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HINDSIGHT - WRITE SOMETHING WORTH READING ABOUT OR DO SOMETHING WORTH WRITING ABOUT
Tuesday, March 29, 2022
PROTEGE AND NADINE ROBBINS
NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN BY HOWARD TULLMAN
Let the Newbies Know the Truth
Too
many youngsters are entering the workforce with delusions of their own
grandeur. It is vitally important that they're checked into reality before you
hire them.
BY HOWARD
TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH
INVESTORS@TULLMAN
Photo: Getty Images
New employees need a simple, straightforward,
cohesive and consistent introduction to your business, your company's culture,
and your work philosophy if they're going to be successful --especially if
they're going to be mostly remote.
Simple doesn't mean dumb in this case, but it
does mean short and sweet.
Straightforward means telling it like it is
and letting the chips fall where they may. You're much better off filtering out
newbies with attitude and entitlement problems at the outset - and maybe even
losing a few prospects in the process - rather than inviting fundamentally
unhappy and chronically dissatisfied folks into your shop.
Cohesive and consistent means that, in this
painful age of constant management contortions --- as business owners try to
please everyone, be politically correct, and ensure that everyone's opinions
matter and that they all get a vote on everything -- your public pronouncements
and positions actually do have to align with and be supported by the day-to-day
rules and ways you run the business. 02:43
Having personally hired hundreds of employees
over several decades, I've never seen such an influx of confused and deluded
young people looking for a workplace that simply doesn't exist. Sadly, they've
been primed and "woke" in academic bubbles that have set utterly
unrealistic expectations. They've been overwhelmed with media imagery and
fantasy articles about work-life balance and doing just what you love; they've
been inundated with social media junk and the fake lives and lies of
influencers; they've been told repeatedly that they're now in "the
driver's seat" in terms of employment negotiations and smothered by all
the other online noise and clutter that sucks up far too great a portion of
their lives.
There's no escaping this stuff and any
entrepreneur who's looking to hire these kids has to try to help straighten
them out so that they actually know what they're signing up for and, if it's
not right for them, they can do everyone the favor of bailing out and going
elsewhere. These aren't likely to be quick or easy conversations, but they're
essential for any business that's hoping to find the right talent and the right
fit for them and, at the same time, grow quickly. Getting hiring right - right
at the start - is the name of the whole game. Otherwise, you'll be dealing with
a constantly revolving door and treading water.
There are many different messages and
approaches that might work in situations like this, but I've found five ideas,
attitudes and thoughts that consistently appear in the most successful
conversations. There's no magic to the syntax - whatever words work best for
you will get the job done.
(1) You have to commit fully to the work
and put your whole self into everything you do -- do it with a vengeance. Don't
come to work merely to do a decent job; there's no room these days for
"whatever" or adolescent indifference. Work matters. There are no
easy jobs; there are only graceful ways of performing difficult ones. Be proud
of what you're doing and why you're doing it. No wobbling and no white lies.
Don't say "maybe" when you want and need to say "no." Don't
try to do things cheaply that you shouldn't do at all. If you're constantly
hedging your bets, then, even on your best days, your results will still be
mediocre. Band-Aids and duct tape solutions are the worst bets you can make. If
you can't do it well, do something else.
(2) Everything today is about time,
which is our scarcest and most precious resource. You can't afford to dawdle
because speed is what sets the best players apart. You never get back the time
you waste in not making a fast and final decision. Especially in times of
radical and rapid change, the faster you decide, the more likely the chances
that your choices will be successful. In any moment of decision, the best thing
you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing. Any
decision is better than no decision.
(3) No one is irreplaceable, but the
best and most successful people are invaluable because they're the ones others
turn to when there's a problem. The people you can always count on to be there
and help - the ones you tend to run to, not away from, in a crisis. You want to
be someone's first stop when they need help, and not
their last resort. This isn't something that happens
automatically or overnight - it's something you build, nurture, and demonstrate
throughout your career. You make your passion and enthusiasm apparent, you're
always available and up for the next challenge, you do your homework and put in
the necessary time and effort, and you don't quit. When the chips are down and
the fat's in the fire, you want to be the one who people can count on.
