• THE JOB OF A LEADER IN TODAY’S WORKPLACE HAS BECOME INCREASINGLY COMPLEX, especially with regard to maintaining worker productivity/ creativity/ engagement/ and retention – especially younger employees often “overwhelmed by forces that contribute to their feeling anxious, worried and pessimistic about the future: (1) The pace of change – unprecedented speed with which our world is changing on a social, interpersonal, political and economic level; (2) The information environment – profoundly negative messages which are intended to engender fear, anxiety, and a lack of trust in the systems & leaders that shape our world; (3) The incapacity to engage in dialogue – hesitancy to discuss issues for fear of others’ reaction, with words and positions having become more important than intentions.” Leaders can to some degree neutralize adverse impacts of these forces by communicating balanced information & expectations before employees discover through the rumor-mill or from media, and by setting ‘safe space’ for expressions of opinion or concerns without fear of retribution.  [SMARTBRIEF – 4/24/23]
  • WITH DISCRETIONARY SPENDING BEING CUT BACK IN MANY COMPANIES, ‘PERKS’ ARE OFTEN THE FIRST TO GO, and employees who had taken such benefits for granted often become resentful and de-motivated, the exact opposite of company objectives. Perks work best when they are both something an employee values, and which can also be dispensed with – unlike salary or health plans. They work best when “motivating the widest possible group, but perception of value can widely vary depending on context. For example, snack cupboards filled with calorific goodies are some people’s version of sugary paradise, but others’ idea of obesogenic hell… while perks which cover a disliked-fee (say student loan repayments) or time-limited seasonal benefits (like Early Friday closing during summer months)” can be most valuable to workers. DCG can help with these types of strategic decisions. [ECONOMIST – 4/22/23]
  • “A HANDBOOK FOR GLOBAL LOOTING, FILTH AND GENERAL LAWLESSNESS” has now been released (after five years to compose) by a United Nations Commission, asserting and declaring that: (1) In every instance, International Law trumps any system of domestic law – including the U.S. Constitution; (2) Society’s criminal laws must yield and be secondary to Human Rights and never be construed to an accused person’s disadvantage; (3) Any Codes supporting domestic laws must be considered as ‘living’ documents. “The Report’s vacuity, which is disguised with words & phrases like heteronormative, non-exploitative surrogacy, non-derogable, contains Principles including: No drug laws even for minors; No prohibition of panhandling or public sleeping/ bathing/ urinating/ defecating, if out of individual’s necessity; No criminalization of consensual sex or activities, regardless of age; No imprisonment except as a measure of last resort;  No limitation of abortion to any degree;  No restriction on prostitution… The laundry list of public policies is designed to ensure a filthy and crime-ridden – but ‘equitable’ – environment such as we are seeing infect many Leftist-led cities today.”  [TOWNHALL – 4/20/23]
  •  “IF ANY PRIVATE BANK BEHAVED AS IRRESPONSIBLY AS FEDERAL REGULATORS, THOSE REGULATORS WOULD FORCE IT TO CLOSE. The Fed chairman recently testified before Congress that significant losses over the last six-months have exhausted its working capital, liabilities to others (principally $41 trillion due to U.S. Treasury operating funds) which exceed total value of assets it holds, and that the Fed, by common standards, is insolvent. While a private company in this position enters bankruptcy, the Fed instead creates fictitious ‘deferred asset’ accounts – representing ‘future expected cash inflows.’  The impact of expanding money supply (to ostensibly support economic recovery from the pandemic) known as Quantitative Easing, along with intentionally increased interest rates on bank reserves, has created massive distortions in the financial system by significantly curtailing short-term lending in the nation’s banking & financial systems, with no immediate end in sight.”  [AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR ECONOMIC RESEARCH – 4/19/23]
  • THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:
  • “The real-world impact of progressivism: America’s large Leftist cities have transitioned into slums, murder zones, homeless encampments, boarded up stores, and cults of economic & political quackery, poisoned by high taxes, schools that don’t educate, and rampant crime. Tragically, few have the courage to speak out, worried about being called Racists, when the reality is that the victims (of terrible public schools, high murder & theft rates, and an anti-business creed) are the minorities they say they care so much about.” [WASHINGTON EXAMINER]

      “The recent Bud Light branding controversy is a great example of what happens when a successful, billion-dollar company hands over their marketing to the ESG generation, people who have never built anything but have loads of opinions on the right way to build a business and maintain it as a successful, profitable property.  It is one thing to engage ESG frameworks within the boardroom, it is quite another to allow such frameworks to become more important than the customer.”  [RED STATE]

       “By ousting its most popular and populist personality, the Fox News potentates decided that their mild and moderate sensibilities were more important than calling out the wrongness of the world around us: the nihilism of the Left, the cognitive decline of the American president, the wickedness and cultishness of the transgender movement, the incessant race-baiting of the Democrat Party, the craven DEI obsessiveness of corporate America, the socially engineered destruction of our military, the corruption of the FBI, the two-tiered justice system that pervades our country…   And meanwhile:      U.S. Customs & Border now report more than 5.1 million apprehensions in the last 24 months, during which half were processed at a rate of 50K weekly and, with the Covid ‘emergency’ now ended, predicted to soon double. The administration’s main border goal remains directing the flow of migrants rather than stopping it,” and despite congress having explicitly excluded illegals from government healthcare entitlements, purportedly plans to use another Executive Order to make childhood arrivals eligible. Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis of millions more smuggled in by cartel criminals continues unabatedly, for which Leftists claim that “Republicans are the problem.”  [PATRIOT POST]