Rishad Tobaccowala's Blog, page 20

Dignity

Photographs by Chris Arnade

Dignity  is the  right  of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. It is of significance in  morality ,  ethics ,  law  and  politics  as an extension of the  Enlightenment -era concepts of  inherent, inalienable rights . The term may also be used to describe personal conduct, as in "behaving with dignity" (Wikipedia)

Marcel Proust wrote that it is “not to visit strange lands, but to possess other eyes that is the only true voyage”. A writer/photographer named Chris Arnade opens eyes we may not have seen with.

Chris has written a book which might be about an "other world" but is really about humans and our quest for identity, belonging and meaning.

Photographs by Chris Arnade

Chris Arnade received a PhD. From John Hopkins University in Physics and for 20 years worked at as a trader at Wall Street banks.

He left all of this behind and began a three-year journey across America driving 150,000 miles talking with and taking photographs of an America that is very real but few of us get to see or interact with. Millions of people who despite being stigmatized, ignored, or made fun of are fighting to maintain dignity.

Chris distilled his words and edited his photographs into a book: Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America (The book was completed before Covid-19)

It is two books fused into one. One is a series of conversations with a spectrum of individuals across America who are forgotten, invisible and on the outskirts of our minds and another a spectrum of amazing photographs that bring these people to life.

Photographs by Chris Arnade

The subjects of the photograph seem to be saying:

Take our picture.

Tell our story.

We are here.

We matter.

The book is “about re-considering what is valuable, about honoring the aspects of life that cannot be measured, and about an attempt to listen and look with humility”

Regardless of what your beliefs are as you start this book you are likely to re-visit them by the time you finish it.

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Photographs by Chris Arnade

The Importance of McDonald’s.

As Chris travels across America, he finds that in many places the center of the community of Back-Row America is the local McDonald’s. It is a place where people come to connect, to gossip, to celebrate, to meet before and after games, to read the Bible, to use the facilities and to stay warm.

An entire series of photographs are centered around McDonald’s.

Everyone seems to know how far the nearest McDonald’s is and in some instances Walmart. These two corporations which are often looked upon by skepticism by Front Row America are critical, essential, and deeply popular in much of the country.

Photographs by Chris Arnade

Everything is not under control.

The book tells and brings alive the story of people bearing the brunt of loss of jobs due to globalization. People dealing with childhood trauma and racism, and then being unable to progress due to the lack of credentials and the lack of mobility due to need to stay close to those they love, or they lack the resources to up and go.

The book is “about how you see yourself in the world, it’s about being physically strong when everyone now values being smart. It’s about caring about place and family when everyone values career. It’s about faith when everyone now values science or liking McDonald’s when everybody says it’s bad”

It is about how the self-perpetual cycle of rejection, isolation and drugs increasingly tear the fabric of community and the collateral damage of “optimizing by maximizing/minimizing versus doing the right thing”.

Losses are more than numbers on a spreadsheet.

Photographs by Chris Arnade

The Role of Religion in Belonging.

Some of Back Row America finds solace in drugs and many find it in religion.

As the author notes: “In religion they found someone that treated them as humans and even though they were judged for their past decisions they were accepted. You are welcome as long as you try.”

“The cold, secular world of the well intentioned is a distant and judgmental thing. That world has given them seemingly nothing but pain. Faith is a reality and source of hope. Science does not do much.”

Photographs by Chris Arnade

A World Apart.

At the end Chris Arande reminds Front Row America “that we have removed ourselves physically and in spirit from much of the country and when we look back, we do it through papers and books filled with data.”

He goes on to note that “we have implemented policies that focus narrowly on one value of meaning which is the material. We emphasize GDP and efficiency, those things that we can measure, leaving behind those that are harder to quantify-like community, happiness, friendship, pride, and integration.

And if economics and material goods are the primary form of valuation then education is the way out implying that those who do not make it are dumb, lazy, and stupid.” And education is harder to get , more expensive and the elite schools a luxury good that resemble “Hermes” bags.

He warns that “this has ensured that all those at the bottom, educationally and economically-black, white, gay, straight, men and women feel excluded, rejected and most of all humiliated”

We have denied many their dignity, leaving a vacuum easily filled by drugs, anger, and resentment.

Photographs by Chris Arnade

The Way Ahead.

The book does not believe the challenges can be solved by Government nor does it lay out any specific policies.

The author asks instead that everyone open their eyes and hearts and look around.

Seek to connect and understand different perspectives and people and be aware of what we may not see.

He ends by noting “We need everyone-those in the back row and those in the front row-to listen to one another and try to understand one another and understand what they value and be less judgmental”

Reading this book and looking at the pictures is one way to begin this journey.

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The Perils of Wrong Questions

Illustration by  Dawid Planeta

We have all heard how asking the right question is a key part of getting to the right answer.

But what if the real problem is that many of us are running our companies, teams, and careers by spending our time solving for the wrong questions?

Illustration by  Dawid Planeta

How do we get people back in the office?

The fastest growing group on Reddit is “Anti-Work” which has grown ten-fold in the past year to 1.6 million “idlers”. 

Half of the respondents say they still have full-time jobs.

Anti-Work is filled with stories that workers say prove that their bosses do not care about them like:

“Just a friendly reminder unfortunately we are all disposable and can get replaced in an instant”

“Even if you try your best and slave away hours it won’t pay off.”

 “Boss makes a dollar; I make a dime. That’s why I f**k around on company time baby,”

But its most celebrated posts are screenshots of resignation letters and text messages. They proved so popular that moderators restricted their publication to Sundays.

“Idlers”, as members of the antiwork movement call themselves, largely believe that people should strive to work as little as possible and preferably for themselves. 

“We maybe consider that there might be an alternative to living our lives in thrall to the wealthiest among us, serving their profit,” said historian Benjamin Hunnicutt, a University of Iowa professor whose books on the history of work are featured in r/antiwork’s library. “Maybe there are other things to do with our lives than piling up profits for those that are ultra-rich, and taking that time, reclaiming that time.”

While Anti-Work might be an extreme example, the “Great Resignation” among other things signal that we should not be asking “How do we get people back to the office?” but “How do we attract and retain talent by ensuring work regardless of where it is done enables growth, purpose and meaning?”

Illustration by  Dawid Planeta

How do we benchmark against our competitors?

The greatest opportunities and threats to any company often come from outside its category and industry definition.

As Ford and GM and Toyota and BMW were benchmarking and gazing at each other’s belly buttons, true value and innovation and market capitalization were being created by Uber and Tesla.

Nokia and RIM/Blackberry and Sony who dominated mobile phones could not imagine a crazy computer company coming from outside their eco-system with a device that did not even have a physical keyboard.

Yes, indeed the iPhone was ridiculous when evaluated against existing benchmarks and definitions.

But we keep benchmarking against our existing competitors and by categories defined either by habit or industry and financial analysts.

In a time of great innovation and change being less pathetic or slightly better than other pathetic firms will not make us great.

Maybe we should be asking how we can create accessible solutions and experiences which  people  value and we can deliver with some combination of our current roots (existing assets and distribution/brands) and wings (new assets and innovation).

If the future does not fit in the containers of the past, why do we insist on looking at it with the mindsets of the past?

Illustration by  Dawid Planeta

How do we satisfy our customer?

There is a problem with customer obsession in that we tend to see and frame people through the lens of our products and services and our brands.

Most people do not define themselves by their brands and smart companies like Procter and Gamble among other do not see the world only through the eyes of customers or their brands.

Because if they focussed on looking at the world only through the lens of their brands the only thing P&G would understand would be people’s dirt/smell removal habits.

Because P&G is basically a dirt/smell removal company if it defined itself only through use of its brands.

 It removes dirt and smells from your butt (Charmin), your kids butt (Pampers), your teeth (Crest), your clothes (Tide), your body (Secret), your fabrics (Febreze).

Procter and Gamble is admired not just because of its amazing marketing and research but because it thinks about people and not just customers and consumers.

The question really is not how do we satisfy customers but how “How do we delight people?”

By focusing on people, it allows us to see things early and not be limited to existing definitions of our category and may be good for our existing customers better than just meeting their needs.

A story on why not obsessing on your existing customer and client needs may make sense.

