Leadership and Strategy in the Bubble

I just commented on a post by Scott Berinato over at washingtonpost.com (here).  Per my comment, it was a strong, link-rich post that pulled together a lot of threads.

As promised, I did take a closer look at Umair Haque’s piece on “Saving Strategy from the Strategists” (here).  I still think he’s seeing a strategy disconnect that isn’t there, but with an additional twist.  Yes, the expanded definition of “too big to fail” made inflating the bubble a perfectly rational (if not legitimate or public-minded) approach for many players. 

The twist is that the security blanket the Feds provides infantilizes financial industry strategic thinking — especially during serious easing cycles.  As the feeding trough gets crowded and frenzied, a firm’s strategy becomes very basic:

1. Push hard to get your snout in.
2. Lobby hard to ensure you’re not the one institution the Feds will make an example of.
3. Settle in for a long meal.

As I said before, what does “the long run” mean when much of the financial industry expects Uncle Sam to keep filling the trough, even if/when things went south?

Thank God I didn’t see this until after my son’s infancy…

Say no more.  Click here to be disturbed.  Or perhaps to get baby shower ideas…

Achtung! und Cuidado!: You are hereby warned that some of the sidebar stories are not exactly work-safe.  It is a “cracked.com” link, for goodness sake!

Sorry for the lately syntax scrambled

Ugh, my last few posts have been a mess…apologies.  Even those million monkeys re-creating Shakespeare by banging away at keyboards are laughing at me.

India Observations: Sacred Spaces and Compassion

Religion and spirituality still play openly in the Indian public square.  Of course, there are tons of temples great and small scattered about here.  More interestingly, the Times of India has a “Sacred Space” on its editorial page and a special “Spirituality” URL (here).  True to the syncrentist bent here, the quotes come from a range of practices, usually from Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Catholic, and Protestant teachers.  Also, the tone isn’t ironic or scandal-seeking, unlike so many religion sections in the elite US press (where they still exist).

Compassion was the theme yesterday and I liked two quotes.  The first is a gentle one from Brahma Kumaris:

A compassionate person develops an eye for spotting the qualities that make each person special. Even when others are at their lowest ebb, it is possible to help them restore their self-belief by keeping a firm, clear vision of their goodness and specialities. Taking a gently encouraging approach, I must never give up on anyone.

The second is a more challenging vision from Frederick Buechner:

Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else’s skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.

The Buechner quote reminds me that to get real empathy with another human, I need to part ways with “the great God me.”  Some part of me has to die — the self-regarding Olympian part — for me to truly stand in the shoes of another.

Diagnosing “Pakled Customer Syndrome”

Please give my brother a hearty welcome to the blogosphere, where he is now shamelessly flaunting his Spargel obsession. 

Stephen’s just getting rolling, but I can’t resist linking to his re-telling of one of my favorite development war stories: Pakled Customer Syndrome.  Star Trek TNG hasn’t aged very well at all — my episode yield is about ten percent — I last an average of six minutes then I can’t stand it any more.

However, anyone who has had stakeholders with alternative agendas will get a few chuckes from Samaritan Snare.  Not that I’ve built a Crimson Force Field

Movie Tip — Hot Fuzz

After the downbeat — though ultimately hopeful — The Children of Men, I had planned to cleanse my palette with Cold Comfort Farm.  However, I ran out of time on the flight to Shanghai, so it was up to a British action comedy — Hot Fuzz — to do the trick.

Which it did quite nicely.  The film reunites Simon Pegg and Nick Frost of Shawn of the Dead fame — already a good start — and surrounds them with a killer cast of Jim Broadbent, a smarmy-as-can-be Timothy Dalton, Edward Woodward, and Paddy Considine.

Plenty of laughs and solid scenery chewing, though at nearly two hours the poor plot was stretched a bit thin.  More ups than downs as they say.  Zombies would have helped, of course.

Is Malaysia’s democracy slipping backwards?

After all the optimism about political “opening” in Malaysia earlier this year, it was sad to see the various articles on the latest charges against Anwar Ibrahim (WSJ editorial here, link to Washington Post “Anwar Ibrahim” federated search here).  A few comments:

• It is striking that the government felt it could roll out charges essentially unchanged from the 1998 playbook.  Ominously, the former PM, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, was sure that the government wouldn’t repeat the mistakes from the 1998 prosecution.  The less-than-twenty- years in prison mistake, perhaps?  (I can’t provide the link, The Straits Times [heh, heh...] is subscription-only).
• The leader of the Malaysian Bar felt compelled to reiterate that the burden of proof was on the government (here).
• The Malaysian Star online has no specific stories on the Anwar alibi (home page here), while the foreign press had a number of articles (here and here).
• Remember that Malaysia is a relative liberal Muslim country…one of the comments on Queerty was shocked, shocked that sodomy carries a 20-year sentence (post here).  Being out often has more, let’s say, permanent consequences in an Islamic country (which, to be fair, one commenter pointed out here).

Finally, I’m in India and it was very interesting to see what Google Ads selected to place on Queerty’s banner: at least two India-based marriage sites bharatmatrimony.com and jeevansathi.com (100% profile screening, BTW).  What a great “How I Met Your Mother…and Father” story that will be, never mind the potential series spin-off…

India Observations: Newspapers here give value for money

Even the Times of India isn’t content to deliver simply national, international, sports, and business news.  It stretches to give you news you can really news — fresh updates on all your Bolly and Hollywood stars.

Real value for money here: it is like getting the Washington Post and National Enquirer on your doorstep every day.  One difference though, the star’s pictures are almost uniformly flattering. 

Not that I would know myself, that’s what other people have told me about the Enquirer, anyway :-)

“White nights” and mutants

While many know I’m a bit of a “sport,” my mutant status also accounts for my insomnia.  At least that’s what it appears according to this study highlighted in the New Scientist on-line (here).  From the opening:

Talk about an all-nighter. Flies with a single genetic mutation sleep 80% less than normal flies, and some get by with no shut-eye at all.  The mutation – in a gene that controls how brain cells fire and now dubbed Sleepless – suggests that, at the most basic level, sleep is caused by a slowdown in certain neurons.

Hat tip: Josh Hill at The Daily Galaxy (here)

Hmmm…no wonder my wife keeps taking me to Dolphin Quest

…and offering me herring when I wash the dishes.  

Gotta love the tag line ‘What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love and Marriage’… the story’s here and the video here.