Mad Men and Old Boys Clubs

As life temporarily without some social pleasures drifts along, we have been spending some evenings watching Mad Men. We are enjoying it, and, like all the best TV, it prompts useful thoughts, notably about what a similar series created in the future and our own times might look like.

 

The long-running series was written from 2005 and covers the 1960’s in New York. I love the writing. It is not sensationalist and is notably patient, letting characters and storylines develop slowly and being ready to divert into all sorts of plot niches. It is a thoughtful commentary on its time. Sadly, I find some of the acting to be unworthy of the material.

 

The overwhelming impression from the series is how everybody’s life choices are circumscribed by the accident of their birth and by stifling societal norms. The executives are nearly all male, white and born to affluence. They are privileged yet largely blind to it, often feeling entitled to even more than they have. They are thoughtlessly lewd towards all women, objectifying the entire gender. To them women are eye candy and sport, until they are married to one, at which point nothing changes in the attitude towards other women but the wife becomes a housekeeper and mother and a source of abuse and resentment. It is galling to see this attitude portrayed in such a naked way.

 

The white women mainly appear happy to go along with the expectations. They strut around the office competing on looks and coyness, hunting a husband to make them secure, after which they become suffocated in the world of child rearing and dull pursuits, in fear of the social opprobrium from divorce while turning a blind eye to their spouse’s serial infidelity.

 

Anybody challenging these norms is in for a tough time. Divorced women are ostracized. Even though contraception is hard to obtain and men demand sex all the time, and woman getting pregnant is ruined. Heaven help you if you happen to be gay or disabled. Promotion for the men comes more from social status than merit. Most couples are unhappy, but keep up appearances relentlessly.

 

These are the included strata. We see glimpses of other strata, be that uneducated men or all blacks. They know their place and had better stick to it or they will soon be on the street and no doubt rejected by their own kind too. To the included, the excluded are barely visible.

 

Part of the story is how one woman challenges the expectations simply by being kind and honest and just a little bit ambitious. She has partial success, but suffers in many ways on her journey, from her family, male and female colleagues and her own doubts.

 

It is also how noticeable how everybody drinks and smokes all the time, even in hospitals or on planes. With sex and gambling, most people will have some form of addiction or other mental illness, but it all swept under the carpet of expectations.

 

I find the picture painted to be quite realistic. New York and the advertising business might be on the extreme end of examples, but most flaws will be evident anywhere and in any vocation.

 

The first takeaway is to challenge any temptation for nostalgia. True, this world was simpler, but it certainly wasn’t fairer or kinder or happier or more productive. Anyone campaigning for a return to this form of society has either been duped or comes from the tiny demographic that the norms were designed to serve.

 

The depiction can help us to be tolerant of older people. Biden may have been overly physical when he started out and far from woke, but we should be careful judging him against standards that were very different then.

 

The show also helps me realize not just how far we have come but how messy the process of change had to be. It is no wonder that entrenched groups have fought every step and also that people have struggled to embrace their new emancipation, because we all lacked education and role models to guide us. It has not helped that lawmakers largely still come from the privileged former world and laws have failed to keep up with modern needs. Employment, schooling, welfare and much besides still assume a model of a dominant male and a child-rearing housewife. I sometimes wonder whether Mitch McConnell and others have ever met anybody that doesn’t have a nanny.

 

We can also reflect how in much of the developing world the norms of 1960’s Americas still apply today, overtly or covertly. This is a source of continuing hardship for many, and a massive development opportunity for humanity.

 

The show brilliantly depicts how most of the glaring flaws are simply invisible to most characters, and I can see how this has been true of myself. I look at my Cambridge matriculation photo of 1979 and wonder why I never noticed how white and privileged it is – heck, we even thought we were progressive when we started admitting women!

 

Taking that thought further might be the most fruitful opportunity from watching Mad Men. Things that are wrong but engrained are often invisible to us unless we work really hard to challenge ourselves. So what is it about the developed world in 2020 that still holds us back or perpetuates inequality and misery? If Mad Men were written in 2050 and set in 2020, what would it reveal?

 

I am sure it would have a lot of fun with the large devices everybody seems wedded to. I suspect equivalent for the smoking would be watching everyone take their life into their hands driving cars, something that by 2050 will seem unconsciously reckless. Guns could see similar treatment: they simply should not be present in a civilized society. As for social changes, I hope that humanity will no longer suffer the blight of homelessness, and I can hope for progress on mental illnesses and addictions.

 

But, just as in Mad Men, I suspect the clearest revelations will be about Old Boys Clubs. In 1960 our lives were proscribed and conformance was almost mandatory. By 2020 conformance has become optional but the constraints from birth have barely loosened.

 

Rich kids, usually white, have more stable homes, better education, inherited wealth, an abundance of second chances, and faces that fit. The upper echelons of most professions are stuffed with these privileged brats. I was one of them. My kids are numbered among them too.

