• MEETINGS OFTEN BECOME JUST ‘STATUS UPDATES’ AND ARE INEFFECTIVE IN THEIR OBJECTIVE because of issues that are “too threatening, uncomfortable or hidden by participants to avoid short-term conflicts, threats or embarrassment. When unaddressed, organizations can end up tolerating squandered energy, inter-personal fatigue, lack of progress, even toxic situations.” Leaders need to, and can, surmount this obstacle to productivity by ‘framing’ those (perceived ‘undiscussable’) issues. The process is not complicated, but involves defining what is causing resistance, identifying and addressing– without judgement – then guiding discussion to allow all points of view. DCG communication and mediation skills can transform such obstacles to a shared reality, in order to move forward. Let us help best ensure productivity to best ensure profitability.   [HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW – 1/24/23]
  • MANY ORGANIZATIONS CULTURES EMBRACE ‘BLAMELESSNESS,’ in which “people are not punished for actions/ omissions/ decisions that are commensurate with their experience & training, letting incompetent and malevolent workers off-the-hook… The concept is that pointing and proving individual ‘blame’ is corrosive, saps team cohesion, and makes it less likely that organizations can learn from mistakes.” Regardless, research experiments show that people with authority (i.e. bosses) still are particularly prone to point fingers at others for failures, both for personal ego protection and also since “blame is cheap and fast, while documenting mistakes and making sure processes change as a result, require much more structure.” In general, ‘blaming’ is faulty reasoning since when bosses point fingers, others will too, irrespective of supposed culture.  [ECONOMIST – 1/21/23]
  • THE CONCEPT OF ‘SINGULARITY’ INVOLVES A POINT WHEN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE EXCEEDS BEYOND HUMAN CONTROL and rapidly transforms society, often described as a Technological Event Horizon. Notwithstanding the question of what ‘intelligence’ even means, one measure involves computer AI ability to “translate speech at the accuracy of a human” – a point which would certainly impact society in a material manner. Analysis of some two billion post-edits, over an eight-year period, found that the “time-gap between AI computers and professional human editors has shrunk by 57%, down to two seconds differential. If that trend continues, translated AI will be as good as human-produced translation by the end of this decade.” [POPULAR MECHANICS -1/23/23]
  • BE AWARE THAT WE ARE ABSOLUTELY IN A CYBER-PANDEMIC, most likely impossible to curtail or control. Latest research has found over 70 million Americans hit by cybercrimes every year and fast growing – exposing some 22 billion reported business & personal records. Last year, U.S. breaches “hit emergency services, threatened regional power grids, disrupted hospital patient care, brought trains to a halt, set of air-raid alerts, and attacked nuclear scientists… On the same day just two weeks ago, hackers took down the websites of 8 major European banks, broke into military records in European & southeast Asian countries, and stole millions of dollars in untraceable cryptocurrency after hijacking the could-computing platforms of Microsoft and Salesforce.” So completely protecting your data is now a dream, but any cybersecurity protection is better than none. Get perspective at securethevillage.org and help determine how ‘hackable’ you may be with a quick survey at https://securethevillage.org/how-hackable-are-you. [NEWSWEEK – 1/18/23]
  • THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:

 The White House announced this past week that it is essentially “unwilling to negotiate” on marginal spending cuts in return for raising the debt limit – to even engage with the new House majority elected by the American people. Even Obama and the Tea Party could come to the table in 2013 and be the adults in the room. Could it be that his White House is more eager to brand opponents as “Ultra MAGA” Republicans rather than engage in responsible governance?

 Colleges have become the most irrational institutions in the country. Not coincidentally, they are also the most secular institutions in our society. Is that rational? https://dennisprager.com/column/whos-more-irrational-the-religious-or-the-irreligious/  The competition where academics have to create increasingly ridiculous proposals for Wokeness creates constant language changes. USC and Michigan recently decided the word ‘field’ is Racist. But winner this week are British and Scottish Museum decisions to no longer refer to wrapped-up, long dead (3,000+ years) ancient Egyptians as ‘Mummies,’ because “it might dehumanize them and hurt the feelings of the deceased.” [RED STATE]

     The truest definition of Globalization: Princess Diana’s death. An English Princess with an Egyptian boyfriend crashes in a French tunnel, riding in a German car with a Dutch engine, driven by a Belgian who was drunk on Scottish whisky, followed closely by Italian Paparazzi, on Japanese Motorcycles, treated by an American doctor using Brazilian medicines, reported by a Canadian, using American technology, being read on a computer or phone using Taiwanese chips and a Korean monitor, assembled by Bangladeshi workers in a Singapore plant, transported by Indian truck drivers, hijacked by Indonesians, unloaded by Sicilian longshoremen, trucked by Mexicans who are in the U.S. illegally. [INTERNET ANON]

       “The American Dream – you have to be asleep to believe it.”  George Carlin on Education, Politicians and the real Owners of the country: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILQepXUhJ98   And  Bill Maher’s explanation of the George Pinocchio Santos phenomenon:  https://youtu.be/uQLExNOaNy0