In my previous career I got many things right and saw many things early like digital etc. but was slightly late at seeing the importance of something that was going to be huge.

Search engine marketing.

Why? Maybe because I was not paying attention and failed to see beyond my elbows when trying to look ahead.

But in hindsight, I console myself and explain my lack of acumen to being too Client focused.

Search Engine Marketing initially was great for people who were either not advertising or were very small advertisers using classifieds or local papers. In addition, there was no real price breaks or placement advantages for spending like in television or magazines.

None of my clients or their competitors were asking for Search and even if they did, they neither had the leverage of spending or knowledge to gain a competitive advantage.

So unlike broadband video, social, gaming, mobile and much more where we moved early here we were initially a step behind.

Oops.

The good news is that we figured out what was going on and we quickly made a big acquisition (Performics from Google when they bought DoubleClick.)

Learning: Clients and customers matter since they pay the bills but focus on behavior and needs of the people they serve and not just them.

Illustration by  Dawid Planeta

How to minimize the chance of asking the wrong question.

Here are three ways you and your firm may minimize the risk of asking the wrong question.

1. Look at the question you are trying to ask and turn it around and see if it makes more sense.

Here is an example: Should you focus on how to get the cheapest arrows, or should you be asking how you can get the best archers?

Paying more for quality is always cheaper in the long run since it/they tend to work faster, think better, last longer and signal to your organization that you understand that buying cheap pigs maybe buying diseased pigs and could lead to poisoned hot dogs.

2. Run a fear free organization where people can voice their opinions and challenge the status quo.

Time and time again we find that the idea for the next big thing was born in the last big thing, but the management of the last big thing squashed the idea since it did not fit in the business model.

Or we find that the problem was clear for all to see but was looked away from since it would mean the person who called it out might lose their job.

The brown moist thing in the middle of the table is not always a brownie it could be a turd.

Here is how you can help your organization call out the “turd on the table”…

3. Look from “there to here” and not from “here to there”.

The questions you would ask would be different if you asked yourself what you would do if you started with a blank sheet of paper.

The only constraints companies cannot truly change are the laws of the country, laws of science and the need to break even at a particular point in time.

Everything else should be flexible.

When one starts with where one is versus where one wants to be, there are many constraints and rules that no start up or new competitor from outside the category would be limited by.

The Age of the Seasoned.

While society, politicians, and businesses of every kind (particularly marketing) are focused on what comes Next, on the New, On the Young, and On the Emerging, the biggest shift and impact on us all may not be what will come but those who have come before!

Yes, Millennial and Gen Z are critical because their habits and behaviors and expected longevity, but we may be entering “The Age of the Seasoned”!

There will be more seasoned people with 25% of the Europe and US population being over 65 by 2050.

They will control 70 to 75 percent of the wealth.

Companies will be desperate for workers with experience as workforces shrink.

The fight against Sexism and Racism may in time extend to Ageism.

Flexible work and new technology behaviors due to Covid will create massive new flexibility and opportunity for the seasoned.

By 2050, one in four persons living in Europe and Northern America could be aged 65 or over.

According to data from World Population Prospects: the 2019 Revision, by 2050, one in six people in the world will be over age 65 (16%), up from one in 11 in 2019 (9%). By 2050, one in four persons living in Europe and Northern America could be aged 65 or over. In 2018, for the first time in history, persons aged 65 or above outnumbered children under five years of age globally. The number of persons aged 80 years or over is projected to triple, from 143 million in 2019 to 426 million in 2050.

Older people tend to be more active politically and vote more often so they will have significant heft in democracies.

People over 55 now control nearly 3 of every 4 dollars and the share is growing.

Though the generational picture is stark, the difference in U.S. household wealth by age makes the picture of shifting wealth even clearer.

Until 2001, the shares of household wealth held by different age groups were relatively stable. People aged 40-54 and 55-69 held around 35% each of household wealth, retirees aged 70+ hovered around 20%, and younger people aged under 40 held around 10%.

Since that time, however, the shift in wealth to older generations is clear. The 70+ age group has seen their share of wealth increase to 26%, while the share held by ages 55-69 has grown from 35% to almost half.

But not all ages are seeing an increasing slice of wealth. The 40-54 age group saw its share drop sharply from 36% to 22% between 2001 and 2016 before starting to recover towards the end of the decade, while the youngest cohort now hover around just 5%.

Clearly within the older generations there is wide disparity in wealth with tens of millions not having enough to retire and others with enormous fortunes, but as a cohort the Seasoned is where the money is.

As populations begin to shrink and assuming anti-immigration fervor does not dissipate businesses will increasingly have to rely on older employees.

Population in most Western countries is shrinking fast and the recent Census revealed that the US population growth this past decade

The United Nations has said the number of people in the EU bloc will drop to 365 million by 2100, down from 446 million today.

But a new study, published in the medical journal The Lancet, predicts it will fall more sharply, to 308 million by the end of the century.

The year 2021 is the first time since 1937 that the U.S. population grew by fewer than one million people, featuring the lowest numeric growth since at least 1900, when the Census Bureau began annual population estimates.

Both for financial reasons of countries delaying pensions due to financial constraints and the desperate need for workers there is going to be a massive aging of the workforce.

Increasing Sensitivity and Awareness of the Other “Ism”: Ageism

Recently a research report titled “Workplace Equality for All! (Unless They’re Old)” conducted by professors at Stanford and New York University revealed that while there was less and less tolerance for any form of racism or sexism, ageism was still relatively widespread.

Their research revealed that more people tended to endorse this idea that there should be equality for everyone and striving to reduce prejudice toward traditionally discriminated groups, there was this surprising correlation. Those who were more egalitarian — who were striving to reduce prejudice toward traditionally discriminated groups — were less likely to endure racist views and less likely to endorse sexist views but weirdly, they were more likely to support ageist views, endorsing this idea of succession; that older adult should step aside and make way for younger generations

However, it is very likely that the advances against racism and sexism will likely also help against ageism because the concept of “fit” which might have held back women and people of color can also no longer be used to discriminate against older people. As the authors note:

“Think of how many hiring decisions, firing decisions, promotions, raises and opportunities are allocated based on so-called 'fit.' Man, the word 'fit' is so loaded when it comes to age, right? It's a code word.”

As a result, more and more companies are facing and losing age discrimination cases.

How Covid changed mindsets in ways that may benefit the Seasoned.

Millions of Americans have disappeared from the workforce, and many of those who have left are older. Their exit has many causes from positive ones such as appreciation of assets that allow them to leave to negative ones which are greater susceptibility to illness or in ability to get back easily to a job. This has left business scrambling for talent and more willing to increase pay, provide greater flexibility and better hours.

The two biggest shifts due to Covid which will benefit the more seasoned is that fact of distributed work (“remote” is not correct since being out of the office does not mean you are isolated and do not meet with people in other places) and how quickly older people began to leverage and adapt to technology putting a nail in the “they fear technology” nonsense.

Distributed work allows companies to buy a part of a seasoned person’s time making them affordable while giving them flexibility to go from full time to part time work and no longer a forced choice of work or no work. Technology especially with Web 3.0 will continue to enable and extend capabilities without knowing to code or be physically in great shape.

Finally, this supposed hunger for mentoring, guidance and learning the ropes that people are missing comes from whom?  The Seasoned! And it can be done in person outside the office or even on Zoom!

Implications to Ponder.

Will generational divides be another axis of polarization?

Will the disparate wealth between the Seasoned and Gen X/Millennials be another driver of polarization or will the transfer of wealth via inheritance (though likely to increase inequality) ameliorate these possible fissures?  The implications regarding the future of taxes, medical care, and social benefits are likely to be significant. Already young people are far more likely to be socialist as they wonder if they will ever do as well as the older generations with many ladders of advancement and wealth creation in short supply.

Is your firm getting ready for the Age of the Seasoned?

Every company should not just ask how they are getting ready for not just for the next frontiers of technology but the Tsunami of the Seasoned.

From introducing or adapting products to designing services it will be key to keep this key constituency in mind.  HR and Talent management needs to ensure your workplace can take advantage and leverage their talent.  

Are you planning your career keeping in mind the Age of the Seasoned?