 

Wealth taxes and leveled up education are the two biggest imperatives, but there are still countless other less visible blights that a new Mad Men could reveal. How can we still tolerate freemasons? How unfair are alumni preferences for colleges? How stacked are most recruitment processes? How over-protected are the unionized occupations?

 

Who you know and where you come from still matter far too much. Mad Men helps us to see how we have progresses, but also how far we still have to travel. The slowest change will come in the least visible areas. Sexism, ageism, racism and discrimination against disables and gay people has reduced and will reduce further, but these are just the visible areas.

 

We have only reached series three, so we are about a third of the way through Mad Men. I suspect I’ll stay hooked until the end. And hopefully the show will continue to spark useful thoughts as well as straightforward enjoyment.  

In Praise of Indecisiveness

 Many of us have spent the last four years pondering why anybody would ever consider voting for Donald Trump. The charge sheet is so full and indisputable, the outcomes so tragic, the values so evil, surely everybody must be able to see through the bluster by now.

 

But it hasn’t happened. There was a moment a month or so ago when it felt like the house of cards may be tumbling, but the approval share and voting intentions seem to be trending back into the narrow band they have followed throughout the presidency. The base is still largely loyal despite everything.

 

Johnson in The Economist offered a new twist on the conundrum in his article last week. He or she was discussing how we form spoken sentences. Unless we are reading a script, we are always talking and speaking at the same time. During a sentence, we know what we want to say but sometimes our words take us into a cul de sac. Then we always have to think about the next sentence, so we will often pause, or fill in time with “like” or “you know” or just sounds like “um”.

 

For most of us, the general impression we leave is one of indecision. But this is one of many ways in which Trump is different. His way of filling space while planning the next sentence is to repeat the last one, which serves to emphasise is point. And if he finds himself in a cul de sac, his tendency is to plough right through it. That is how he ends up using nonsense words like “bigly” – he has messed up the sentence construction, needs an adverb to close out, so just invents one. Most of us would pause, um and ah, and backtrack to earlier in the sentence to have another go, but Trump famously has no reverse gear. According to Johnson, these habits, natural or learned, have an effect of appearing decisive. People might laugh at “bigly”, but they take away an impression of somebody who is confident and driven and decisive.

 

Compare this with Joe Biden. His mind does seem to be slowing up a bit, so he ends up in a lot of cul de sacs. And his method of filling space is to ramble. Often his stories and his sentences go off into the weeds and lose clarity of message, not to mention becoming boring. He can deliver a scripted speech, he can also hold an informal crowd, but sound bites are not for him.

 

So Trump is able to come across as strong and decisive, partly because of his manner of speaking, and partly because he simply never backtracks or apologises, just digging himself into deeper and deeper holes of lies, somehow with impunity. Why is it that strong and decisive might be such important attributes to a segment of the electorate?

 

There are some situations where decisiveness is critical. If there is extreme urgency then a decision is required. Also, if there is gridlock or stalemate, then a decision can break the deadlock. Furthermore, simple, clear-cut situations can benefit from clear, aggressive decisions, especially where the decision maker has obvious power and resources.

 

Herein lies the clever part for Trump’s team. They have spent cultivating a climate where a segment of the electorate perceives exactly that environment. Most of the discussion on Fox News is not about Trump or anything he wants to do, it is all about urgent threats. Some threats are external, like caravans of immigrants or plotting Chinese, while most are internal, in the form of the evil Democrats who would destroy everything given even a sniff of power.

 

This narrative creates urgency and it also creates simplicity, in the form of a crusade for good against dangerous enemies. Fox has to do nothing to play up gridlock, for that is there already in congress. And the resources of the US are also obvious – adding to the impatience when a problem can seem intractable.

 

Fox and Trump have even more of a following wind with the core supporters. An important American cultural trait is liberty and a sort of frontier mentality. America is also home to Hollywood, where stories are always simple, where using power pays dividends and where the good guys always win. This is an attractive backdrop for people who may be struggling with complexity in their own lives and may be lashing out for others to blame.

 

I believe that in most situations decisiveness is a positive disadvantage, especially as a core characteristic or a leader. Somebody anxious to show up as decisive as a goal is likely to follow a whole series of damaging strategies.

 

Decisiveness works against collegiality and expertise. It prizes loyalty over competence. A need for decisiveness can oversimplify a challenge and show a lack of flexibility or agility when a situation changes. If a situation is nuanced, or the range of stakeholders is large, if a team is required to decide and then implement, or if there is plenty of uncertainty and negative consequences of poor decisions, then indecision is just what the doctor ordered.

 

Barack Obama was famously indecisive. I once heard him explain that every problem that reached his desk was difficult, precisely because easy problems were already solved by others. Perhaps Obama took his strength of analysis too far, but in somebody carrying around a box with a big red button that is fine by me.

 

I find indecisiveness as a underrated quality in all leaders. If I think of my heroes, a lot of them placed great store on data, teamwork, a willingness to challenge assumptions and to change ones mind, and a dose of humility. Most of the other kind of leader gets caught out in the end, whether it is in politics or business or religion or anywhere else. Simplicity is good when it is not really just an excuse to be slapdash.

