Alan Weiss’s Monday Morning Memo® – 02/15/2021
The vaccine follies have begun! I’m impressed that the vaccines have become available so fast, at least in my perception, and that they are apparently very efficacious. However, I feel as though I’m trying to get into a very popular ride in Disneyland. (When Disney used to sell tickets for ride admission, and someone asked my wife what it was like to live with me, she said, “He’s a D ticket.” I pointed out later that the highest value Disney ticket was an E-ticket. “What’s your point?” she asked.)
Aside from the outright cheaters, like the board of directors at Rhode Island Hospital, who you’d think were performing surgery themselves in the board room, and the ineptitude (vaccines being discarded because too many were opened for a particular use), and technology interfaces that appear to be out of Radio Shack’s Color Computer, there is a tragi-comic error in judgment. Over 90% of Covid deaths in Rhode Island occurred in people over 60. Yet these people are not in the front of the line. I understand first responders and hospital staff, God bless them all, but why not get these older folks vaccinated rapidly?
The politicians are engaged in endless echolalia. The governor here (cum-Secretary of Commerce) actually had the chutzpah to say, “I know you’re all unhappy with the speed of vaccination, but our strategy is working.” What strategy could that possibly be??? If it’s not to save lives, then you’ve lost me.
In any case, I’m scheduled for my first shot tonight. Walgreens has finally determined that I exist, after I used one of my other email addresses. (I have several email addresses, and I have Apple TV, Direct TV, and cable TV, because I’m basically a New Yorker and believe that quality resides in redundancy.) If, indeed, I receive it (a client in Missouri had traveled out of state, waited patiently in line, and was told they changed the rules while she was in line—you see what I mean?) then I’ll report back next week.
Oh, and I have to go to Massachusetts, which must be our governor’s “strategy” here in Rhode Island.
You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.
—Thomas Sowell
Bureaucracy is the triumph of means over ends.
—Alan Weiss
Questions I’ve Never Been Asked: I’ve been interviewed thousands of times, coached thousands of people, made thousands of speeches. Not many people can claim that. One of my books, Alan Weiss on Consulting, is nothing but interviews from terrific interviewers.
Yet I’m always amazed by the questions I’ve never been asked. Let’s face it, I’m not an average guy. I’ve been around the block (over 60 countries to be exact). Maybe there are some things I’ve never shared because, as I think back, I’ve never been asked. If I were interviewing me, I’d be a lot more probing.
What’s been my greatest embarrassment in my profession, and why? What decisions I have made earlier and better? Who disappointed me hugely and what did I learn from it?
You’ll be hearing about these in this unique self-interview (I got the idea from Ken Wilber’s A Brief History of Everything which I’ve been reading and in which he employs this technique). When I’ve worked with and chatted with Marshall Goldsmith, Jonah Berger, Dan Gilbert and a raft of other thought leaders, I’ve found we’re mostly asking each other questions and self-disclosing in response. (If Marshall and I had recorded our conversations in co-authoring Lifestorming we could have sold those for more than our respective coaching fees.)
And I’ll take questions throughout the session from attendees, and subsequently, by email, from those who watch the recording. I guess it may be that only I can ask these questions, but I’m certain that you all can profit from the answers.
Date: March 9, 2021, via Zoom Time: 9 am to noon US eastern time. The session will be recorded and sent to those wanting to time shift
Fee: $1,000 by March 1, $1,300 thereafter. For my Monday Morning Memo readers: Register here during this next week and the fee is $800: https://alanweiss.com/
Consider this therapy that I’ve convinced you to pay me for.
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