Careers are likely to last five decades. In 12 Career Lessons  a key learning is to think in long cycles and keep in mind that the reason the grass appears greener on the other side is that is often fertilized by bullshit.

As firms increasingly leverage distributed and unbundled work to find new ways to architect teams most people are going to work across generations and not just across time zones. What emotional and intellectual skills, what expertise and craft will you need to hone and grow and how will you re-invent yourself over your seasons in an increasingly plug and play world?

Photographs by Rishad Tobaccowala

Six Ways to Be and Feel Better

It is 2022 and all of us are coming off two challenging years.

We all hope and wish for better times and make new resolutions to improve and grow ourselves.

Here are six ways (none of them requiring a gym membership, going on diet or giving up anything_ that any person of any age anywhere in the world can do whenever they wish to now or in the future !

1. Accept the 3Ls of loss, love and learning.

When you live your life are there some underlying beliefs and truths that drive you or you measure yourself against? If we are to grow, where are we trying to go?

I have long believed that if there is a competition it is not with other people but to get better every day and to get closer to what you believe or your ideals.

Your success is not housed in other people’s minds (what they think of you) but in their hearts (what they feel about you) and in your mind (what you think of yourself).

In many ways Life is about Loss, Love and Learning (the 3 L’s)

Loss is central to the human experience in three ways. The first is we often lose in our attempts to succeed. We lose pitches, Clients, jobs, and opportunities. Many times, we win. Some people win little, and others win a lot. But we all lose. But these losses are not the big ones. The second bigger losses are the losses we will face of loved ones and friends either because relationships end, or death comes, and our final loss is that of our lives.

How we live amidst this loss defines a large part of life.

The joy we make is because time is precious, and this moment of victory may not last forever. Given that loss is part of human existence it pays to be kind and to think about how to help those in loss for do not ask for whom the bell tolls since it tolls for you.

A big part of what makes life worth living despite the guarantee of loss is the hope of love and joy of learning. Love of people, of work, of art, of culture. Love may not compute but computers do not love. There is a great deal of progress made over generations on who one can love, the ability to do things one loves and because of modern technology to be exposed to new worlds, horizons, and things to love.

And learning is particularly joyous. Learning in its first form is building knowledge. With great knowledge and practice we build skills and craftsmanship. Learning to see things from other perspectives gives us understanding. Sometimes if we are lucky, we can graduate from knowledge, skills and understanding to wisdom.

2. Be Open.

Today, like never, there is a pull towards being closed.

Our online media diets tend to be polarized as streams of algorithmic feeds optimized to engage, addict and make us feel good about ourselves may leave us believing that the stink of some of our more flatulent thoughts have the aroma of Chanel No.5

Many politicians want to build walls, exit multi-state treaties and organizations, demonize the other, look away from reality, facts, and truth.

Nationalism rises despite all the big challenges and opportunities are global in nature.

Let us start with the letter C.

Covid-19 is global. Climate Change is global. China’s impact is global.

Two new books (one looking back and one imagining forward) build the case for openness.

The Economist which reviewed Johan Norberg’s book says…

“Open” is clear, colorful, and convincing, marshaling evidence from a range of eras and civilizations. The Roman Empire ceased to prosper when it ceased to be open. Christianity became the established religion and sought to crush all others. “This new intolerance…led to vicious conflicts…between Christians and pagans, who saw their old gods being banned and their temples torn down.” Persecuted pagans joined Rome’s enemies, even welcoming barbarian invaders as liberators.

Human history, in Mr. Norberg’s telling, is a cacophony of drawbridges being lowered and then raised. Mathematics and medicine flourished under the cosmopolitan Abbasid caliphate but froze when religious conservatives won control. By driving out Jews, Muslims, and heretics, he argues, the Inquisition helped impoverish Spain (between 1500 and 1750 the Spanish economy actually shrank).

Matthew Yglesias imagines forward and builds the case that if the United States wishes to be a dominant power in the future when facing a billion strong China (about to become the world’s largest economy in five years) or a fast growing billion person India it should be far more open to immigrants and even with 600 million new people, we will be less dense than France or Germany are today.

As someone who grew up in India and has been to 22 cities in China I am not sure why their rise should be an issue because the world is not a zero sum game except for the small minded. Up to 200 years ago these were the world’s largest and most powerful economies but a combination of colonization, strange politics and most importantly a failure to innovate and keep up with Science and Technology set them back. But, if the US is to remain as amazing as it has been it needs to remember its roots are in immigrants, a love of science and technology and freedom of thought and innovation all connecting with each other and the world.

Be Open. To other ideas. To other perspectives. To other people. To other cultures.

3. Mind the gap.

Some time ago I attended an online talk from London by Alain de Botton of The School of Life. He talked about his new book “An Emotional Education”, noting that while many people teach skills and expertise very few people focus on how to live an emotional life. He decried much US self-help books that believe in the achieving perfection and having it all.

Today in the Instagram age so many of us try to be pixel perfect. But life is not pixel perfect.

In fact, most of life is “minding the gap”. The gap between who we are and what we want to be. The gap in communication between any two people. The gap between what we say/project externally and what we believe/live with internally.

The most contented people tend to be those who have narrowed this gap or being aware of it find ways to accept that life is incomplete, imperfect, often incomprehensible. They are authentic, trustworthy, happy within themselves not needing constant external validation and have strong relationships and connections with people. They are vulnerable, empathetic, and constantly growing (often making mistakes as they do).

There are others who project power, fame, and wealth but you begin to see that often many have the warmth of a toilet seat, all the external validation they have or seek does not fill the chasm of emptiness that echoes with hollowness and this truth burns and eats their inside even as they smile and blow kisses on the outside.

So, what to do?

George Saunders the Author said “Err in the direction of kindness”

Today in the world we have much rage.

So, best be kind.

Kind to others and to yourself.

This is one way in helping mind the gap.

4. Compound Improvement.

The single most powerful concept in Finance is that of compounding.

Compounding interest and compounding returns can over time create wealth or lead one to bankruptcy depending on whether you owe or own capital.

If you start with 12,000 dollars and add 1,000 dollars a month every month for 30 years and it grows at 10 percent, you have just under 2.5 million dollars. The key is you set aside a small sum every month for a long time.

In a world of change we all may want to consider another way compounding can help us grow in changing times and drive mental, emotional, and even financial wealth which is compounding improvement.

If a company can only change and transform if its people change and transform, we should each invest in upgrading our own mental and emotional operating systems.

There is so much we cannot control in a world driven by global, demographic, social and technological change but instead of being buffeted about helplessly in a sea of chaos maybe we can try to control and build our ourselves to be better.

Three ways on how you might start this very minute begin to embrace Compounding Improvement

a) Discipline equals Freedom: This is the title of a book by Jocko Willink, a Navy Seal. Basically, if you want to get a grip on the world get a grip on yourself.

b) Invest an hour every day in learning: The world is changing so fast that many of your skills and expertise and mindsets need continuous upgrading. While many of us set aside time to exercise to maintain our physical operating system we need to also feed and exercise our minds. The power of this habit is that at the end of a year you will have spent 365 hours learning new things by just doing one hour a day. You will gain compound returns to thought!

c) Deliberate Practice: Professor Anders Ericcson who passed away last year wrote a book called “Peak” which is the best study of deliberate practice. Deliberate practice involves three components 1)immediate feedback, 2)clear goals and 3)focus on technique. According to his research, the lack of deliberate practice explained why so many people reach only basic proficiency at something, whether it be a sport, pastime, or profession, without ever attaining elite status.

5. Improvise like Jazz.

We are living in a jazz age and not a classical one.

In classical music —particularly orchestral music—there is a conductor that musicians follow, sheet music one sticks too and a hushed auditorium one sits in.

Jazz on the other hand is a mix of classical, swing, blues and much more but at its heart it’s about improvisation. It is about playing off each other. There is no conductor. Rare is there a hushed auditorium but more likely a noisy club or the anguish of a lonely saxophone in a subway station.

Today we are living in a diverse, global, and connected world where we have to work together, we have to fuse our different cultures and beliefs and constantly adapt and improvise

[image error] 6. Read Poetry.

I have over 80 books or shelf and a half of Poetry books at home each of which I have significant parts over the past decades.