 

I have never studied it in depth, but the fourth letter in a Myers Briggs profile measures something akin to decisiveness. J people like to simplify challenges and move forward, while P folk are happier trying to cope with uncertainty. As a proud P, I always found it rather simplistic when J was associated with leaders. The classic business leader is ENTJ – extrovert, intuitive, thinking and judging.

 

I often wondered whether ENTJ really were good leaders, or just the leaders we tend to become landed with. It certainly feels quite a masculine and unforgiving style.

 

Back to Trump, he is a case study of why extreme decisiveness is a fatal flaw in a leader. Administration competence, never high, is now threadbare. And the most important evidence is to look not at decisions but to outcomes.

 

The Coronavirus is an obvious example, but I find China to be a more compelling one. In the case of China, what is sold as decisiveness is in reality little more than bullying and bluster. There has been no consistency, no strategy and no follow through, and the outcome is a China that has done precisely nothing to fix legitimate grievances and which has only become stronger in relation to the US. It did not have to be this way, and, to be fair, Trump and his cronies are not alone in lacking a clear strategy. But the outcome is a new cold war that may linger for generations and make us all poorer in every sense.

 

It is a tempting strategy for the Biden campaign to demonstrate these terrible outcomes to the electorate, but I am not sure it will work. The Fox crowd is not listening and is only interested in simple sound bites, and is anyway convinced that, even if Trump’s outcomes have been less than ideal, the Democrats would do far worse. The decisive aura can overcome many obvious failures.

 

I recommend a more aggressive strategy, focusing on the man not his decisions. Decisive leaders collapse quickly when they are no longer seen as strong personally. He is old, he makes many mistakes, everybody around him hates him and Coronavirus has shown him up as highly fallible. He also is easily bated. I think I would be using Kamala and Michelle to rattle his cage as hard as they can. I think he will self-destruct even in the eyes of his base.        

Fixing Structural Inequality

 With the rekindling of Black Lives Matter, there has been a flurry of articles about structural inequality in the USA. Many quote the statistic of median family wealth for white and black families, with whites up in six figures and blacks essentially at zero. I am also struck by the extent of the historical abuses, not just the well-known Jim Crow ones but more recent restrictions of housing zones and job biases.

 

The debate is eye opening and makes me weep. As a European, I am also reminded of discrimination in my own country, obvious while I was a child but still in existence in much of society. It is past time to fix this.

 

The Economist occasionally tries to defend the policies of the last forty years by demonstrating how inequality in developed countries has been broadly static, as measured by the share of income and wealth of the top 1% or 5%. This may be true, but it is far from acceptable. From before the days of Downton Abbey, inequality of opportunity has been a scourge, and the period from 1945-80 was exceptional in enacting policies to reduce it. The fact that inequality has been static since then shows how policy has been ineffective; anything less than a gradual decline is a calumny.

 

Inequality is often portrayed as a race issue, but I think this is another simplification. It is worse than that. I have not read Casteby Isobel Wilkerson, but her basic premise is that societies remain stratified, with many layers. Yes, most African-Americans are near the bottom, but there are other factors in play, and focusing solely on race may lead to suboptimal remedies.

 

Focus on race also gives an uncomfortable argument to racists. Most Asian Americans and Jews also arrived in America with nothing and were discriminated against, yet these groups have largely escaped poverty. It is a good question as to why, because putting similar conditions in place for groups that have not escaped might be good policy, but the question can drift into racist territory. Thinking of castes can help.

 

There is no doubt that the Trump administration has damaged the cause of equality like few before it, and they fully deserve their comeuppance from the pandemic and race protests, hopefully throwing them out of office soon. But there is a lot of shoddy journalism on this topic like so many others.

 

It is shoddy to equate the equality issue with race. It is shoddy to define equality of outcome as a goal, when equality of opportunity should be the true measure. And many are shoddy in analyzing which neo-liberal nationalistic policies are the worst culprits.

 

A great example was in Time a couple of weeks ago. They tried to come up with a list of the administration’s ten most damaging actions regarding (poorly defined) equality. I can only assume this was delegated to some kids on a Friday afternoon. The list was a perfect example of how The Economist is superior when it comes to rigorous numerical analysis. The list included a decision to outlaw Trans people from the military, but failed to mention the 2018 tax package. The former was indeed a terrible choice, but the impact on equality is surely minimal given the number of people affected. The latter affected everybody, significantly and in a lasting way.

 

So I have tried to make my own list. Arguably I have cheated in that I have included inactions as well as actions. I have also not made big efforts to quantify impacts. Nonetheless, an incoming administration might use the list when defining its policies to restore the necessary trend towards equality of opportunity.

 

The tax package must be number one. Reagan (and Thatcher) rebalanced fiscal policy away from equality. At least in Europe future governments have been more balanced, but in the US Bush 43 added fuel to the fire and Trump’s only legislative accomplishment set things ablaze further. The impact has been to allow the already wealthy to take rent from the economy, embedded inequality, removing resources for a generation from other reforms and even stifling consumption and growth.

