• WHEN HIRING MISTAKES HAPPEN, impacts can include “cost of up to ten times salary if terminated within 2½ years, along with disruption of the organization, damage to morale, reducing employee productivity, creating HR headaches, and diminishing work quality, along with customer satisfaction and business reputation.” Principal weaknesses which can result in poor hires include: (1) “Recruiting for Pedigree and Experience instead of Skills. Transferable skills like leadership, communication, resilience and problem-solving are usually far better predictions of future success”; (2) Lack of a standard process for interviewing, like a standard checklist of questions which can be later compared among interviews; (3) “Cutting bait on bad hires… It’s human nature to delay, defer, and rationalize second chances, but correcting mistakes before negatively impacting the entire organization is critical to avoid punishing good employees for bad hires, which forces them to end up overworked & burned out from picking up the slack, and contributes to unwanted turnover.”  DCG can help.  [CFO MAGAZINE – Nov/Dec 18]
  •  DISAGREEMENTS HAPPEN AMONG ANY GROUP WORKING TOGETHER but office conflict often leads to loss of productivity, so ‘policies’ for resolving employee disputes are productive for many businesses & organizations. Policy examples include: (1) a designated exec or HR manager to provide independent perspective; (2) promoting outside-the-office discussions since “being in a different setting tends to add levity to situations that sometimes just need that sort of perspective” for resolution; (3) promoting “critical versus cynical discussions, toward goals of improving something versus tearing down or obstructing”; (4) aligning performance review incentives to employee ability to provide constructive feedback. [ENTREPRENEUR – Dec 18]
  •  TECHNOLOGY AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WILL SOON LITERALLY BE CHANGING THE FACE OF ‘ENTERTAINMENT.” Facets include: (1) A “real life Thunderdome’ being built 30 stories tall in Las Vegas, with a 3½-acre spherical LED screen which “arcs over the audience like a planetarium times ten,” and over 150,000 directional speakers which can beam to different sections of the 12,000-seat arena in different languages; (2) Hologram performances through ‘military grade lasers’ which can replicate how the human face actually moves; (3) Hyper-virtual reality including ‘haptic feedback vests’ which can mimic anything from a jolt upon being shot in the chest to the sensation of an elevator rising; and (4) interactive TV which will lets viewers choose their plot lines.  The couch-potato world will be expanding dramatically.  [ROLLING STONE – Dec 18]
  •  ODDITIES & ENDS: (1) In America, women who are ‘poor’ weigh on average twelve pounds less than wealthier women; for men, the reverse is true. According to the Gallup survey, “there are no obvious answers but undoubtedly the differing roles of the genders have been assigned by society and the differing pressures they face at various income levels provide some clue.” (2) Oregon’s next ballot initiative in 2020 may legalize Magic Mushrooms, “which some studies have shown to have positive effects, especially for those undergoing cancer treatments and chemical depression.” Under federal law, possession of psilocybin however remains classified as a Schedule 1 substance and constitutes a felony. (3) A recent discovery of 200 million ‘termite mounds’ covering an area the size of Minnesota, in a remote Brazil forest, some as old as 4000 years and standing 10 feet high, is now considered another “Wonder of the World, equivalent to 4000 Great Pyramids of Giza.”
  • THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:

         CAUTION: Holiday gifts to wives do require thoughtfulness: https://biggeekdad.com/2013/12/the-doghouse/

 A Mental Process Test – 4 related questions which few get right; Think before reading the answer which follows each question:

1.       How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator? ……. Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door. 

2.       How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator? ……..Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door. This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions. 

3.       The Lion King is hosting an Animal Conference.  All the animals attend except one. Which animal does not attend? …….The Elephant, who is in the refrigerator. You just put him in there — this tests your memory. 

4.       There is a river you must cross but it is used by crocodiles, and you do not have a boat. How do you manage it? …….You jump into the river and swim across, since all the crocodiles are attending the Animal Conference.  /// 

 This test shows whether you learn quickly from your mistakes. According to Anderson Consulting, around 90% of the Retirees they tested got all questions wrong, but many pre-schoolers got several correct answers!

       Latest Political Correctness groups are now categorized as LGBTQQIAPPK:  Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersectional, Asexual, Pansexual, Polysexual, Kink