• EVEN WHEN LEADERSHIP STRATEGY IS WELL-DEVELOPED, IT’S MANAGERS WHO ARE CRITICAL to effectively implementing strategy, by leading their teams toward common objectives and coaxing optimal productivity. Optimally effective Managers generally: (1) Clearly communicate direction & expectations to their staff and monitor consistently to ensure alignment; (2) Meet regularly with individual workers to coach, develop, and focus on any resource needs or barriers to their performance; (3) Hold employees accountable to reality-based performance measures, in some cases formal KPIs; (4) Roll-up their sleeves and work alongside if/when necessary. DCG offer courtesy Lunch & Learn sessions with leaders and managers to share perspective in these areas. Let us help optimize your business effectiveness.
  • TODAY’S RADICAL PROGRESSIVE IDEOLOGICAL AGENDA is now substantially under control of corporate media – print, TV, film, music & tech platforms – to the exclusion of citizen journalism or even reasonable dissemination of differing perspectives. The key foundations which facilitated this position over the past handful of decades are: (1) Educational and government activist Unions having effectuated contracts for ‘tenured’ teacher & government employees; (2) Public funding to provide ‘woke’ curricula in schools, universities, clubs & activist organizations (in both America and internationally, e.g. some $800 million for ‘gender studies’ at Kabul University); (3) Two generations of indoctrination for millennial and Z Gen now in positions as lawmakers, teachers, corporate execs, and government bureaucrats; (4) Weaponization of unelected agencies to harass and prosecute political and/or ideological opponents. The ability to control Culture is effectively leading to full control of today’s politics. [PRICKLY PEAR – 5/30/23] 
  • SO, GET READY FOR SUPERCHARGED DIS-INFORMATION POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS, with realistic images spitting out sophisticated propaganda, thanks to Artificial Intelligence. Political disinformation is nothing new. “Campaigners have always disassembled, exaggerated, and transmitted lies ranging from bald-faced to white, through whatever means are available, so campaigns have never been free from falsehoods & mistaken beliefs – but, in the past, always created by humans.” This season’s quantity of mis- and dis-information will be dramatically greater, thanks to generative A.I. delivered by Bots, with anticipated negative impacts including: “(1) hyper-realistic deep-flakes swaying voters before false audio/ photos/ videos could be debunked; (2) micro-targeting which inundates voters with highly-personalized propaganda, harder to detect; (3) worsening the continuously declining level of Trust in fellow citizens; (4) persuading people to vote differently…  The American campaigns of 2024 will be marred about not only the candidates, but also about the rule of law and integrity of elections.” Just be ready and hopefully aware.  [ECONOMIST -9/2/23] 
  • AMERICA HAS NOW TOTALLY BIFURCATED INTO THREE ALMOST DISTINCT NATIONS: (1) Liberals – “globalized, bi-coastal, wealthy, internationalized, with higher percentages of college-educated & pseudo-credentialed, mostly in control of the nation’s culture & politics – as defined by the administrative state, bureaucracies, media, academia, foundations, corporate boardrooms, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and along with the elite echelon of military, professional sports, arts & entertainment industries; (2) Conservatives – the vast interior between the coasts where food grows, oil & gas gets pumped, timber is cut, building materials fashioned, and things get built by the folks who kept driving trucks during the pandemic, and millions who lost their jobs, spent their savings and borrowed trying to save their homes & small businesses while following the orders of the ensconced; and (3) Activist Leftists – who believe they deserve ‘equal’ lives, and that a Socialist society, with security of government-provided food/ shelter/ education/ insurance, will accomplish this without having to commit their lives to work & competition for money, many willing to literally burn down the capitalist structure. We’re very likely past the point of any reconciliation among these disparate groups, so the only certainties in our future are Uncertainty and Change. – Victor Davis Hanson
  • THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:

 The likelihood of adults over age 50 developing dementia is lessened by moderate and regular internet use, according to a 17-year study, published in Journal of American Geriatrics Society, reporting that “regular users, up to two hours daily, were just half as likely to develop the cognitive disorder than their non-using counterparts aged 50 to 65.”  [NEOSCOPE]

 A pretty unique & amazing magic act from a 15-year old. https://biggeekdad.com/2023/08/magic-macy/

 When shoes become untied, evidently it’s from tying the knot backward. Who knew? https://www.realclearscience.com/video/2023/09/04/are_you_tying_your_shoes_wrong_977119.html?utm_source=rcp-today&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mailchimp-newsletter&mc_cid=1132f42837&mc_eid=afc66dfbec