
They may not know. The work does not always speak for itself. Silence may imply simplicity.
No Change Can Be a Virtue
Our approach is very much profiting from lack of change rather than from change. With Wrigley chewing gum, it's the lack of change that appeals to me. I don't think it is going to be hurt by the internet. That's the kind of business I like.
- Warren Buffett
- Warren Buffett
Tuesday, July 09, 2019
Re-Reads
A Large Regular lists books he re-reads.
Re-reading The Killer Angels occurred to me the other day. I will have to follow through.
I've started re-reading Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels. [I know a consultant who has read them six times!]
Last year, I re-read The Wind in the Willows. It was as charming as ever. An old friend reads Treasure Island every year.
I plan to give Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere another look.
It is true that some books bring special pleasure with repeated reading.
Re-reading The Killer Angels occurred to me the other day. I will have to follow through.
I've started re-reading Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels. [I know a consultant who has read them six times!]
Last year, I re-read The Wind in the Willows. It was as charming as ever. An old friend reads Treasure Island every year.
I plan to give Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere another look.
It is true that some books bring special pleasure with repeated reading.
Book Book Time
Most of us have a sizable amount of reading to do. We need books and journals for professional development as well as personal enjoyment and yet it is surprising how often reading is regarded as optional: something to fit in if the time allows.
When booking time for meetings, project work, contacts, entertainment, family, rest, and exercise, be sure to book time for books.
[Photo by Thought Catalog at Unsplash]
Creativity and Restriction
James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, tells the story of an odd bet that prompted Dr. Suess to write a best-selling book.
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