After watching the news, I have concluded that it is time to revisit Lewis Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter."
Tuesday, August 31, 2021
Forming a Working Group
When it comes to judgment, the group is not inherently superior to the individual. [Sometimes, all of us are dumber than one of us.] When forming a group for action, it is important that personalities and proclivities be considered because the little things will ultimately mean a great deal, regardless of how impressive the credentials or backgrounds.
This is not a group of individuals as much as it is a group of relationships. To assume that productive relationships will naturally ensue is to believe in magic.
And it is not wise to rely on magic.
I Doubt If Critical Thinking Gets Much Attention
“There is no such thing as learning loss,” she responds when asked how her insistence on keeping L.A.’s schools mostly locked down over the last year and a half may have impacted the city’s 600,000 kindergarten through 12th-grade students. “Our kids didn’t lose anything. It’s OK that our babies may not have learned all their times tables. They learned resilience. They learned survival. They learned critical-thinking skills. They know the difference between a riot and a protest. They know the words insurrection and coup.”
- The head of United Teachers Los Angeles quoted in Los Angeles Magazine
Monday, August 30, 2021
"What the hell is happening Down Under?"
Writing in City Journal, Arthur Chrenkoff explores Australia's heavy-handed response to COVID.
Part of Your Primary Course of Study
- When do you make your best decisions?
- What are your greatest weaknesses?
- Which of your strengths may keep you from being more effective?
- Where do you invest your time?
- How much time do you squander with self-reproach?
- Have you underestimated the amount of your impatience?
- Do you permit others to make you upset or angry?
- How much of your career was chosen to please others?
- Is there a statute of limitations on your mistakes?
- Do you listen as well as you speak?
- Is your head in the game?
- Are you good at saying no?
- Do you feel guilty about decisions over which you had no control?
- Do you continually compare yourself to others?
- If others win, do you lose?
- What would you regard as success?
They Don't Just Happen
Successful communities, successful countries, don't just happen. They are built by dedication, sacrifice, and hard work. They must find or build unifying bonds and values. They are also built by caring for each other, helping each other, and working jointly on projects and programs.
- Richard D. Lamm
Sunday, August 29, 2021
Meanwhile, on Bourbon Street
Check out the Earth Cam. [Hit the "Live" button.]
[I contacted a friend who lives in New Orleans. He sent a note back saying that he's waiting out the storm in Meridian, Mississippi.]
Saturday, August 28, 2021
10 Soundtracks to Check Out
All lives need a soundtrack. Check out the following:
- The Thin Red Line by Hans Zimmer
- Cinema Paradiso by Ennio Morricone
- Legends of the Fall by James Horner
- Nowhere in Africa by Niki Reiser
- Amélie by Yann Tiersen
- The Cowboys by John Williams
- The Mission by Ennio Morricone
- Deep Impact by James Horner
- Jurassic Park by John Williams
- Interstellar by Hans Zimmer
Group Rights versus Individual Rights
When you want to control a complex social situation, the first thing you do is make categories and award privileges. But, as in any statist system, for every entitlement there is an equal and opposite obligation. When, in the flush of class action, entitlements are compassionately granted to groups, obligations are cruelly drawn from individuals. Over all, the state is the decisive arbiter. Its power increases as it manufactures new rights and new relations, shifting them in an ever-changing shell game in which players have the illusion that they are winning but it is the dealer who goes home with the money.
- From "Diversity is Not a Virtue" - an essay by Mark Helprin in Reinventing the American People: Unity and Diversity Today, edited by Robert Royal (1995)
Friday, August 27, 2021
Thoughts While Reviewing Decisions
Solutions to one problem are often regarded as problems later on. It may make sense not to remove that "problem" until you know the original problem that it solved.
Those who say this or that action was a mistake frequently regard the world as if it were frozen in ice. They do not know what would have happened had the action not been taken. [In most cases, no one does.] This is particularly true of major decisions.
Who Closed the Schools?
A Harvard Business School Working Paper by Joshua Coval. An excerpt:
Which schools chose to favor teacher interests over those of their students? The answer turns out to be quite simple: it was those schools that had demonstrated a willingness to do so in the past. Schools that chose virtual instruction during the 2020-2021 school year were schools that, prior to the pandemic, had a history of favoring teachers over students. During the 2018-2019 year, students at schools that would later opt for online instruction had school days that were 18 minutes (4 percent) shorter. Their teachers spent 30 fewer minutes at school each day and 1.5 fewer non-teaching days at school each year.
A.K.A. a Kill List
Politico reports that the Biden administration has given the Taliban a list of names of Americans and Afghan allies of the Americans.