Why?

Here are how some Poets have explained the importance of poetry (I have picked different lines from different poets) …

Perhaps you have been banged about by recent events. It can help to say words, walking helps. Poems help.

The meaning of poetry is to give courage.

Poems restore to us what is deepest in ourselves. It consoles us.

Greatest poetry is written at the borders of what can be said. It makes a strong effort at expressing the unsayable.

Poems are perfect words in perfect order.

They help us see and feel as these lines which I have extracted from different poems by James Wright’s book “The Branch will not Break” which all describe dusk in a Midwest prairie farm. Each line is filled with a new way of seeing and whenever I am driving in the evenings outside of Chicago, I sense things differently because of these lines. The sensing and seeing also helps me in my writing, my photography and in paying attention…

Noticing matters.

Silos creep away toward the West

The cow bells follow one another into the distances of the afternoon

The sun floats down, a small golden lemon dissolves in the water

The moon suddenly stands up in the darkness

The moon drops one or two feathers into the field. The dark wheat listens.

And poems remind us of the passing of time…

Time is an echo of an axe within a wood

The sunlight in the garden hardens and grows cold, we cannot cage the minute within its net of Gold

But one day I know it will be otherwise…

Story. Place. Loss.

Photography by  Team Hocking

Earlier this week, Joan Didion passed away at the age of 87.

She was an accomplished screen writer, novelist, journalist, and essayist who sculpted sentences that combined precise words infused with feeling.

Three themes that echoed through her work were that of story, place, and loss.

As we end 2021 Joan Didion’s writings can help us understand the time and place we are in, understand the story of our lives and find ways to adjust to ways of living that seem to be lost to the passing of time.

The the only thing predictable in the future is going to be the constant unpredictability in a world of rapid technological change, a million battling narratives, demographic shifts, the elastic nature of what work and careers might be and the vast internal and external migrations taking place around the world.

Joan Didion was prescient in noting that we may find succor in story, place and dealing with loss.

Photography by  Team Hocking

The importance of narrative.

Joan Didion’s most famous sentence might be “we tell ourselves stories in order to live”

In many ways each of us is a compilation of stories who intersect with other people who are compilations of stories and when we meet it often like splicing two separate films into new stories about us versus just a story of you and me.

Today amidst a timeline of stories, algorithmic stories, curated stories, and embellished to pixel perfection stories, we hunger for stories real, relevant and resonating that help us make sense of our lives and the world around us.

And while our internal story telling brings order and narrative and helps us make sense of our disconnected moments and find ways to resurrect and re-invent ourselves, we can also lose our bearing and sense of reality with some stories.

The critic Michiko Kakutani noted “one of the recurrent themes in all Didion’s books, both fiction and nonfiction, is Americans’ penchant for reinventing themselves, their belief in fresh starts and second acts — a faith, on the one hand, that helped settle this country and fueled the American dream, and yet, on the other, has resulted in rootlessness and anomie, the discarding of personal and public history. Narratives, Didion suggests, can provide order, but that order can also be an illusion — or, worse, in the case of political spin masters, a disingenuous connecting of the dots meant to sell false gods and shoddy goods.

Stories are neither good nor bad but what they teach us and how we incorporate them into our lives makes them so.

Photography by  Team Hocking

The influence of place.

Confucius said “No matter where you go, there you are”

But even if we take our old selves to new places, we believe that a change of scene can mean a potential change of self.

Place defines most people. We are defined by where we were born, brought up and where we live.

Some people cannot wait to leave where they are while others pine to return from where they came. Others move from place to place in quest of fame, fortune, family and more.

If life is a journey through time and space in search of meaning, place plays a key role.

We often leave a place to go somewhere else to re-invent ourselves and begin with a fresh sheet of paper

Joan Didion was forged in California which has always lingered in the imagination as where one goes to do become something else.

To play a new role.

Of California, Joan Didion wrote “We believed in fresh starts. We believed in good luck. We believed in the miner who scratched together one last stake and struck the Comstock Lode.”

And all of us may have our internal or external California.

But in the end, she believed it was not continuously leaving but staying and putting down roots that mattered.

It is as much as what we bring to a place and make of it as it makes of us.

“A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own “

And true contentment comes down when one finds a place put down roots, to stay and to fix whatever goes wrong.

“You have to pick the places you don’t walk away from.”

It does only courage to leave a place but courage to stay.

Photography by  Team Hocking

The reality of loss.

If there are three realities to life they are learning, love and loss. Not everybody succeeds at learning or love, but everybody gets a graduate degree in loss and a doctorate when people very close die.

Joan Didion wrote two books on the loss of her husband “The Year of Magical Thinking” and her daughter “Blue Nights” which are read by many dealing with loss.

She wrote of the fragility of life noting that her husband died while eating dinner: “Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends” and the loneliness afterwards :“A single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty.”

And as time moves forward and people, places and hopes come and go people are shaped by what is no more.

“We are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. As we were. As we are no longer. As we will one day not be at all”

But in the end Didion notes we go on by forging new stories and finding new places and begin forgetting.

“We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.”

But one must forge ahead…

“Do not whine...Do not complain. Work harder. Spend more time alone.”

And to college graduates a few years ago she made the case for living deeply…

“I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that’s what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it.”

Career Turbocharging

Photography by  Massimo Listri.

For well over a decade, I have been in the fortunate position to help guide people as they look for jobs, evaluate opportunities and navigate their careers. 

While my advice is always customized to the individual situation (stage of career, staying or leaving an industry, finding oneself in a fork in the career road or finding oneself stuck without any forward momentum or sometimes unfortunately without a job) there is one exercise I recommend to every person.

It is The Nine Word Exercise.

Today many are evaluating where they work, why they work, how they work and who they work for, this exercise could be one resource to help guide the way.

Photography by  Massimo Listri.

The Nine Word Exercise.

The nine-word exercise requires one to identify three words that describe one’s niche, voice, and story.

Niche: What are the three words that describe what you are very good at?  What expertise, craft, or subject matter knowledge do you have an edge in?

Employers are looking for specific skills, competitive edge, and depth of experience.

Voice: Three words that describe who you are? While niche is about what you are good at, voice is about who you are as a person and your personality.

People today do not follow titles, but they follow people. So, who are you?

Story: Why should people believe you ? What three words describe your journey and experiences that give a reason to believe?

While niche calls out what you are good at, and voice describes who you are, story lets you explain what forged and made you.

Here are my nine words.

Niche:  Future. Change. Innovation.

Voice:  Authentic. Provocative. Inspirational.

Story: Global. Mongrel. Re-Inventing.

Photography by  Massimo Listri.

Things to keep in mind as you do the exercise.

It looks easy but it is not. You are attempting to distill yourself down to nine words and only nine words. Not sentences or paragraphs. Just words. These need to be sharp and not soft. As precise as possible vs fuzzy and generalized.

Do not do it all alone. It helps to get input from people who know you and those you trust for honest feedback. This could include your partner, bosses and ex-bosses, current colleagues, and friends.

It is an iterative process: Once you settle in on your nine words do keep revisiting them to see if you can further curate and clarify the words. Re-visit as your career evolves and the world changes around you.

The audience with whom you will share the nine words with is a prospective or current employer and not a potential life partner or friend. Thus, describing yourself as “funny” only makes sense if you are applying to be a comic or clown.

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Photography by  Massimo Listri.

Focus. Frame. Filter.

How do you use the nine words?

First to focus yourself and provide key points for any conversation.

Second is to frame yourself so that it is easier to present yourself and to make your story easy to get and help it stand out.

Third is to filter opportunities. When you get multiple offers or must determine how to navigate the fork in the career road the nine words can be a great filtering device to both decide which way to go but also what new skills/habits/stories will you need to build if you wish to avail of other opportunities.

Hope you try it.

The Great Attraction

Photography by  Gavin Goodman

Teams and companies that thrive usually have a disproportionate share of talent.

Brands that grow tend to attract a disproportionate share of brand loyalists.

What attracts talent to companies and what makes people loyal to brands?

Could it be the same 9 factors?

Photography by  Gavin Goodman

Acquisition: Three factors that get people to join companies or make the initial purchase.

