Observations

In dealing with a global community of thousands—and hundreds of thousands who have read my books—I’m able to keep my finger on the pulse of the profession and its clients. I’m sharing in this podcast some of the repetitive discussions and challenges that are extant internationally. For example, “remote” now rules. It’s often the default interaction, and often represents more value, not less. (A huge amount of time and money are saved.) However, leaders are not sure how to deal with combinations of remote, onsite, and hybrid employees. They are frustrated that they’re not getting their “40 hours” of productivity from them, when, in fact, even employees in the office physically are not providing 40 hours of productivity! This goes back to “Scientific Management” and Frederick Winslow Taylor in the early 20th Century, the first time-and-motion consultant. The problem is that he fudged his numbers and never factored in fatigue and boredom. Supply chains are changing, but they’re changing from global (do we really want to rely on China for chips or Russia for gas) to regional supply chains. Hence, the US, as an example, is building chip plants. And we see new alliances forming that once were almost unthinkable—Finland joining NATO, Japan and South Korea cooperating and the former settling WW II claims from the latter. The old retirement rules are artifacts. The French are crazily protesting an increase in the retirement age to 64 or 65 in the face of morbidity outpacing fertility and restrictions about immigration. The entire First World, including China, is facing severe labor shortages. (The US desperately needs pilots, yet the government mandates 65 as the retirement age. Government stupidity at its worst.) I’m 77, it’s a good thing they don’t have the power (yet) to mandate that I retire!