Thursday, August 26, 2021
Sound Advice
Remember: The professor's job is NOT to get students to believe as he or she does. We should not be telling students WHAT to think. Our mission is to inspire and empower our students to think more deeply, more critically (including self-critically), and FOR THEMSELVES.
- Robert P. George, Princeton University
A Reminder: Large and Awful Faces from Beyond
“We sit by and watch the barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creed refreshes us; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles.”
― Hilaire Belloc
Time to Get Serious
Bari Weiss's Common Sense: Peter Savodnik gives a sense of what is bubbling outside of Washington. An excerpt:
Our elites’ dereliction of duty, their forgetting — about who they were supposed to be and, just as important, what America was supposed to be — is mostly to blame for the ocean of inanity that has engulfed us. The multiplying stupidities. The mythologies we promulgate online unironically or strategically. The preeners. The pronoun displayers. The opportunists. Michael Moore with his mindless Instagram post about everyone having their own Taliban.
Wednesday, August 25, 2021
Something to Ponder: Key Characteristics
There is more in common between two parliamentarians one of whom is a socialist, than between two socialists one of whom is a parliamentarian.
- Jean Jaurès, French socialist and member of the Chamber of Deputies
[Update: Correction made. Aargh.]
An Egregious Display of Bad Taste
FutureLawyer takes on the weird study that attacked the noble hot dog, a staple for many of us who have made it into the yonder years.
And we needn't guess what Ignatius J. Reilly (pictured above) would think of that study.
Virtue Signaling or Racism?
Ann Althouse, John McWhorter, and The New York Times on the Wisconsin rock episode.
Tuesday, August 24, 2021
Worth a Re-Read
It is good to read a novel that you first read in high school and discover that it is as great as you recall.
In my case, the novel is "The Wall" by John Hersey.
The Austere and the Loose
In every civilized society, in every society where the distinction of ranks has once been completely established, there have been always two different schemes or systems of morality current at the same time; of which one may be called the strict or austere; the other the liberal, or, if you will, the loose system. The former is generally admired and revered by the common people: the latter is commonly more esteemed and adopted by what are called people of fashion.
- Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations
[It is not difficult to find people who preach one system and yet practice the other.]
Academic Transparency Act
How can parents learn what's really being taught in school?
Consider a proposed law by the Goldwater Institute.
Miscellaneous and Fast
- Niall Ferguson: Kabul could become Tehran 1979. [HT: A Large Regular]
- SEC approves NASDAQ's board diversity standards.
- Jim Geraghty: Something is wrong with the President.
- Page Six: Larry David screams at a person who disagrees with him.
- Wilfred Reilly on The Assault on Empiricism.
Monday, August 23, 2021
One Thing
The best thing I did as a manager at PayPal was to make every person in the company responsible for doing just one thing. Every employee's one thing was unique, and everyone knew I would evaluate him only on that one thing. I had started doing this just to simplify the task of managing people. But then I noticed a deeper result: defining roles reduced conflict.
- Peter Thiel in Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
Education That Unites
1776 Unites has sent an open letter to the National School Boards Association and local school boards.
This Clip Should Be Watched Once a Week, Regardless of Your Job
Yes, I've posted this before and will do so again.
Warning Signs
If there is no respect for freedom of speech, the presumption of innocence, due process, the right to dissent, and the right to privacy, then alarm bells should be sounding, regardless of whether or not you are dealing with an individual or a group.
[Photo by Alexey Soucho at Unsplash]
Sunday, August 22, 2021
Saturday, August 21, 2021
But They are So Altruistic
Once corporations discovered wokeness, the inevitable happened: they used it to make money.
- From Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam by Vivek Ramaswamy
Wisdom
"Let's not be in a hurry to make our mistakes."
- President Dwight Eisenhower's admonition to his Cabinet members
"The Many Qualities of the Supposedly Effective Manager"
This composite list contains fifty-two items. Be all fifty-two and you are bound to be an effective manager. Even if not a human one.
- From Simply Managing by Henry Mintzberg
Friday, August 20, 2021
Debacle in Afghanistan: Accountability Awaits
Politico on chaos in the Biden administration as Afghanistan falls.
See the Harvard Business Review article "Whatever Happened to Accountability?" by Thomas E. Ricks.
Consider how George C. Marshall would have viewed this debacle.
This Sounds Like the United States
Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there. One of the dominant facts in English life during the past three-quarters of a century has been the decay of ability in the ruling class.
- From England Your England, an essay by George Orwell
I'd Love to See a Savant Play This
FutureLawyer has a video of a nifty chessboard that enables you to play against a computer.