 

My number two is also a tax matter, but more specific. The main reason that wealth inequality persists across generations is the effective absence of an estate tax. Bush/Cheney did an impressive job of gutting estate taxes in the US, by reframing them as death taxes. It is true, that is what they are, but surely kids of wealthy people have enough advantages already without allowing them to simply inherit the wealth of their parents. I think I would set estate taxes for inheritances above $1 million at close to 100%, and eliminate foundations and other loopholes too. Use it or lose it.

 

My third item is also an omission and relates to gun control. Every so often an incident, usually a school shooting, offers an opportunity to enact gun reforms, not to eliminate hunting rifles, but to strengthen background checks, eliminate weapons of war and enact an effective register. Trump missed his chance after Parkland, because many of his party remain wedded to the NRA. And we always equate this is issue with white school kids, while the overwhelming majority of victims are from poor black neighbourhoods. Tackling gangs without tackling guns cannot be effective, and reforming the police would be much easier if the streets were not full of guns. It is easier not to be trigger-happy and to avoid unconscious racist profiling if you are not in fear for your life.

 

None of these three items made the list in Time. Criminal justice did, and ironically it is the area of Trump’s greatest achievement, the bill that started to correct the ridiculous levels of incarceration in the US. How can a black community hope to create any wealth while so much of its male population is behind bars?

 

Next on my list comes housing, and once again it is a sin of omission. Eviction Remains one of my favourite books, and 2021 will see a terrible tide of evictions across the US as temporary programs taper off while unemployment continues to rage. Housing support is criminally underfunded by congress while city rents continue to skyrocket and little new public housing is constructed. Minimum wages are creeping up in some cities but are full of loopholes, most notably for tipped workers, whose minimum wage in some states remains around $2 per hour. It is hard indeed to escape poverty in these conditions. More subtly, I believe co-ops are a source of continuing racial bias.

 

There are many candidates to round out the list. Perhaps next would come the relentless prioritisation of capital over labour. Consumer rights have been gutted, and the stock market used as an awful proxy for growth. The stock market makes people with wealth wealthier, at the expense of those without. It should not grow faster than median earnings, but that has almost been a policy of the administration. Listen also to McConnell: his top priority in the next relief package is liability protection for businesses. It is a valid item, but it betrays his priorities – the donors and lobbyists he meets every day, rather than the struggling people he doesn’t.

 

The list must include failure to rebalance school finance per pupil so that poorer areas do not lose out compared to richer ones. The lack of any infrastructure investment harms the poor most, especially public transit and Internet availability.  We must also include allowing the number of people without health insurance to grow and the attempt to link Medicaid with employment.

 

Packing the Supreme court, bloating the military (as opposed to social programs), protecting clannish religions, the trade disaster (harming poorer consumers), linking immigration entitlement to wealth and the general incompetence of the virus response could all the added to the list. And then there is the rhetoric, stoking caste supremacy daily.

 

The list is long and reform will take many generations. But crafting good policy is not helped by poor framing of the issue, misstating the goal or woefully lazy lists. 

Goals for a Decade

I am now sixty. I don’t feel any different and I don’t know that the change has many practical ramifications, though I am looking forward to skipping the line at Costco once out of quarantine.

For the past few weeks I have pondering a set of goals for the next decade. The set for my fifties proved surprisingly robust and helpful despite being formed in a time of turmoil. Now I have a more stable life and the process should be easier.

We are trying to do this as a couple, through some form of iteration. We can both produce priorities independently then work together to address any contradictions and trade offs. It feels like a constructive and productive way to talk through the possible dilemmas we will face in the next few years, and to make explicit all those assumptions that have been hidden before.

When I defined goals ten years ago, I wrote down that they were for two decades, which feels rather heroic and unnecessary now I look back. It would be quite a feat to produce goals that could remain relevant for as long as ten years, but twenty seems too far. Perhaps it was an effort to recognize that health is likely to become an increasing constraint from now on. One context of any goal for my sixties must be to maximize the chances of being able to enjoy life in my seventies. Fate will play its part, but good choices now improve the odds, to a greater extent than would have been the case earlier in life.

Thoughts about health give another clue. It is possible to come up with a set of goals that are generic and not very helpful. We call all subscribe to peace, joy, health and love, especially as we reach the years when such things are far from guaranteed. But what actions would such goals lead to, beyond taking no risks? The aim of any set of goals is to produce a life of fulfillment and one with all the other generics. The trick is to find some priorities that make them more likely to come about. A lot of corporate mission statements make the same mistake, becoming so generic that any company on earth could subscribe to it.

The other pitfall is to be too specific. Some people of my age go for bucket lists, but I don’t like the idea. The list can become too much like a checklist, and tends to be too dominated by destinations and experiences. There is a risk of such lists missing the point, and leading to lives without peace but lots of air miles to take to the early grave.