1. Money: Talent makes decisions to join a company in part because of financial factors.  A brand that allows someone to save or make money is one to gain trial. Incentives matter to get people on board.

2. Fame: One joins a company that is well known or a company that will allow one to become famous or be recognized for their work. Brands that have good stories, provenance and history or are known to treat customers like royalty are more likely to attract trial.

3. Power:  Individuals join companies that give them autonomy or power and people are loyal to brands that enable and empower them.

Photography by  Gavin Goodman

Retention: Three factors that ensure continued access to talent and brand love.

1. Purpose: Talent cares about the purpose of the company and people ask about the purpose companies serve beyond making a profit.

2. Values: Over time employees stay with companies whose values they find resonate with theirs and consumers stay with brands whose values they resonate with and who show that they are valued.

3. Connection: If someone feels connected to their manager, their clients, and their colleagues they are more likely to persevere through the ups and downs of a career. Similarly, an emotional connection to a Brand ensures a greater loyalty.

Photography by  Gavin Goodman

Passion: Three factors that get individuals to feel passionate about their place of work and brands.

1. Freedom: Companies that recognize that they work for talent rather than talent works for them and approach talent as something they access versus own ensure that people have the flexibility and freedom to be who they are. Brands that are highly accessible and adaptable (ability to purchase and return across channels and adapt to the needs of customers ensuring freedom in how they are used and paid for) garner long term loyalty.

2. Identity: A career is part of a person’s identity as are the brands with greatest loyalty. Understanding the identity of a person also allows for customization of how they are served, treated, and grown. It is important to know that while a company and a brand are part of the identity and story of a person, they are just a part. Companies that understand that they need to fit in the story of the lives of their talent and customers rather than the talent and customers fit in the story of the company or brand are ones that thrive.

3. Growth: A career lasts for four or five decades in a world that is changing fast. Skill sets need to be continuously refreshed and kept relevant. Companies that focus on the future and constantly transform ensuring their growth will always be able to access talent since people care about ensuring they are growing and remaining relevant and will work at firms who allow them to grow skills that are valued outside the firm. By making talent highly attractive to the outside is the way to ensure continued access to them. Similarly brands that find ways to adapt and change over the years by combining their roots and wings engender long term passion.

The Age of Creativity

As we all fixate on forging things with the scalability, math and plumbing of data, a case may be made that true wealth and joy are being sculpted with the specialness, magic, and poetry of creativity.

A story is “data with a soul” and “we tell ourselves stories in order to live”

Humans seek the magical, choosing with our hearts and then using numbers to justify what we just did.

If humans made ROI decisions, we would not have children since on a financial and other numerical criteria they do not compute.

Data and tech are necessary but will increasingly not be the differentiators for most companies.

Disney has the “Magic Kingdom” and not the “Algorithmic Kingdom” and Disney+ invests in data and technological capital to ensure competitiveness but they differentiate using creative and intellectual capital.

Netflix stock price fluctuates on its ability to attract new subscribers which is directly co-related with its ability to launch new creative endeavors and its true difference today versus other competitors is not necessarily just it’s celebrated data but it’s ability to harness global creative talent versus most competitors who focus on creative national talent.  Eg. Squid Games.

In 2021 the most valuable company in Europe was LMVH the owner of Louis Vuitton and Tiffany and the most valuable company in the world was Apple both differentiating on creativity.

Both companies have amazing supply chains and foundries/technologies, but they differentiate versus competitors and have an ability to charge significant premiums (they manage to get their buyers to forgo data driven decision making that many marketers fixate on) by focusing on provenance, materials, design, innovation, and storytelling.

Almost all the value of a Nike shoe is in its design, collectability, and brand halo and not in the rubber, cloth, and lace.

Tesla is as much a community and a religious movement than a bender of metal.

Data and technology are like electricity and water in that one needs them to illuminate the way forward and hydrate decision making but very few companies truly will have differentiated data and technology as more and more computing moves to the cloud and becomes open, modular, and inter-operable as we enter Web 3.0.

One cannot compete without access to data and technology, but one cannot win with them alone unless one is just a data and technology company and even then, they may not be enough.

Companies’ ability to leverage human capital and talent to leverage data and technology to unleash creativity and innovation will be the true builder of wealth.

Technology has always turbocharged art and creativity.

From the earliest discoveries of fire to modern computing devices and cloud-based software, humans have bent and leveraged technology in creative ways to express themselves and connect with each other and the wider world.

Fire did not just keep us warm, enabled the cooking of food and forging of new tools but it also let people turn clay into hardened ceramic pots and vases, useful for carrying and storing food, water, or other items which were then shaped and decorated in ways beyond their functional use.

The invention of paper gave rise to scrolls and the printing press to religious and other revolutions, then came photography which unleashed several industries and moved away from being another form of painting. We saw radio, television, and the most revolutionary force of all the conflation of mobile phones, social networks, and creative enablement via cloud software.

Today technology is enabling artistic and creative endeavors by a) fueling new art forms, b) enabling far more people with a variety of tools to express themselves creatively and c) scaling the ability to share, display and connect with potential audiences and patrons.

Today fifty million people in the United States call themselves “Creators”

Please see  Art and Technology to understand how Art and Technology have moved hand in hand.

Web 3.0 will unleash a revolutionary creative age.

And we are just about to launch into the truly creative age enabled by Web 3.0

The current age of computing which is Web 2.0 has been one that has been centralized, closed and not inter-operable. The reason that Mark Zuckerberg is keen on the metaverse are twofold. First, he realizes that he needs to attract engineers who may not want to work on the social network aligned with their values or cutting edge enough and second because he is smart enough to know that Facebook as designed today looks like America Online did when the World Wide Web came to be, and he needs to pivot the entire firm.

In the new world of Web 3.0 closed systems will be replaced by open systems, centralized by decentralized/democratized and interoperability modularity will rule (think how Lego pieces regardless of where you buy them, and from which set work with each other).

A big part of this will drive be the Blockchain and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT’s) combined with advances in Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality.

Facebook became Meta Platforms, Square became Block, Microsoft is a key leader in this space, but it is the creative uses of these emerging technologies what one needs to pay attention to.

While a big part of what is happening in the crypto and NFT space maybe a combination of noise, hype and Ponzi schemes there is a true revolution underway in that individuals will increasingly have much greater ownership of their creativity and data and attention and be able to monetize and own them versus handing them over to a social media platform that owns them, monetizes your attention and data and gives you a bunch of “likes” in return.

Some years ago, when we had to buy a song, we liked we may have been forced to buy a CD. Then we could buy the song itself from the Apple or Google store. Then we could access any song we wanted from Spotify or Tidal or other services. So, the content had become unbundled from the physical form but in most cases the creator was still bound to the company they had sold their rights to. And they could not usually profit from sales of their work in the future which they can now do with smart contracts.

The move to talent power began as individuals like Shonda Rhimes could negotiate with a Netflix, a Taylor Swift re-recorded her songs so she could own the rights rather than Big Machine and folks like the late Virgin Abloh could simultaneously be LMVH’s creative director and have his own Off-White label. But it was not just big names, but new stars could leverage Snap, Tik-Tok, You-Tube and other platforms to become known and then launch programming on Netflix and Network television.

But there were limitations to how many rights they held and how much control they had.

That is now changing and is likely to turbo charge the Age of Creativity as talent begins to own more rights, have more control and a far greater palette to tell stories.

The late Virgin Abloh called himself and was truly a “Maker”. Here is his masterclass on how he makes at Harvard University Graduate School of Design

We are about the enter the “The Age of Makers”

Here is an animated film that Virgil directed during the dark days of both Covid-19 and what we now know when he was very ill with terminal cancer.

How to prepare for the next Creative Age or “The Age of Makers”

Step One: Watch this just issued video on NFT’s from the Financial Times. It is 20 minutes  long but is the best overview in plain English with artists, curators, technologists explaining their potential.

Step Two: Google “Bored Ape Yacht Club” and burrow into the articles. If you would like a sample article to read here is one… https://www.cnet.com/how-to/explaining-the-bored-ape-yacht-club-nft-collection/

(Please pay attention not to the dollar figures but the fact that four artists began this and how other members of the community get to own, adapt, build what they bring to the program. Try to separate your feelings that this may be a Ponzi scheme with the fact that there are now technologies that enable true creative ownership, democratization of benefits and the ability to create/interoperate and build without knowing code. Also note that right now the whole thing is very difficult like things were at the early age of the Web but in a couple of years this will be simple as using an Apple phone)

Imagine the creative (and marketing) possibilities coming.

