Ho‘ohana Aloha

Love articles like this which challenge convention. It’s a great thing about the times we live in: Everything can be questioned by the thinking mind, comfortable in the skin of their own values.

This one starts:

SOLITUDE is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious place. Most of us now work in teams, in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills above all. Lone geniuses are out. Collaboration is in.

But there’s a problem with this view. Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption. And the most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted, according to studies by the psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Gregory Feist. They’re extroverted enough to exchange and advance ideas, but see themselves as independent and individualistic. They’re not joiners by nature.

Found via: Office Space: Defending the Cubicle on The Etsy Blog

Long article, but please make the time to do so this weekend or the next.

Adam Davidson:

In the past decade, the flow of goods emerging from U.S. factories has risen by about a third. Factory employment has fallen by roughly the same fraction. The story of Standard Motor Products, a 92-year-old, family-run manufacturer based in Queens, sheds light on both phenomena. It’s a story of hustle, ingenuity, competitive success, and promise for America’s economy. It also illuminates why the jobs crisis will be so difficult to solve.

…I came here to find answers to questions that arise from the data (Even if you know the rough outline of this story, looking at the Bureau of Labor Statistics data is still shocking.) How, exactly, have some American manufacturers continued to survive, and even thrive, as global competition has intensified? What, if anything, should be done to halt the collapse of manufacturing employment? And what does the disappearance of factory work mean for the rest of us?

Found via this commentary by JD Meier: Productivity is a Remarkably Good Thing:

“Productivity, in and of itself, is a remarkably good thing.  Only through productivity growth can the average quality of human life improve.   Because of higher agricultural productivity, we don’t all have to work in the fields to make enough food to eat.  Because of higher industrial productivity, few of us need to work in factories to make the products we use.  In theory, productivity growth should help nearly everyone in society.   When one person can grow as much food or make as many car parts as 100 used to, prices should fall, which gives everyone in that society more purchasing power; we all become a littler richer.  In the economic models, the benefits of productivity growth should not go just to the rich owners of capital.  As workers become more productive, they should be able to demand higher salaries.”

On Talking Story today:

There’s an interesting idea which keeps popping up on my radar these early days of our new year, and I love it. It’s an inventive call to action:

Let’s shift what we value in society today, by shifting to the 20-hour work week.

The argument behind this proposal, is that our 40-hour work week has been our convention, but convention isn’t unquestionable fact. Convention isn’t necessarily right, and it may not be that good for us anymore — Was it ever?

Are you a small business owner, or a manager eager to optimize whatever the circle of influence you have? Please read this, from Corbett Barr.

Your advantage is that you get to make your own rules - so do!

In keeping with our effort this month to develop a useful Numerology for Managers, how about we start with the number 1. I offer you a reprint of one of my older postings today, originally called The 1 List Every Manager Must Work With, when written for Managing with Aloha Coaching…