For my sixties, I’ve come up with four themes, which I hope can lead to the generic outcomes by offering clear priorities. The first is kindness. The coronavirus has allowed us all to take stock of what we miss most, and in my case volunteering at our old folks’ home comes near the top of the list. Visits to the home always leave me in a good mood that lasts several hours, and the reason is kindness. The home is a place of kindness, full of kind people, and where I can learn to be more kind myself.

I would like to seek out places and people of kindness, to take opportunities to be kind and to become kinder. The home is a good example, but the priority can also guide other activities and indicate what to avoid, for example the Trump twitter feed. I have some choirs that are kinder than others. I can practice being kinder to my family, and try to spend more time with its kindest members. If I am offered any work, paid or unpaid, I can check in advance how good a fit there is with this theme.

The second theme is enlightenment. I enjoy learning things, mastering some skill or finding an explanation for some event or behaviour. It also gives me pleasure to offer enlightenment to others. There is room in my life for projects, and I need a means for selecting good ones and some trigger to actually embark. Languages are a good option, so is history, especially history of music. I have recently tried writing something longer than a blog, and see this decade involving more reading than the last. I love coaching others when the opportunity arises. I love to travel, but at a slow pace so the travelling itself does not become too stressful. This could be a decade of enlightenment.

Early music is the third theme, and what I missing the most during the pandemic. The older I get, the fussier I become in terms of my tastes. I have been so lucky recently with the chance to sing the very best early music in quality groups and beautiful locations. This might be my last decade with a serviceable voice, so I want to use it while I have the chance. Studying early music is a promising avenue too.

Finally I envisage a bias towards simplification. A highlight of recent weeks in Portugal was an absence of clutter and an abundance of time. I have also recently made a big effort to unsubscribe from mailing lists and love my emptier inbox that has resulted. A life with fewer accounts, cards, passwords and files feels like a life with more space for enjoyment. It would also be good to reduce legal and financial ambiguity. Simplification can also help with the projects and the travel plans. Complex itineraries, short layovers and one night hotel stays feel like good things to target for reduction.

In many ways the themes work together, but there are some potential conflicts. A kind, simple life would probably spend most of its days in Portugal, but then where is the early music? The best enlightenment projects will involve people and places, and that won’t always be simple. Performing quality early music usually involves regular commitments, which might not always be simple.

There will also need to be trade offs with my wife and my family. Perhaps this decade will bring the gift of grandchildren, and spending kind time enlightening them and being enlightened by them feels appealing, but, with kids on three continents, hardly simple.

I believe that the trade offs are part of the point of the goals. If achieving the goals did not involve trade offs, then the goals themselves are probably too trite, and their value as a trigger for personal thought and for conversations with family members would be limited.

Are these goals SMART? They are not at all, really. But I don’t think that diminishes them. Team goals and short-term goals need to be SMART, because clarity of expectation and focused action are critical. But I have a full decade for these goals, and, while I will work with others, the key actions are only mine. At the end of the decade, it will be easy enough to assess how well I have achieved the goals.

The only theme where some discipline could help is the one of enlightened projects. It is too easy to be lazy and to become fixed in habits and to procrastinate. I need to make sure that I start enough projects – if they have been well chosen, it will be no problem to maintain momentum after that. Perhaps there is a role here for some resolutions each New Year.

I recommend the process of setting longer-term life goals, and not just for those of us nearer the back end of our working lives. And I’m happy that I had the idea of looking for a limited number of themes as a way to express the goals. No doubt the decade will throw up plenty of surprises, but I feel more ready than I did a few weeks ago.             

The Glory of Goals

I have always found setting goals useful. This weekend I will turn sixty and I am taking the chance to spend time defining goals for my next decade. I am finding it a valuable process.

There are some pitfalls with goals. One is that setting goals can itself become a form of procrastination, like all lists. Oliver Burkeman in the Guardian Weeklyfrequently advises us to be careful of tools that can be used that make us feel productive but defer action. The daily checklist is the most obvious example. Many of us can comfortably make it to the afternoon without actually achieving anything useful, simply by wasting time making lists. Lists are not achievements. They are meant to help us prioritise and define actions, but they achieve nothing unless we actually do the actions.

That is another pitfall of goals, especially in politics. Often a platform is a set of goals, usually the sort of universal goals that nobody could object to, but with no definable policies to achieve the goals. Left-wingers want to reduce inequality, but struggle to define meaningful policies that would retain support during implementation.

Even so, such goals are better than nothing, which is just as well because often they are all we are given to help us decide how to vote. Trump was always devoid of policies and even the goals were vague, but we should not be surprised that many actions have been anti-immigrant and pro-business.

Elisabeth Warren shows how doing goals the right way can work against getting elected. She had clear goals and set down policies that demonstrably would have worked towards achieving them. Sadly, every policy attracted the ire of some interest group and set her up as a target and ultimately doomed her campaign. A robust debate process and an intelligent media would help, but while we lack those Bidenesque vagueness may be smart. But in business we don’t have to be so naïve. If a new CEO, or even a new boss, arrives with a set of goals that sound convincing, celebrate their courage but then stay cynical until you see some policies and plans to back them up.

