• VIRTUALLY MANAGING ‘UNDERPERFORMING’ EMPLOYEES over phone or zoom calls is a challenge which can create anxiety and often be procrastinated to avoid confrontation. A few tips for more effective virtual feedback are: (1) “Not reflexively zeroing in on faults, assuming the person’s lack of initiative or poor attitude, and rather first considering whether organizational issues or communication may be a cause; (2) Question and listen to the employee’s perception of issues before rehashing shortfalls or dictating corrective feedback, to guide & help empower problem resolution on their own; (3) Acknowledging (if appropriate) your own feelings of frustration in these unprecedented work circumstances with assurance of resource support to help them best perform.” Opting for guidance over disapproval is usually better strategy.  [FAST COMPANY – 11/16/20]
  • CALIFORNIA IS “ON ITS WAY TO THE DEATH OF INNOVATION AND THIRD-WORLD STATUS…as multiple Silicon Valley tech powerhouses, venture capitalists, and heavyweights in fashion, music, arts, and the small businesses that support them are leaving in droves…due to notoriously high taxes, heavy regulations, an endless sea of bureaucratic red tape, and now loss of freedom to work as they choose – the so-called ‘gig workers’ law which has decimated 300 professions and reduced or destroyed the income for 4.5 million independent contractors, freelancers, and non-app based workers (other than Uber/Lyft drivers who got voter-approved exemption), as well as strangling the franchise industry… Politicians and illegal aliens are not going to keep the state running; so, what happens to the world’s 5th largest economy when hostility has pushed out or destroyed the very people and revenue generators that fueled the state’s economic engines?”  [RED STATE – 11/19/20]
  • THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS AMERICA’S LARGEST PROVIDER OF STUDENT AID, with current debt now exceeding $1.3 trillion – most of which was provided automatically and much of which is expected to be uncollectible. Almost half of students in public colleges given loans do not even graduate in six years. Despite government subsidies and tax exemption, “colleges have raised tuition prices at four times the rate of inflation, while funding is used to build fancy dining halls, new stadiums, first-class swimming pools, media rooms and some provide student housekeeping… Collages say they deserve taxpayer funding because they make ‘wiser’ citizens,” but reality is that most indoctrinate rather than educate. The ‘elite’ schools are the worst abusers of Constitutionally authorized subsidies, with handout & tax breaks going to Princeton (which has a $26 billion endowment), Harvard (with $40 billion), and Yale ($31 billion) while it “owns around a quarter of New Haven Connecticut land including a golf course, and the city is ticketing more cars to cover its budget shortfall.”    [LBN EXAMINER – 11/18/20]   
  • “THE CORE OF LEFTISM is a mixture of gross classism and racism all tied together to push the idea that individual achievement is out of the individual’s hands… For the Left, peddling grievance & victimhood over every issue that exists, ’race’ is wholly dictated by outcome.” The latest example is a Washington state school district which has declared that “Asians can no longer be classified with blacks and Hispanics as historical victims – irrespective of absolute discrimination, abuse & murder in earlier periods of the country, just as much as Hispanics – because most Asians manage to better themselves through education and hard work… So, congrats Asians on your ascension of Privilege, always considered better off than the richest, most successful people of other races.”  [RED STATE – 11/16/20]
  • THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:

     Rushing to distribute over a half-trillion dollars of PPP funds in ‘forgivable loans’ to small businesses during spring Lockdowns, banks and government only asked companies to “self-certify they needed funds” with minor, if any, vetting. Surprise, surprise: the SBA has now announced that “tens of thousands of companies received PPP loans for which they appear to be ineligible, and the Treasury Dep’t has received nearly 2,500 reports of suspicious activity.”

    Social Distancing ‘rules’ from megalomanic governors still apply to churches, temples, funerals, Trump rallies and Thanksgiving meals (though somehow the Virus doesn’t affect casinos or rioting mobs), and is particularly infectious after 10:pm when restaurants & bars must close. Latest word last week from czar Fauci is that we may be “approaching a degree of normality” by Q2 or Q3 next year.