Step Three: Make sure that you and your company are not being blinded into an alley filled with data and technology only.

If leaders particularly leading marketers truly believe that the future is all about data and tech versus it being just an ingredient, then there is no need for a marketer. AI and other Algorithms can do our jobs since they can compute, compare, and co-relate better than all of us.

Too many industries forget that it is talent and people combined with technology and data that make the difference.

If the marketing and marketing services industry is reduced to a data driven and tech industry the continued flight of talent that most Clients and Agencies have been suffering from will continue since if you only want to work in data and tech, why not work in a data and tech company that is more focused on that and provides the potential of valuable stock options?

Wealth and Brands are created through combining story and spreadsheet. Today when a new dawn of creativity and making is being unleashed and data and tech is being commoditized and offered as ingredients and service, we need to make sure we are focusing on our ability to attract, retain, train, re-aggregate and unleash talented creators and makers. And to do so in a flexible way, in fear free innovative cultures that modern technology and the new unbundled distributed workspace of tomorrow are enabling.

Let us stop fixating on the Arrows (how they are made, how many big lakes full of them we have and how cheaply we can buy them) and instead let us focus on the Archers.

Getting the arrows is not too difficult but attracting and motivating the archers is.

Building enterprises that have access to a disproportionate share of archers/creatives/makers is what true leaders and companies will focus on in the Creative and Maker Age.

Creative by  Virgin Abloh . RIP.

The Great Re-Invention

Two years ago in Wuhan, China the first human became ill with what is now known as Covid-19. By March 2020 most of the world was in lock-down and in early May 2020 I wrote the piece below on what we could anticipate in the future, how things might change and what we would need to do as individuals, business and society to prevail.

While this was written prior to vaccines, George Floyd, a change in the US President, the Great Resignation and many more events it anticipated all these changes.

Today, two years later with the advent of the Omicron variant and re-closing of some borders, I am re-publishing on this Substack which did not exist when the original piece was written.

In 2008/2009 we lived through the Great Recession.

One way to frame the impact of the Covid-19 tragedy is to think about it as the start of the Great Re-invention. 

Of Business, Of Government, Of Society.

And of our ourselves.

The Impact of this crisis will be greater than the ones we have lived through including the dot.com bust, 9/11. SARS/MERS and the Great Recession, because it is a health, economic and social crisis happening to everybody in the world, at the same time, for an extended period.

People’s habits change if they repeat or stop a behavior for 60 or more days.

People’s mindsets change when they go through a severe shock.

People’s relationships change when they get the opportunity to see, feel and think in new ways.

All this is happening to all of us.

Predicting has always been a risky business and all futurists need to be humble since tomorrow will prove them often wrong. This is particularly true today given the unprecedented circumstances. In order to ground my observations, I am beginning with what I believe is a key to understand and frame the way forward.

We need to 1) address fragility, 2) sculpt resilience and 3) resurrect now

1. Address Fragility

The first thing we all need to do is to address the reality of Fragility.

Human Fragility: If there was ever a doubt about the frailty of our bodies and minds and the reality that we all are carbon-based feeling filled creatures with limited life spans and parts that go wrong, Covid-19 has brought us clarity. Never have so many people been so anxious, fearful and uncertain for their futures. Even the well to do who are working from home with financial reserves are stressed. As I remind people we are not working from home. We are working under duress in homes filled with children who should be at school, worried about parents and loved ones and our jobs, while being scared out of our wits via our television and social feeds and dealing with toilet paper shortages and the grocery trip as a hazardous life risking endeavor!

Economic Fragility: Tens of millions of businesses and hundreds of millions of people all over the world have less than two or three weeks of reserves after a decade of a booming economy. Huge corporations including airlines spent all their reserves buying back their stock and would go out of business without government help. The CEO’s who believed in free enterprise and told government to back off are going hat in hand and pleading for help.

Social Fragility: In the US about 16% of the population are immigrants but over 25% of the people who are working on the front lines whether it be delivery, warehouses, drivers or nurses are immigrants. Across the US African Americans are dying at over 2X rate to the general population. The harsh downturn is impacting labor particularly gig workers, poor people and young people. The walls we put up thinking that we could live compartmentalized lives are eroding as it is becoming clear that we are all connected.

Focus on Society, Safety and Security.

As businesses and a society, we need to think, see and feel differently to ensure that we work to re-invent our world in the light of the learnings of our fragility. This is likely to mean that successful businesses and leaders will acknowledge the following in all their behaviors, product development and messaging: Society, Safety and Security:

Society: We live in a society where we are all connected as people. We must ensure we are optimizing for society and not just for consumers or businesses.

America is different from Europe with a rugged individualistic streak that is part of the national character but today when we see CEO’s who were capitalistic in boom times turn socialist when they run into trouble ( or as Professor Scott Galloway says they want to individualize the gains in good times for themselves but socialize the losses for everybody when things go wrong) or politicians who claimed had no money to address infrastructure or social issues but now have unlimited money will give people pause on nonsensical ideologies.

The shock of Covid-19 has revealed the fault lines of inequality (African American compared to general population, rich versus poor, urban versus suburban, baby boomer versus millennial). These must be bridged through new legislation, better listening and enhanced leadership (one more empathetic, diverse and trustworthy) rather than rants and rages inflamed across polarized and algorithmic media which often colonize minds and rot the soul.

The days of making fun of government or causes that focus on common good are likely to pass. I anticipate a newfound appreciation of blue-collar workers and people on the front lines and would not be surprised to see increased unionization particularly among gig and warehouse workers.

Safety: This crisis has shown the most important asset is our health. It has placed a new spotlight on the importance of safety and the people who keep us safe.

Funding for some form of Universal Healthcare will become essential and newfound appreciation for medical staff, first responders will remain long lasting. Too many people are too vulnerable and there will be a hunger to keep oneself and one’s family safe.

And Climate Change will be taken seriously for the first time by many deniers.

For a few months and maybe longer messaging will need to emphasize safety. Why is this conference safe? Why is this theater safe? How does our company keep you safe?

Security: A joint survey by the Financial Times and the Peter G Petersen Foundation released this morning  indicated “how widespread the pandemic’s economic impact has become, with almost as many families making more than $100,000 a year reported a hit to their income (71 per cent), as those making less than $50,000 (74 per cent). Similarly, 53 per cent of those making less than $50,000 said they would lose their pay if illness forced them to stop work, while 47 per cent of those making more than $100,000 were in the same boat.”

People all over the world at all income groups will feel far more financially insecure after Covid-19 than before it. The Millennials burdened with student debt and facing a constrained market for employment will feel particularly vulnerable and older retirees are facing lower retirement balances, zero to negative interest rates on savings and the possibility of higher inflation as 6 trillion dollars in the US flows through the system.

As businesses restart, they will have limited to no pricing power since their customers will watch their spending and will be needed to be incentivized to re-start behaviors they may have given up.

A key to driving the Great Re-invention will be to focus on society and how you are serving society while helping peoples (customers, employees, stakeholders) need for the safety of their and their family’s health and the need for financial security.

2. Sculpt Resilience.

In order to address the fragility that has been revealed and underscored in recent weeks, society, business and each of us will need to sculpt ourselves into more resilient forms.

A. Society

A health crisis where every single person is at risk, with impoverished people at much greater risk, combined with an economic crisis that will leave over a quarter of the US population unemployed is going to change the mindset of the United States in three ways.

1. Government matters. Governance matters: As he set off what would be four decades of deregulation, former President Ronald Reagan said to great laughter:

“The most terrifying words in the English language are I’m from the government and I’m here to help. “

Who is laughing now?

During this crisis we have seen the need for Government and importantly the difference in good versus bad governance at national, state and local levels.

Government matters. Governance matters.

It is a life and death thing.

2. Expanded Healthcare: Regardless of who gets elected in 2020 we can expect to see significant expansion of health care benefits particularly to blue collar service and gig workers.