Guess who wins?
The Sidewalk Rule
Organize a new group and see how quickly the temptation to complicate matters starts to surface.
Keeping things simple and action-oriented is difficult and yet if that orientation is not present from the start, it may be too late. Territory may already have been seized and boundaries drawn.
One salvation may be found in keeping the organization's structure in loose and revisable draft until actions suggests its shape.
Minor delays can help. You can later build sidewalks where the paths were made.
Thursday, August 19, 2021
First Paragraph
As the corpse went past the flies left the restaurant table in a cloud and rushed after it, but they came back a few minutes later.
- From Marrakech, an essay by George Orwell
Umbrella Man
Sometimes, the more you learn about a famous person, particularly if you get to glimpse something of their private character and feelings, the harder it is not to sympathize with them on some basic human level, regardless of what you might think of what they did. Neville Chamberlain is not one of those people. The more you learn about the private man, the harder it is to find anything to like about him at all.
- Alan Allport in Britain At Bay: The Epic Story of the Second World War, 1938-1941
Wednesday, August 18, 2021
When Dictatorships Get Close to the People
After the Wall fell the German media called East Germany 'the most perfected surveillance state of all time'. At the end, the Stasi had 97,000 employees - more than enough to oversee a country of seventeen million people. But it also had over 173,000 informers among the population. In Hitler's Third Reich it is estimated that there was one Gestapo agent for every 2000 citizens, and in Stalin's USSR there was one KGB agent for every 5830 people. In the GDR, there was one Stasi officer or informant for every sixty-three people. If part-time informers are included, some estimates have the ratio as high as one informer for every 6.5 citizens.
- From Stasiland: Stories From Behind The Berlin Wall by Anna Funder
Challenges
- My wife continues to go through physical therapy? Check.
- Deadlines keep swooping in? Check.
- Another coyote was in our backyard? Check.
- Some thief took the catalytic converter off our car? Check.
- We are continuing to have rain storms in Phoenix? Check.
Wait. The monsoons have returned to Phoenix?
Very nice.
Tuesday, August 17, 2021
Avoiding Complications
Is our personal "default mode" one of simplicity or complexity?
Based on my own experience as well as the experiences of clients, I believe needless complexity has become almost a sport.
Why is that so? Because simplicity is more challenging. It requires more work.
First Paragraph
As a rule, Mark Lynas did not enjoy upsetting people. He liked to read history books and play ultimate frisbee. He had a job editing a small charity network website. The son of a scientist, he was passionate about protecting the environment. But he preferred to write his arguments rather than scream them.
- From High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out by Amanda Ripley
Monday, August 16, 2021
A Change
A number of years ago I noticed that "The buck stops here" doesn't mean the same as it did when Harry Truman was president.
It may have something to do with short attention spans.
They're Standing Ready
My advice is not to trust anyone associated with the Joint Statement on Afghanistan.
The closing sentences:
"The Afghan people deserve to live in safety, security and dignity. We in the international community stand ready to assist them."
Political Language
Political language - and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists - is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
- George Orwell in "Politics and the English Language"
Reminder: Incompetent Leaders Rarely Pay a Price
Althouse has an infuriating (and sad) article about a woman in Afghanistan.
Sunday, August 15, 2021
Saturday, August 14, 2021
"For the Love of Music"
Conductor and violinist John McLaughlin Williams has a question for advocates of deblinding auditions: “Why hold an audition at all? Why not just send in a head shot?”
Read the rest of Heather Mac Donald's article in City Journal.
Friday, August 13, 2021
"Why Everything We Thought About Drugs Was Wrong"
Michael Shellenberger has an interesting take.
[Spelling correction made. Aargh.]
Coaching
Coaching an executive or manager is like changing a tire while the car is still moving. It is a collection of hundreds of mental photographs and a mound of minor comments that can hide the one - the one - that is truly revealing.
And then you have to question that because the numbers in any mental equation are not like those in real equations.
The coaching "figures" can think and move.
Thursday, August 12, 2021
The First Principle
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool.
- Richard Feynman
Wealthy Man
Years ago, we met at his home in a modest suburb of London. His house was run-down and it was packed with books. The carpets were worn.
He served tea. The cups had chips on them.
But he was no longer in the hands of the secret police.
A Reasonable Question
You have a much better chance getting an answer with history. The wizards behind current affairs are not candid.
Silent Question
Wednesday, August 11, 2021
To Be Remembered
Whenever someone comes to me for help, I listen very hard and ask myself, ‘What does this person really want – and what will they do to keep from getting it?’
– William Perry
"Internet Originalist"
Jonathan Turley on the censoring of Rand Paul for speaking out against mandates.