There is a lot of literature about how goals should be SMART, that is specific, measurable and so on, but in my experience lack of SMARTness is not the major problem. The letter of SMART that is most important for me is the last one, T for timed.

Often people set goals because they are told to, with a time duration set by somebody else. Budgets and staff reports are annual and require input according to deadlines. Again, these goals are better than nothing, but thinking about time horizons can lead to more useful goals.

For many projects, I recommend as many as three time horizons, each always with a current set of goals. The longest horizon is for the end of the project or a major milestone. The shortest is not much more than an action list. The middle is the most useful and bridges the other two. How could we describe a good place to be in six months if we complete the next twenty action lists? What description in six months time would place us best on the journey towards the project goals?

It is also important to review goals at the most useful frequency. For the short term, I might like a horizon of two weeks but a review each week, so there is a rolling update of actions and achievements. The long-term goals should be reviewed too, perhaps annually, to take account of new realities. The middle set can be a fantastic agenda for a quarterly team meeting. What did we achieve? What can we learn? Where do we stand against the bigger picture? Where do we go from here? What will have to be different to succeed?

The other parts of SMART can be flexible depending on time horizon too, and not all goals need to be as SMART as each other. The short-term list usually needs tight definition and clear accountabilities, but the middle list can mix this sort of goal with more subjective items, for example relating to a culture or a reputation with key stakeholders. The long-term ones can be similarly mixed, some defined by project boundaries and others perhaps more about ways of working or setting up for the future.

I remember exactly when I composed my goals for my fifties. I did it while away from the office and over a relaxing week, but otherwise the occasion was not conducive at all. I’d recently made a decision to quit work without really thinking it through, and I was hurtling into a marriage crisis having just escaped a long period of denial. Still, crafting the goals helped find some perspective amidst turmoil.

Given that the decade encompassed a change of career, life partner and continent, the goals held up remarkably well. Here is what I set down eleven years ago:

·     Enjoy company (real or virtual), offering intelligence, depth, vitality, and challenge of assumptions.

·     Coach interesting young people to grow with confidence. Start this with my daughter, grandchildren, or others.

·     Achieve deep relaxation, from sunshine, no need for wearing many layers, time, the lack of everyday stress, fresh air. Maintain robust fitness of the mind and body.

·     Follow my musical passion – singing, choir directing, listening, understanding, appreciating, performing, experiencing.

·     Take cultural, spiritual, and educational journeys. Find wonder from history, nature, beauty, magnificence, literature, architecture, sport, films, philosophy, food and drink, and human radiance.

I still like the list. It is manifestly not SMART, and I think it is better for it. There are few obvious actions indicated, but they give guidance and have enough depth to remain valid for an extended period. I have referred to them explicitly a few times during the decade, and many other times sub-consciously, most especially when I first defined them. It would not have been a sin to change some of them every so often, but that has not proven necessary.

It is also quite easy to assess now how successful I’ve been. The first one was always going to be a challenge without a regular office environment, but through reading and blogging and seeking out interesting people I think I have managed to grow. The other four have formed a sort of background agenda for the choices I have made over the decade, even though compromises have been inevitable and events have sometimes conspired in other directions. Deep relaxation is not simple in New York City!

If I give myself a star rating for each goal, I think I have done the least well at the last one. I can be rather lazy, and I’ll certainly embrace journeys when they are forced or appear in front of me, but I think I could do more to proactively seek them out. That is a key learning for the list I have been marinating for my sixties. How can I be a more proactive explorer?

Apart from the ever-present stress of the pandemic, the last weeks have been perfect for goal setting, so I have high expectations for my new list. I am also take the chance to merge my own list with that of my wife, and have found it an excellent method for taking some perspective on what is important for each of us and where we can help or team up and where we must compromise. God willing by the time I write my next blog I’ll have started a new decade and will be back in New York, and hopefully will have a new set of goals to guide me. 

Policing the Police

Although the trigger was tragic, it is great that debate has been rekindled in the US about police brutality and the wider issue of race discrimination. Sadly, I can see it becoming rather like the related question of gun control, which flares up every time there is a tragedy and then goes quiet again without any meaningful change.

I have experienced policing in many countries, though not its toughest functions and usually as one of the privileged. Still, I have seen enough differences and practices to have some opinions about how policing might be reformed.

First, I find it problematic that the issues of police reform and race reform become confused, because potentially it can harm both worthy causes. Racism is evil and prevalent and needs to be addressed, though eventually time will provide most of the cure. Different outcomes for races are damaging and are largely due to historical racism, but the best responses are about equalizing the playing field of opportunity now, or even slanting it in favour of the historically oppressed, rather than debates about history.