We are likely to finally understand that in a world that will require more mobility and flexibility we must decouple affordable and comprehensive health care from being employed. This is good for business and good for society.

3. Optimizing for society not just consumer and business: Over the past few decades whether it be the government or judicial system there has been a tendency to favor decisions which benefit consumers or business.

Consumer and business will remain key drivers of economic growth, but we will now see the importance of society stakeholders like community, environment and employees.

Make America Well Again may replace Make America Great Again.

B. Businesses

Many businesses particularly smaller ones may never recover from the shock of having to shut down for two to three months. Even, large established firms are going hat in hand for bailouts or imposing a combination of pay cuts, furloughs and mass layoff of employees to cut costs and drawing down every credit line they can to buy liquidity and time.

After going through such a near death and chastening experience business will re-invent the way they work in order to build in resilience in the following ways:

1. Re-architect to a smaller and/or different footprint: Bob Iger of Disney believes it will be very different in the future including have many fewer employees.

Companies will not bring back all the full-time employees they have furloughed even if they can afford it because they will want to create a financial buffer for the future. The University of Chicago estimates that up to 42 percent of those furloughed will not return.

Anticipate a greater use of contract versus full time employees to allow one to flex staffing to changing circumstances.

Companies will also radically re-think all their real-estate needs and slash their travel budgets recognizing that not only many meetings can be done remotely but most business travel is not an efficient use of time.

Most importantly, companies will re-think their business models or be forced to do so because this great pause will lead to a great acceleration of change with any nay-sayers either seeing the light or the first to be let go.

2. Re-think supply chains: For the past decade off shoring and just in time supply chains have driven great speed and financial returns. The recent crisis has shown that the most efficient chain is the not the most resilient one and companies will now balance efficiency with resilience. They will carry more inventory and ensure multiple supply chains.

Wendy’s cannot afford to ask “Where is the Beef” or our supply of N-95 masks dependent on a moody China.

3. Hybrid versus Pure breed: There is really “no digital “only or direct to consumer only. Majority of businesses will be a mix of analog and digital, direct to consumer and retail channel firms, full time and contractor businesses. For resilience you need optionality. To thrive one needs diversity of models.

Restaurants will be dining in, drive through, pick-up and delivery. Conferences will be real and virtual. Being mono-maniacal will simply be being a maniac.

4.Strong Balance Sheets will be cool again: With major well-run Unicorns like Airbnb forced to borrow money at double digit rates of interest while eliminating nearly a quarter of their work force signal implies that lesser Unicorns dreams will pop.

5. A New Set of Companies and Wealth Creation Opportunities will arise: In the debris of the Great Recession companies like Airbnb and Uber were forged as was Square, and technologies such as Blockchain and much more. One will see new companies being founded that are built using the current technologies and changed expectations of people.

Whenever there is a mindset shift as there is now and new technologies (5g, Machine Learning, Cloud and Voice) there are new industries and opportunities.

C. Individuals/Employees

Over a four-decade career I have seen a lot of changes and adapted to a lot of changes. Some of my distilled advice as 10 Career Lessons remains my most popular blog post and remains even more relevant today.

Every  individual must recognize that a part of the Great Re-invention it is imperative to spend time rethinking their own careers. Let’s utilize this down time to begin to up skill in ways that will allow for resilience in times where there will be fewer and different full-time jobs.

1. Upgrade Your Mental Operating System: Spend at least a few hours a day learning new skills when you have the time and there is a world of free resources and training like this. And when the world returns never stop learning. Whatever you are good at will likely erode in market value unless you replenish yourself.

One of the keys is to also ensure that you become “virtual certified” and can work in a world of distributed work forces. We will get back to offices but less than before both in numbers and the time we spend there. Here is how to ensure that you are seen as capable, trustworthy, empathetic, vulnerable and inspiring will be so key to your career.

2. Build a Brand: In a world where full time jobs are going to be fewer at least for a while you need to make sure that you have developed networks and a brand so that you retain optionality.

A recession is not just a time where smart brands who continue to market gain market share, but it is where you can stand out. This is not the time to go into hiding or expect that when you return things will be the same.

3. Face the reality that you are likely to have little pricing power and may need to cut your own costs: When the economy opens up most businesses will find limited demand from customers combined with millions of people looking for work. This will be true at least for a year or two if not more. Those temporary pay cuts may not be temporary and the big bonuses of the past may remain memories as companies husband resources and face cost conscious customers.

You must find ways to cut your cost base wherever you can so that may build your reserves. This will also allow you to afford your next career which may have you start at lower level in growth industry, join one of the new next-generation startups which will pay you a lower base but lots of options or finally follow the career you wanted but did not do because it did not pay big bucks.

No longer should you price yourself out of your dreams because of your cost structure. Could it be that you should be doing something else? Could Plan B or “one day I will” be really Plan A?

4. Change sucks but irrelevance is worse: While today is traumatic in both human and financial and career loss and the path forward will be uncertain and sometimes difficult, we are likely to come out as a better people and society.

Every day you see this with the way people are stepping up and helping their neighbors and finding new ways and approaches to cope.

Humans adapt. Humans invent.

Humans are resilient.

And you are human.

3. Resurrect Now!

As firms re-emerge from the shutdown and begin to return to what Bill Gates calls semi-normal and I believe will be a New Strange world (google images of workplaces, malls and schools in South Korea to get a glimpse of our future) , it will not be business as usual, since people, industry and society will all be different.

In an era of constrained growth, companies and individuals will all be addressing fragility, by looking for safety and security. They will be working to sculpt resilience by re-thinking their size and scale, incorporating optionality into the way they design their work force and supply chains, while also strengthening their balance sheets.

As I work with a range of companies and their senior management, I am helping guide their transition from managing the shock of the shut down to the new landscape they will find themselves operating in.

It is critical that business as they await the shutdown to end to get ready by asking themselves three questions:

1. What will my Customer/Consumer be like: How will the behavior and expectations of my customer/consumer be different? What will they be doing more and doing less?

For every industry and product category it will different, but I would expect that most firms should begin with an expectation that a) their customers will be more value driven due to reduced purchasing power combined with a need to enhance their future financial security and b) they will be ultra-sensitive about health and safety

For these financial and health reasons people are likely to move to a semi-quarantined state for at least six months to a year, as they travel less, go out less and work more from home.

2. How can I get my company to learn from and accept the new reality?

Leaders face and adapt to reality versus living in a world of magical thinking.

Every business has been shocked, and this has revealed internal fault lines and hopefully also some strengths which exposed several new threats and possibly opportunities.

Major new realities will include:

a) Accelerated digitization of business and expansion of remote everything: Covid-19 has transformed more businesses than any strategist, chief digital or chief transformation officer. Every old school resistor has been zoomed into the future.

b) Growth Reversal: Many growth industries (hospitality and travel) will experience depression economics as tens of thousands of restaurants close, airlines grow smaller, hotel room become dorm rooms.

c) Schizophrenia of Size: We will find “smaller is beautiful” as industries like puffed up and bloated universities get reality punched in their theoretical faces. Many will be forced to stop being pseudo sport franchises, building developers and luxury brands with unlimited pricing power to get back to focus on teaching and research.

There will be widespread amputation of company appendages as a combination of strategic focus and financial flexibility result in harsh surgical action and sale/burial of body parts.

On the other hand, “Bigger is wonderful” will also emerge, as the large well capitalized businesses such as Amazon, Walmart and Costco in retail, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Adobe will grow even bigger buying the sawed-off parts up for sale or entering new arenas as they smell blood in the water. They will use their scale and reputation to deliver the value pricing and safety signaling people are looking for.

Very few businesses will be spared in the eddies and crashing waves ahead and over the next month you and your team in order to stay afloat and navigate the seas need to do a two-part audit:

a) Shock/Resilience: This is a look inside the business.

What broke or almost failed and what can we do about it. As importantly what worked and why?

b) Threat/Opportunity: This is a look outside the business.

Given that consumers and customers are going to be different what parts of our business is threatened and could there are new opportunities and unmet needs we can work on?

When doing these exercises please be real? Call out the turd on the table.

