Since *winning* the 2020 media-election there’s a variety of reaction from prominent and wannabe-prominent people that ranges from unsurprising to fiery but peaceful. These examples don’t apply to the vast majority of citizens but you do need to know where the elected, media and chattering classes all stand. Those in the most immediate danger are rational, left-leaning people because they’re soft targets. In professional settings, especially where there are permissive leaders who aren’t / don’t have time to pay close attention, the goalposts are moving. Thought-policing is exploding and non-conformity will be punished if the weak, bureaucratic professional-class (ahem, HR) is left in charge. Good […]
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NOTE5: Woke Backlash, Violence & Collateral Damage
From Street Corner to Conference Room I’ll keep repeating this connection. The narrative that drives diversity, equity & inclusion is the same narrative that drives fiery but mostly peaceful protests. It’s a victimhood narrative. The #blacklivesmatter slogan spray painted on smoldering buildings and printed on corporate posters and featured in political campaigns doesn’t raise a question? A majority of people, regardless of their identity or intersectional scorecard, don’t want to be treated as victims — to be labeled a “diversity hire” or “equity promotion” because they earned success in the midst of a political spasm. Each of these stories has relevance that stretches across private, […]
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NOTE5: Leadership, Media, Separating Signal from Noise
A Good Primer for Leaders Critical Race Theory (CRT) is banned as a training doctrine in the US Federal gov’t. The pushback will be noisy & distorted (and the ban may be overturned). CRT is the mother of white privilege, equity, diversity & inclusion, racial-sensitivity, anti-racism, anti-bias, and every other go-to-market branding that shares this singular tenet: “The question is not ‘did racism take place?’ but ‘how did racism manifest in that situation?’” (–quoting DiAngelo) Here’s what this means for you. Waking up in the morning, your alarm clock is racist because time itself is racist and reliably showing up for your racist job is […]
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Debt: Knowledge, Financial, Technical, Operational, Emotional
In the meantime, I’d suggest the solution is empathy in its authentic form. Leaders need to shoulder responsibility for emotional debt and create mechanisms to pay it down. On the surface it sounds like a bailout. In reality it’s more like giving people a bucket and patch kit.
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Unpacking Transformation 2020, Part 8: Contradictions
Thought leaders have been selling an academic fantasy of digital transformation for decades. It doesn’t work. Here’s what does: stealthy, small scale initiatives that start with a wide berth. Determined non-conformists on a mission. Cross-pollinating, multidisciplinary teams of fewer that 5 people. Organic opt-in over forced buy-in. Controlled-environment R&D over spray & pray ‘org-wide.’
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