There is racism within police forces and it cannot be tolerated, but I suspect it is not the prime cause of different racial outcomes at the hands of the police. The reality is more about poverty and disadvantage. It is correct for police to focus on places of disadvantage where most crime occurs: indeed intelligent targeted policing has a very good track record at reducing crime and even improving neighbourhoods. The fact in the US is that these neighbourhoods happen to be overwhelmingly black. If the police were humane and development focused, the extra attention of police on minorities would actually be good, because the police can play a role in helping communities develop. So it is damaging to consider differential statistics about arrests as about racism, because they are not, at least not primarily.

The police in any society perform a necessary function, or protecting the population from crime. With no police there would be more crime, which would affect disadvantaged areas the most and make inequality worse, not better. We should also not forget the initial success of the Guiliani zero tolerance policy. If crime is uncontrolled, aggressive policing can be effective. Even so, the police in most countries could be improved.

As much as possible, the police should be treated like any other business or public utility. It needs a purpose, goals and KPI’s and regulation, and from that flows recruitment and other policies and a performance appraisal system.

In most cases it is the performance appraisal system which is most flawed. Who polices the police? The customer is society and is represented by local and national governments, and that is where things go wrong.

The NYPD is a good example. The NYPD and its unions form a powerful bloc locally, and their endorsement can get a mayor elected. The rest of the public is not interested enough to care about the details, so around election time the police tend to acquire additional budgets and powers. The NYPD are well paid, have excellent pensions, and, perhaps most important of all, have protection against being sued and are almost impossible to fire. The Fire Department, Corrections Officers and other unionised public servants have secured similar benefits over the years. They are the main reason lazily run cities and states now have unsustainable finances – pension liabilities for public servants have become crippling.

So now there is a public outcry for more accountable policing, and Bill DeBlasio has to play both sides. Still, it is a rare opportunity to redress the balance.

The lack of individual accountability is the biggest problem. Recent NYPD police commissioners have done a good job, but they are powerless to impose discipline. When they are tempted, Pat Lynch, the obnoxious head of the sergeants union, reminds them who is the real boss. There is a rump of violent officers, many no doubt racist, who remain secure in their jobs despite repeatedly breaching all guidelines.

The effects are pernicious. Why should new officers behave well when their peers can get away with anything? Leaders resort to giving the bad apples desk jobs or hiding them on unnecessary assignments, driving up costs. And everyday efficiency goes by the board as well. Next, the jobs become sinecures for the wrong sort of cop, whose sons follow them into the force to perpetuate the unhealthy culture.

So individual accountability must be the core reform. Having secured that, I would take a micro approach and drive efficiency and culture at a precinct level. A police precinct is not so much different to a petrol station or supermarket. I can always tell a well-run business by observing small things. In the case of the 112^thprecinct of the NYPD, I have never had a courteous interaction, I have never witnessed a courteous interaction, and every day I see cars parked lazily, illegally and unsafely.

Apart from anything else, why do they need so many cars? Placard abuse is a topic than comes up in the news once per year and then disappears without meaningful change. I can’t believe all the police placards near us are valid. Even if they are, the vehicle budget must be ripe for a heavy cut. Why can’t the NYPD ride to work on the subway like the rest of us?

I will give one compliment to the NYPD: they don’t take bribes. That puts them way ahead of forces in most developing countries and, sadly, some developed ones too. Whether that has come from management or union, I applaud it, because petty corruption in a police force is the most poisonous thing of all.

Once there is accountability and a locally driven initiative to work on culture and efficiency, the next lever is recruitment. Here there is an opportunity to increase racial and gender diversity, and to remove bias towards alumni families.

There are a couple of specific US issues that should be easy to address. The disposal of excess military equipment to police departments is comically short sighted and counter-productive. Then there is mission creep, prevalent in the NYPD and elsewhere. It is hard to fund good programs to house the homeless or protect the mentally ill, so such things are added to the remit of a place where funds are always plentiful – the NYPD.  

As with much in US society, media and Hollywood have done a lot of damage too. I hate the way that Hollywood movies never rarely involve fat people, always have characters that are either all good or all bad, run away from ambiguity and generally stifle intelligent thought. Portrayal of the police is a good example. In most cop shows violence and disrespect for protocol is idealised. This is just one more factor perpetuating the negative culture.

There is much than can be done to improve policing around the world. Best practice is probably in Scandinavia or the Benelux, as usual. Policing in the US is uniquely handicapped by the gun culture and by its history of racial animus. But treating the police more rigorously as a business can achieve parallel progress. Personal and precinct accountability is a critical first step. Then be good COO’s and hack away at waste and other local failings. And I would be forever grateful is somebody in the 122th precinct sorted out the fleet of cars and how it is parked.  

The Dangerous Months

I remember the day after Trump’s election, wandering the rainy streets of Manhattan in a daze. I went to a Broadway matinée, and it seemed the entire audience was numb like me. It was a dark day, and four years seemed an awful long time to endure.