(4) Learn to let things go. Not
everything can be fixed, finished or saved. Sometimes you don't even get to
understand everything. Some things aren't problems to be solved, they're
situations that we need to learn to live with. Mistakes happen to everyone
unless they're sleeping. The trick is not to dwell on them. Fix them, learn
from them, make the best of them that you can, and move on. Don't be a prisoner
of the past. The best athletes have "in game amnesia" - they forget
their past flops, the missed shots, and the officials' bad calls so they can
focus 100% on the present and make their next shots count.
(5) It's okay to fail sometimes as long
as you gave it your best, asked for help when you needed it, didn't try to hide
the problem, and ultimately owned the whole mess. But it's never okay to quit
in the middle and leave people in the lurch. We want to give people permission
to fail without accepting that those failures are warranted, unavoidable or
inevitable. Tell them to save their breath and give any alibis, sad stories and
painful explanations to someone else. There's no such thing in the real world
as a good excuse.
The bottom line is pretty simple. You can't
build a real business without a solid foundation based in truth. Telling people
only what they want to hear or half-truths about what life in your business is
really like isn't doing anyone a favor. Lies mortgage your firm's future while
the truth will set you up for long term success.
MAR 29, 2022
The
opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of
Inc.com.
Sunday, March 27, 2022
Friday, March 25, 2022
Baltimore Musicales Hosts Benefit Concert in Support of Ukraine on April 2
Thank you to Baltimore Fishbowl for sharing this special event, which will raise funds for the Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund created by Save the Children Federation--providing food, water, hygiene kits, psychosocial support and cash assistance to the 7.5 million children caught in the crossfires of war. Join us in person at Grace United Methodist Church in Baltimore or via livestream from the comfort of your home! Tickets here: https://www.baltimoremusicales.org/.../in-song-and...
“In Song & Solidarity” – Baltimore Musicales Hosts Benefit Concert in Support of Ukraine on April 2
“In Song & Solidarity”
Saturday, April 2 at 1:00PM
Grace United Methodist Church
5407 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21210
Join the artists of Baltimore Musicales for a benefit concert in support of Ukraine. Songs by Florence Price, John Rosamond Johnson, Richard Strauss, Amy Beach, Claude Debussy, Du Nam Cho, and more will be performed by Min Jin, Daniel Rich, Victoria McGrath, Bailey Jo Oehler, and Patricia McKewen Amato. The concert will be followed by an outdoor reception.
A percentage of the proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to the Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund created by Save the Children Federation, Inc., providing food, water, hygiene kits, psychosocial support and cash assistance to the 7.5 million children caught in the crossfire of war.
General Admission: $20. Advance online ticket purchase is suggested. Masks and proof of vaccination are required. Convenient parking lot and handicap accessible.
To view the livestream from home, purchase a Virtual Ticket. The link will stay active after the event has concluded.
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
March 24, 2022
“We are very pleased, dear President, dear Joe, to welcome you again in Brussels,” European Council president Charles Michel of Belgium told President Joe Biden today. “Your presence here and your participation in this European Council meeting is a very strong signal.”
The European Council is made up of the heads of states of the European Union states, along with the President of the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union. “Our unity is rock solid, and we are very, very pleased to coordinate, to cooperate with you. These are difficult times, challenging times, and we need to take the right and the intelligent decisions for the future and for the security, for the stability,” Michel said.
“And thank you for this excellent cooperation and coordination,” he concluded.
Michel was referring to the joint statement made today by Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, of Germany, condemning Russia’s “unjustified and unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine,” which is now four weeks old. They declared that “we are united in our resolve to defend our shared values, including democracy, respect for human rights, global peace and stability, and the rules-based international order.”
They announced more sanctions—the U.S. announced sanctions on more than 400 additional individuals and entities today—as well as $1 billion in humanitarian aid from the U.S. for Ukraine in addition to the more than $2 billion in military equipment the U.S. has pledged. They announced cooperation to reduce dependence on Russian oil and gas, a focus on food security to prevent food shortages as Russian and Ukrainian grain production slows, and additional cybersecurity. To help resettlement, the U.S. has agreed to take up to 100,000 Ukrainians fleeing their homes.
They also announced joint efforts to strengthen democracies in and around Ukraine. The U.S. will launch the European Democratic Resilience Initiative (EDRI) to provide at least $320 million in new funding to “support media freedom and counter disinformation, benefit the safety and security of activists and vulnerable groups, strengthen institutions and the region’s rule of law, and help ensure accountability for human rights abuses and violations of international law.” The European Commission will “reallocate funds from EU programmes to support civil society organizations, human rights defenders, journalists, and pro-democracy activists in Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova,” in addition to providing emergency grants to save civic activism and open media in Ukraine. The statement also demanded accountability for any war crimes Russians commit in Ukraine.
