Quote of the Moment
Trying to predict the future is a mug’s game. But increasingly it’s a game we all have to play because the world is changing so fast, and we need to have some sort of idea of what the future’s actually going to be like because we are going to have to live there, probably next week.
| Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time
Since all these issues have been unlocked, it’s a great issue to share with others to see what all the fuss is about.
A new tradition: I am dedicating this issue and the previous one to a post (or two) from each month which are worth another look. Or maybe a first look for those who weren’t subscribers when they first came out, or perhaps (even now) couldn’t be accessed except by paid subscribers. So I am making these posts freely accessible until Groundhog’s Day for everyone. A jubilee!
Update: 2022-12-28
This post was created before the holidays, and before a new wrinkle: I cam down with Covid just before Xmas. I tested positive again, today, 28 Dec 2022. I’m hoping to be free of the bug later this week, and at least I’m not really sick, just a slight cough left. Wish me luck.
July 2022
The Problem of Productivity
Cal Newport almost gets to 'progressivity', but not quite.
I believe that we are involved in a foundational shift in the world of work. I have said for years,
People do work, companies do business.
We tend to conflate work and business, using them almost interchangeably except when we are trying to make a distinction. That’s what I think is lacking in Newport’s exposition: the dividing line between work and business.
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Ian Bogust Wants Us Back In The Office
But his arguments don't make any sense.
Ian Bogust, in Hybrid Work Is Doomed, make a series of pointless and misleading arguments that can almost be boiled down to this: Although people are productive working out of the office, management will force them back into the office because it serves the desires of lazy managers.
However, after seemingly making that argument, which I completely disagree with, he seems to abandon it.
August 2022
The Fog of So-Much-Happening-All-at-Once
What the hell is going on in the jobs market?
It is the aim of public life to arrange that all forms of power are entrusted, so far as possible, to people who effectively consent to be bound by the obligation towards all human beings which lies upon everyone, and who understand the obligation.
| Simone Weil, Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation
I propose that we redirect Weil’s statement to leadership in the workplace, and the Retransformation that is going on in the economy, in view but shrouded by the fog of so-much-happening-all-at-once. Josh Bersin’s argument (discussed in Confusion Reigns, below [in that issue]) lines up with that assessment.
September 2022
Conversation Aligns Minds
Unteams, Redux | Teams and Agreement | The Zola Technique
We have to ask how we optimize for a new world of work, because it is happening. I know from conversations with my executive students that there is a tension between how we think work is happening and what is actually going on. Organizations must adapt to resolve it.
| Constance Noonan Hadley
October 2022
Resist Toxic Culture
The Nap Ministry | Enmeshment | Can Toxic Workplaces Be Fixed?
Grind culture has normalized pushing our bodies to the brink of destruction. We proudly proclaim showing up to work or an event despite an injury, sickness, or mental break. We are praised and rewarded for ignoring our body’s need for rest, care, and repair. The cycle of grinding like a machine continues and becomes internalized.
| Tricia Hersey, Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto
November 2022
Fast and Frugal
Joseph Stiglitz | Won'tWork | Beyond Tattoos and Hoodies | Cultural Misfits
Fast-and-frugal robust heuristics may not be a second-best option but rather ‘rational’ responses in complex and changing macroeconomic environments.
| Joseph Stiglitz et al, Rational Heuristics? Expectations and Behaviors in Evolving Economies with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents
When being rational is too slow.
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Each Other's Welfare
Helen Keller | Twitter's Hall of Mirrors | The Legacy of the Pandemic
Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other’s welfare, social justice can never be attained.
| Helen Keller
December 2022
Traced to the Female
Barbara Tuchman | Biden’s Rail Strike | Company-Wide Time Off | She Said | Fediverse
Theology being the work of males, original sin was traced to the female.
| Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror
I stumbled across this line by Tuchman this week. She caused me to wonder if the persistent pay inequality for women links back to a deep and persistent thread that women don’t ‘belong’ in the workplace as equals, because of the religious doctrine of female subservience.
How else to explain it?
Since all these issues have been unlocked, it’s a great issue to share with others to see what all the fuss is about.