Well, we are now at three and a half years, and somehow it hasn’t been as bad as I feared. There is not about to be a world war. The EU is still together, apart from recalcitrant Britain, and is somewhat more united. The Paris agreement has held, most of the world’s citizenry want to go further, and even US cities are busy undermining the federal government on climate. The Washington Post and the New York Times are stronger than ever. The Supreme Court has wobbled but is still credible. Congress is as dysfunctional as ever, but the number of Trump style semi-fascist thugs in positions of power is rather small. There is popular anger between ethnicities, but it has remained largely peaceful and even informed. I can still write my blog without much fear of deportation.

Perhaps I am setting the bar too low, but on the dark day in November 2016 I truly wondered what might occur in these four long years. What we must accept is that they have been years of regression and lost opportunities. An enlightened administration might have led a decisive global climate movement, or started to reverse the lurch towards inequality that underpins public distrust. I believe China would have been open to a fair deal with an honest broker, ceding some domestic liberalisation and respect for human rights and fair business practices in return for more of a seat at the table in global affairs. In 2016, despite the stalemate in congress, there was gentle momentum towards a fairer world, but that vanished overnight.

I expected a neutralisation of Trump after the midterms. I thought there would be a grand deal in quiet corridors that would restore some competence to government while allowing Trump his ego and some harmless playing fields. That is what would have happened in the UK, led by the civil service and supported by other institutions like the military and colleges and judges and CEO’s and Bushes and Romneys. Key to that would have been senior Republicans in congress, fed up with holding their nose, aware that the eventual backlash might sweep them away and with the national interest at heart. But the silent establishment coup did not happen.

In the absence of any backbone among Republicans, our saviour has been sheer incompetence. This lot could not organise a piss up in a brewery. There is no inner circle with a strategy, only a rotating cast of lackeys fighting fires and watching their backs, achieving little of import. Most of their attempts to implement madness have been screwed up or abandoned before securing any traction. 

Now we reach the last few months of Trump’s first term and perhaps the most dangerous phase of all. Re-election matters to every politician, but to Trump it is everything, for two basic reasons. Firstly, he clearly has no agenda nor aspiration for the country, only for himself, and power is the only antidote for such an ego. Secondly, as soon as he loses power he becomes vulnerable legally across many fronts, and he knows it. His support is wafer thin and entirely dependent on power, so those silent Republicans will join everybody else in seeking vengeance once his power has gone. Unless there is some grand bargain involving a pardon, he will spend most of the rest of his days in jail if he loses. That is one large motivation to win at all costs.

So we have a leader whose ego needs him to win and whose personal security needs him to win, and one whose absence of probity will stop at nothing in the quest to win. Worse, any semblance of checks on his behaviour has long since disappeared: there will be no more impeachment, his base support is immune to any slur, and the remaining lackeys are locked in as well.

So, anything goes, and the more he looks like losing the more extreme will be the response. Watch out immigrants, and journalists, and Chinese, and health experts, and anybody else that might become fodder for the base. It will be open season between now and November. Watch out also technology companies, and election supervisors, and anyone else with responsibility for election fairness.  Finally watch out for a disputed result and the civil unrest that might unleash. There is no such thing as a gracious loser when the stakes are this high and the morals this absent.

But there is a second reason to fear the coming months. US adversaries know of Trump’s position too, and will exploit it ruthlessly.

It is a well-observed part of the Putin playbook to create facts on the ground when the enemy cannot respond and before any negotiated settlement. We see this time and again in conflicts around the globe, from Syria to Ukraine to Libya. Wait until the other side needs a deal for political purposes, then attack to the limit and negotiate from the newly established position.

We are seeing this already around the world. It is no coincidence that North Korea is being belligerent again. Trump cannot condemn him without undermining his claims, so now is the time to take a risk. Expect Russia to be aggressive in the next few months, also because of domestic weakness. Modi will do the same in India, and Israel will probably choose these months to annex more of the West Bank. In each case, Trump’s hands are tied.

But nowadays the most important adversary is China, and the Chinese are master strategists who will have planned for this moment since Trump’s election. Chaguan has become one of the most interesting pages in The Economist lately, and an article last week posed the question as to whether the Chinese would like Trump or Biden to win in November. They can play Trump like a fiddle, but they also crave recognition and peaceful global development, which can only happen under Biden.

The Chinese will use the next months to be prepared whoever wins. Trump must claim that his bluster has led to success in controlling China, so they can push the limits now without fear of any backlash. We see this already in the South China Sea and Hong Kong, and pessimists might wonder if this could be a decisive moment regarding Taiwan. They are also ready to decouple from the US in technology, though they would rather not have to.

If Trump wins in November, China will bank the gains and prepare for four more adversarial years, with a key goal of separating the US from its allies and creating parallel institutions to those the US currently dominates, such as SWIFT. If Biden wins they will be ready for a sweeping global deal with many dimensions, but will have the best possible starting point for negotiations.

There is not much that most of us can do except watch this play out of the coming months, and pray that the damage continues to be limited. The last three and a half years have been scary enough, but the next six months are likely to make them seem rather mild. Buckle up.