First Paragraph
I am hungover and steer myself like a car through the crowds at Alexanderplatz station. Several times I miscalculate my width, scraping into a bin, and an advertising bollard. Tomorrow bruises will develop on my skin, like a picture from a negative.
- From Stasiland: Stories From Behind The Berlin Wall by Anna Funder
Modesty Can Go a Long Way
Tout. Hint. Brag (just a little).
That's only human.
And yet remember that achievements have their greatest punch when unmentioned and eventually discovered by others.
[Photo by Adeolu Eletu at Unsplash]
Tuesday, August 10, 2021
Modern Times
The criticism in the newspapers and pulpits across the country was intense. The ball cost $370,000 at a time when $400 was the per capita annual income. One outraged protestant minister thundered: “You rich people put next to nothing in the collection plate, and yet you’ll spend thousands of dollars on Mrs. Bradley–Martin’s ball.” New York City promptly doubled the tax assessment on the couple’s New York mansion.
Read the rest of John Steele Gordon's essay in City Journal.
Down These Dark Streets
I will be cryptic.
One of my projects resembled a bureaucratic detective story. Down its foggy and winding streets, the signs were unreliable and there were many dark alleys. People lurked. Maps were designed to confuse. Lighting was poor. Job titles meant little and standards which should have been objective were highly subjective.
And at the top floors, there was a lot of "sentence first, verdict later."
Some day I'll tell you about it.
Monday, August 09, 2021
A Mystery and More
"What is a person?" If I knew the answer to that, I might be able to program an artificial person in a computer. But I can't. Being a person is not a pat formula, but a quest, a mystery, a leap of faith.
- Jaron Lanier in You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto
Mission Creep versus Mission Slither
All of us are familiar with Mission Creep. The group starts out with Mission A and, over time, adds Mission B and perhaps even Missions C, D, and Z.
With distraction and neglect, Mission Creep can happen very quickly. Those in charge may not realize that carefully-considered Mission A has, without changing its title, become a very different project.
I recently found an example of Mission Slither. The original mission was not expanded. It ostensibly remained the same but some poison was injected. As a result, although the surface appearance of the original mission was the same, the inner substance had died.
How did that happen? A "minor" change was proposed and accepted without thorough analysis. Close scrutiny would have revealed that the proposed change was not minor at all and was flat-out dangerous but such scrutiny was not present. My guess is the senior partners approved the change on the tail-end of a long meeting about weightier matters. No one was asked to identify possible negatives.
It was probably regarded as bold decision-making.
God save us from such decisions.
[Photo by David Clode at Unsplash]
Sunday, August 08, 2021
Saturday, August 07, 2021
Many a Great Recipe Can Be Found in Old Cookbooks
Kurt Harden at Cultural Offering has the details. The cookbook photo produced a flashback.
Deep Observation and Deep Listening
The health advantages of deep breathing are often noted.
I won't get into those. Let's consider, however, the professional advantages of deep observation and deep listening.
Some people attend meetings and leave with scant knowledge of what took place. Others can tell you about undercurrents, alliances, position shifts, subtle opposition, and intentional distractions. They can cite the significance of what was not said as well as what was said. They spot phrases that were used to disguise and summaries that were brilliant. They know which direction the group leaned on various topics and whether there were any trade-offs.
In other words, they were in the meeting and not simply physically present.
The more you use deep observation and deep listening, the more those skills improve.
You might even begin to enjoy meetings.
Book Recommendations for Business Leaders
By pointing to business books that matter, Wally Bock provides a true public service.
[Photo by Shiromani Kant at Unsplash]
Friday, August 06, 2021
First Paragraph
If you run in highly educated, professional circles in big cities, you have probably come across your fair share of Asian Americans. Your family doctor is disproportionately likely to be Asian American. The cellist at your local orchestra is likely to have straight jet-black hair and brown eyes. Your "quant," i.e., your math guy - perhaps the classmate you stole your homework from when you were a kid - is disproportionately likely to have some connection to China. In some sense, many Asian Americans have developed professionally and ensconced themselves in lives of middle-class "stability," despite looking and acting different from the average white guy.
- From An Inconvenient Minority: The Attack on Asian American Excellence and the Fight for Meritocracy by Kenny Xu
I Have Many Companions
It continues to astound me that I can look at some markings on a page and learn the thoughts of someone who lived many years ago.
I have many companions.