3. How can we leverage fresh sheet thinking: How would we re-start if we had a fresh sheet of paper?

So now that your team has envisioned the future consumer/customer and looked inside and outside of the business to do an audit of shock, resilience, opportunity and threats, what are you going to do?

The biggest mistake individuals or businesses can make is continuing with the status quo.

Every time there is a significant economic shock like the Great Recession, new business is born in the bonfire of the old structures. Remember that Dollar Shave Club, Uber, Airbnb and many more were born in midst of and right after 2007-2009 period.

The reason I call this era The Great Re-invention is that we have a health, financial and society crisis occurring at the same time all over the world. People are being forced to start or stop doing things for 60 to 90 days. As a result, new behaviors will start, and old behaviors may no longer return.

Imagine and invent without limitations except these three reality checks. 1. Whatever you do has to be legal. 2. Whatever you do has to be scientifically and technically possible today and 3. Whatever you do has to break even within three years.

I would then imagine your re-invention keeping in mind:

a) You are not behind your competitor but your customer. Too many companies focus on benchmarking against their competitors but beating other pathetic people does not leave you any less pathetic. When customer/consumer behavior changes this focus on what competitors do is all wrong.

b) Your competitors have changed: Either because new categories have been created or a new type of competitor has arrived. Just as when the auto companies were ogling each other Tesla, Uber and AI re-wrote the rules of the category or as Gillette and Schick were out blading and out price increasing each other, new competitors such as Dollar Shave Club and Harrys emerged.

c) Your talent needs to be incentivized, trained and aligned differently: There are only two ways to transform your company. Upgrade the people or get better/new people.

If you want your people to behave differently in this new world you will have to incentivize them differently. While people like to be informed via your press release, videos or mantras on transformation, they are most eager to understand what it means to them. Go check out Fishbowl and Glassdoor to get a look at what is on their mind and sometimes get a kick in the gut.

Put your best people against tomorrow’s opportunities versus today’s biggest businesses.

Incentivize behavior and not just outcomes.

Invest in training. Skills are learned and not immaculately born.

Look in the mirror dear leader. We might be part of the problem.

d. The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the past:

Why are you organized the way you are if you are re-thinking your category, your competitors and your talent?

If you started today, would you have all the people and parts that make your company. Competitors who are starting today do not have these legacy structures weighing them down.

There is a dawning of a new era.

Many opportunities and positive changes will occur after the period of shock. Use this time to get revitalized and re-invent.

Resurrect Now!

“Go the extra mile. It’s never crowded.”

On Monday November 15, 2021, a gentleman named John Durham passed away in San Francisco, California after many years of struggling health.

What happened in the hours and days after news of his passing was initially shared with a list of two hundred plus of his friends would signal that someone unique, very special and very impactful was no more.

Social media flooded with tributes and stories. Here is just one feed:

https://www.facebook.com/thedurham

The email announcing the news of John Durham’s demise was so responded to and shared that Microsoft believed it was the work of a spammer and for those lucky enough to be on it looked forward to and hoped everybody would hit “reply all” every time they added a thought or their memories. Five days later the email thread continues to vibrate with ideas to honor the man, memories that stir tears and evoke laughter and unspool many anecdotes and stories.

John for over a decade would share a thought, a story, an observation, or an anecdote which came to be known as “Durhamism’s”. They were wise and they were funny. They made you hold in tears or spit out what you were drinking or eating since they were so funny. A request to sign up for a crowd sourcing project to take these writings and put them together in an electronic form prior to publication of a selection was oversubscribed within hours with CEO’s and leaders grabbing as many assignments as they could!

If the measure of a man is the lives he has touched, there is no tape or ruler long or deep enough to measure the impact of John Durham.

John was in many ways the fabric that connected and weaved together a global diaspora of what initially were digital marketing and media pioneers but grew to include people of every stripe from CEOs to students across industries and the globe.

I was one of those lucky to know John Durham. We were far more connected in the last two years of his life brought together by his being a generous champion of my writing and thinking which he asked me to leverage to the benefit of the many communities he cared about from University of San Francisco to the San Francisco Bay Area Interactive Group to his clients at SF Catalyst and many more. Almost every Sunday, he would write me kind words after he read this weekly thought letter.

Many people knew him much longer and far better and interacted with him almost daily and I have now begun to suspect there may have been many John Durham’s because surely one individual could not be so much to so many!

He was friend, mentor, counselor, teacher, advisor, family member.

And he was their sommelier, their sports buddy, their fellow traveler and the one who made them laugh.

The container that molded John was broken when he was born and we are unlikely to see someone like him again in the future, but his teachings can help guide us forward.

Here are just a few:

1. Be kind.

Durhamism #1117: “Kindness, like a boomerang, always returns. The kindest word in all the world is the unkind word, unsaid.”

George Saunders wrote “err in the direction of kindness”

John Durham erred so much in the direction he would be put in detention for life if there was a prison for the most kind.

But John showed that kindness was the key to unlocking everything and everybody and we all remember the little and big acts of grace, courtesy, and attention we got from him.

2. Be generous.

Durhamism # 1140: “Go the extra mile. It’s never crowded.”

Along with kindness the word and feeling that ran through John’s life and the tributes to him was his generosity.

He was always there for everybody.

And he was there before you knew you needed him.

A few weeks before my book was published John reached out of the blue and asked if he could hold an event in San Francisco. Typically, he phrased it in a way that he thought I was doing him a favor in supporting the San Francisco Bay Area Interactive Group by creating an event around the book launch! He got a sold-out crowd with so many leaders who had come for the Godfather and for “The Durham”, but John shone that spotlight on me.

Class act after class act of giving (including lots and lots of fine wine for the smallest of favors) and helping was his story.

3. Be grateful.

Durhamism #510: "What often screws us up the most in life is the picture in our head of how it's supposed to be. And the reason so many of us give up is because we tend to look at how far we still have to go, instead of how far we have come. Remember, life is a journey, not a destination. This moment, like every moment, is a priceless gift and an opportunity. Be positive, smile, and make it count. Pretend today is going to be great. Do so, and it will be. Research shows that although we think that we act because of the way we feel, in fact, we often feel because of the way we act. A great attitude always leads to great experiences.

John was a man who was increasingly sensitive to the finer shade of differences.

From a conversation to a fine libation to every interaction there was infused a sense of joy and of presence.

To be alive. To be there. To experience.

Gratitude.

4. Laugh! Laugh at life.Laugh at yourself.

John despite all his kindness and generosity had standards and could like all of us get angry and did not suffer fools. Here are two perspectives on this from funny to deep.

Durhamism #288: “Life is all about ass. You’re either covering it, kicking it, kissing it, busting it, trying to get a piece of it or behaving like one”

Durhamism# 2849: “The most wasted of all days is that in which we have not laughed. A man who can laugh, if only at himself is never really miserable. Laughter is the soul’s health; moroseness is its poison. Laughter is therapy for physical pain, emotional pain, and the everyday pain of life.”

5. Live deeply and with a sense of wonder.

For many years in his last decade John struggled with his health. There were many days he was in pain, but he was with almost everyone stoic and wanted to know about them and how they were. The passage of time and the shortness of life infused the way he lived.

In an interview he was asked about happiness.

What is happiness to you?

“I used to think about it a lot. I think happiness is what you enjoy doing; how you spend your day; what kind of people you associate with – both in work and in your personal life; the experience you have and how you think about all the things that you do, and the people surround you; places you’ve been to and places you want to visit.

My happiness is: number one, waking up every morning knowing that I am healthy. That means I care about my health and try to be healthy. Number two: doing something good every day. I want to smile every day. I think if you don’t smile, if you go to bed without a smile, your heart hurts. That means I care about smiling once or twice. I want to laugh once or twice a day. Some days I want to cry; sometimes I cry for happiness, sometimes for sadness.

I don’t believe you can be happy until you experience some negative things to appreciate what you do have. Happiness is the appreciation of things you have in life, and I do.

When I die, I want people to say: He was a good person, he was fun to be around, he shared his thoughts, ideas and believes, he cared about people, and he gave only good. That would be a very happy tombstone.”

If you are to give one advice to other people to be happy, what would that be?

“Appreciate every moment, everything, everybody, every day. When you do – it is breathtaking; you can never capture it again.”

Photographs by friends of John Durham.