Welcome to the 37th edition of The Three Things, the weekly update of three links, podcasts, videos, or books you can’t miss from Michael Schechter (Honora, A Better Mess), Howie Goldfarb (Blue Star Strategic Marketing), and me!
For those of you new to this series, The Three Things arrives in your inbox on Sunday mornings (unless you don’t suscribe, but that can easily be fixed if you hurry over and enter your email address or add to your RSS feed) so you have some extra time to spend perusing the obscure content we’ve curated for you (and one another) before your week begins and deadlines, meetings, and work takes over.
This week we have thoughts on operations, consciousness and infinity, and workplace flexibility.
Michael on Operations. We’re currently going through the process of preparing for a likely acquisition. It’s an exciting time, but a brutal process. Putting aside the mountain of due diligence that is going into the endeavor, there’s an emotional toll that’s hard to ignore. With change comes uncertainty and with uncertainty comes fear.
This post from Seth Godin shines a light on two values that are often overlooked within an organization: The creation of alignment and the elimination of fear. These intangibles often fall far lower on our institutional hierarchy of needs than the bottom lines over which we obsess. The bottom line matters, but Godin makes a strong case to seriously consider the detrimental affect fear and misalignment can have within an organization. He also hints at the potential for organizations that are willing to make them a priority.
How I Mastered Consciousness and Infinity in Four Hours
Howie on Consciousness and Infinity. I remember when “Inception” was the movie for creative ad people. Blogs were flying about how ideas are created. So I found it interesting there is a mathematical equation for ‘consciousness.’ I tried it. Totally worked every time. In fact, so far it looks like it might work for infinity. Which is kind of a long time. A bit longer than four hours. But not much longer because it seems some infinities are bigger than others. But I bet you already knew that.
The Unspoken Stigma of Workplace Flexibility
Gini on Workplace Flexibility. I’m a big believer in results-driven organizations. If you exceed your goals, what does it matter if it’s between 9 and 5 or if you’re in the office to do it? But, when we began letting people work from home more consistently, particularly those who lived in other states, it was interesting to watch how the people who went into the office treated those who do not. While some leaders are pushing hard for workplace flexibility, the stigma typically comes from a person’s peers who doesn’t have the same “benefits.”
Now it’s your turn. Is there a podcast, video, book, or article you think we need to see?