Bugs and Shop Slang
The bug, that perverse and elusive malfunctioning of hardware and later of software, was born in the nineteenth century. It was already accepted shop slang as early as 1878, when Thomas Edison described his style of invention in a letter to a European representative: "The first step is an intuition and it comes with a burst, then difficulties arise - this thing gives out and then that - 'Bugs' - as such little faults and difficulties are called - show themselves, and months of intense watching, study and labor are requisite before commercial success - or failure - is certainly reached."
- From Why Things Bite Back: Technology and The Revenge of Unintended Consequences by Edward Tenner
First Paragraph
Believing that it is our nature to enjoy giving and receiving in a compassionate manner, I have been preoccupied most of my life with two questions: What happens to disconnect us from our compassionate nature, leading us to behave violently and exploitatively? And conversely, what allows some people to stay connected to their compassionate nature under even the most trying circumstances?
- From Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall B. Rosenberg
Oikophobia
Quillette in 2019: Benedict Beckeld on western self-hatred.
His book on the subject is coming out in 2022.
In the meantime, I recommend Paul Hollander's books on anti-Americanism.
A Gap in the Story
Bari Weiss talks with Kmele Foster about "The Central Park Karen" incident.
Very interesting.
Thursday, August 05, 2021
The Conversation Route
A key question that should be considered by any management coach is whether or not the client is coachable. If the answer is no, then there is no reason to go further.
I see a similar situation in disagreements. There the question is whether or not both parties are willing to discuss the subject in a polite manner so that the differing areas can be identified, facts can be evaluated, and possible areas of agreement can be pinpointed. In essence, the goal is for each side to understand the other person's position.
If either or both sides adopt a strategy of beating down the other side and refusing to hear counter-arguments, then there is little room for discussion. It is not a conversation. It is an attack.
The current social climate provides many examples of the attack mentality. That is a shame. Even if there is reason to suspect that little or no agreement will be reached, there is more to be learned via the conversation route than there is in a rejectionist mode.
Perhaps even a great deal more.
Avoid those who seek compliance more than conversation.
The "Ranown" Westerns
My interest in the Ranown low-budget but well-done films was sparked by this Althouse post. There's a management lesson here. Less can indeed be more.
Random Thoughts
[An earlier collection of Random Thoughts.]
Wednesday, August 04, 2021
First Paragraph
"We think about the future all day, every day. What time do I need to leave the house? What's for breakfast? Can we picnic on the weekend? Should I change jobs? Move house? Online and offline, the news is mostly speculation: what will happen in Congress, in traffic, in the markets. However much we might aim to live in the present, we can't cross the road without thinking ahead: Will that car reach me before I'm safely across? Our brains have evolved to anticipate whether we'll like this food, this person, that book. Entire industries - property, travel, banks, insurance, pensions, technology - analyze, construct, and sell permutations of the future. So we cannot not think about it: neither our brains nor our lives will allow it."
- From Uncharted: How to Navigate the Future by Margaret Heffernan
First Paragraph
One of the most trite observations that anyone can make about China in the twenty-first century is that it is run by a single party of which Xi Jinping is the current leader, and which is interested solely in staying in office and cares only about power, and that one must assume therefore that if power is located anywhere, it must be there. This is as illuminating as saying humans need food and want to live. The interesting question is what sort of power the Party wants and how it wishes to use it. What no one disputes, however, is that when talking about political power - the ability physically to organize people, and to control natural resources - any discussion has to embrace and understand the CCP. It is in this entity that the real action happens, and it is here that we need to seek answers to the question of what political power is in modern China.
- From CEO, China: The Rise of Xi Jinping by Kerry Brown
I, Criminal
"Before we go any further, please disabuse yourself of the notion that I am dumb. I watch, listen, and learn from what happens around me. In some ways, I’m probably smarter than you. I bought three kilograms of cocaine for $93,000 last week. Quick: tell me how many quarter pounds, ounces, and eight-balls I have, and what should I sell each amount for if I need to make $250,000. I did that in my head while you were reaching for a calculator."
Read all of "I, Criminal" by Thomas Hogan and Kevin Dykes at City Journal.
Tuesday, August 03, 2021
First Paragraph
This is a portrait of a pessimist. He dominated the political life of Portugal for forty years, never wavering in his scepticism about the ability of the Portuguese, and indeed wider humanity, to be virtuous and rational in political matters. An outlook sustained by thinkers from Thucydides to St Augustine and from Hobbes to Sigmund Freud convinced him that democracy was a dangerous innovation quite likely to end in disaster, except in a few exceptional countries like Britain and Switzerland.
- From Salazar: The Dictator Who Refused to Die by Tom Gallagher
Lose a Positive Culture, Lose Success
"Culture makes all the difference in the economic success of peoples and nations."
- David Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations
Monday, August 02, 2021
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