Biden responded to Michel by reiterating that “from the very beginning, I was of the view: The single most important thing that we have to do in the West is be united.” Russian president Vladimir Putin’s overwhelming objective, Biden said, “is to demonstrate that democracies cannot function in the 21st century—because things are moving so rapidly, they require consensus, and it’s too difficult to get consensus—and autocracies are going to rule.” Putin has tried for years to break up the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), so he could face 30 individual countries rather than one united front. The single most important thing we can do is to be united.
That impressive unity abroad has not translated to the United States.
Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson continues to promote pro-Russian, anti-Biden propaganda. Today the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that Biden’s son Hunter’s foundation had financed biological labs in Ukraine (which earlier propaganda said were developing biological weapons); less than 12 hours later, Carlson made the same claim.
More explosively, tonight Bob Woodward of the Washington Post and Robert Costa of CBS broke the story that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, Virginia, a right-wing activist who goes by the name Ginni, exchanged at least 29 texts with Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows about the attempt to overturn the 2020 election, 21 from her, 8 from Meadows.
The messages were among the 2320 messages Meadows provided to the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol; the aides and committee members to whom Woodward and Costa spoke indicated their belief that there were more messages between Ms. Thomas and Meadows than just the 29.
The messages show that Ms. Thomas bought into the conspiracy theories that the election was stolen, including the extreme theories pushed by QAnon. “Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!” she urged Meadows on November 10, after the results were in. “The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.” (Biden won the election by more than 7 million votes, and by a vote of 306 to 232 in the Electoral College.) On November 24, Meadows wrote, “This is a fight of good versus evil…. Evil always looks like the victor until the King of Kings triumphs. Do not grow weary in well doing. The fight continues….”
In January 2022, Ms. Thomas’s husband, Justice Thomas, was the only member of the Supreme Court to vote against permitting the January 6 committee to see a different cache of documents concerning the fight to overturn the election. Trump had claimed executive privilege over documents stored as part of the presidential records archive at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); by a vote of 8 to 1, the Supreme Court agreed that the committee’s subpoena must be enforced.
Considering that his wife might have communications in that NARA cache, it was likely a conflict of interest for him to participate in that decision.
Neither Thomas responded to requests for comment. The Supreme Court announced Sunday that Justice Thomas, 73, had been hospitalized with an infection that is not Covid-19 and that he was expected to be released Monday or Tuesday. Thomas was not in court Wednesday, and the court has provided no further updates.
That Thomas is now at the center of this scandal suggests another dimension to the extraordinarily vicious attacks on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson at this week’s Senate hearing for confirmation to the Supreme Court.
The former president himself is also trying to keep his name in the news and his base angry. Today his lawyers filed a federal lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, Christopher Steele (who produced the Steele Dossier suggesting that Trump had concerning ties with Russia), and so on—a laundry list of 47 people and companies he claims were part of a conspiracy against him after the 2016 election—claiming that “Clinton and her cohorts orchestrated an unthinkable plot…. Acting in concert, the[y]... maliciously conspired to weave a false narrative that their Republican opponent, Donald J. Trump, was colluding with a hostile foreign sovereignty.” Their actions were “so outrageous, subversive and incendiary that even the events of Watergate pale in comparison.”
It is a mess, full of debunked claims, misspellings, and outright lies; Aaron Blake of the Washington Post called it a press release. It is impossible to imagine Trump intends to continue the case until it gets to discovery, when the defendants’ lawyers could request his testimony under oath. The complaint asks for a trial, and it appears to be designed to rile up his base with familiar stories—possibly for 2024, as Blake suggests, but, if history is any guide, primarily to encourage donations.
—
Notes:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/24/virginia-thomas-mark-meadows-texts/
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/23/politics/clarence-thomas/index.html
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/ginni-thomas-meadows-texts-overturn-2020-election-results
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/24/us/qanon-supreme-court-ketanji-brown-jackson.html
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/trump-sues-everyone-who-ever-offended-him-over-2016-election
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/24/trump-clinton-lawsuit-mess/
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