RWL #203
health insurance markets, argumentation, gig work, and more!
Greetings from the University of New Hampshire - FOB LHH! I hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving and got to spend some time with family and friends, even if it was online. We had a small meal with my daughters and one of my daughter’s roommates (who could not travel home). In the evening we decorated the tree. So it was still nice, if a little different.
Yesterday was in the mid-40’s, so I decided to test out my wetsuit and went for a paddle. There was no wind and the water was like glass, so it was a perfect day. The trees along the shore, which are normally like a green wall, are all bare now (pic above). I feel confident I could safely paddle in the mid-30’s based on yesterday’s experience with the gear I have. I may have to take January and February off, but might be able to get some paddle time in before and after.
Stay well and stay safe!
Read
What: AEI, The Future of Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance, James Capetta
https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/The-Future-of-Employer-Sponsored-Health-Insurance.pdf
Why: This is an interesting policy paper. I think the strongest part is the lead in for showing how the current insurance market continues to be flawed by government regulation and government structured incentives. I like his proposal to force firms to shift from defined benefit to defined contribution for employer sponsored health insurance (much like most firms have shifted to defined contribution retirement plans - the 401K, 403B, etc.). Some of the other proposals I am less sanguine about. The goal should be to disentangle health insurance from the employment relationship both to remove the opacity of insurance cost and to increase portability. Capetta doesn’t go far enough in my opinion, but it’s a good start.
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What: HBR, What to Say When You’re Reaching Out to Someone on LinkedIn
https://hbr.org/2020/11/what-to-say-when-youre-reaching-out-to-someone-on-linkedin
Why: This is more or less general advice about networking, not just on LinkedIn. It’s a quick read - most of the advice is solid. The mistakes he identifies, in particular, “you don’t know what you want” when you are reaching out to someone, are things I hear all the time when I ask senior leaders to talk to my students. I think the author is too liberal with asking someone to mentor you. Asking someone you don’t know to mentor you is a bit like telling someone you’ve never met that you love them. The relationship is deeply personal if done right. Asking for advice, yes, but mentorship is a different level of relationship. Anyway, it’s actually a good piece. I’ll probably forward it to my students.
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What: Variety, ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ to Debut Both on HBO Max and in Theaters
https://variety.com/2020/film/news/wonder-woman-1984-hbo-max-release-1234804411/
Why: I admit, I am a big fan of the big superhero(ine) movies. They are flashy and fun. I don’t look to them to change my life. In fact, they really are quite conservative considering they come out of Hollywood. But that’s not the point of sharing this article. This article bemoans the fact that Wonder Woman 1984 will go straight to the small screen, with a few theaters showing the movie due to COVID. While the producers wish their movie would have the big Hollywood debut in theaters because that’s how movies are supposed to be shown, they are also wishing for the profits that come with the pricing associated with a theater launch, followed by DVD sales, on demand rentals, and eventually TV and streaming royalties, all of which generate different levels of profit by segmenting customers by their willingness to pay. Movie producers make more profit from theater showings than each of the follow on distribution methods, which is why movies start in theaters. The people who are most eager to see the movie are willing to pay the highest price. The “theater experience” is used to segment these people from the people who have a lower willingness to pay. The theater experience (seeing a movie on a big screen with bigger sound and with lots of people around you) adds marginal value. If it actually added a significant amount of value, you would see a lot more second run theaters. So really, the coupling of the new release with the theater experience is just a way of segmenting the market, in the same way books come out in hardcover first at a high price, and then paperback later at a significantly lower price. The hardcover does not significantly change the experience of reading the book, but it allows publishers to extract higher prices from those who are most eager to read a new book. So what is interesting about this article is how movie producers are trying to rethink how they market in a time of COVID when their normal price discrimination mechanisms can’t be used. It’s the same problem that many businesses face as COVID disrupts normal patterns of selling. When you think about price discrimination as you read this article (and many more like it for various industries), it makes it more interesting.
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Watch
What: TED, How to win an argument (at the US Supreme Court, or anywhere) | Neal Katyal (16 min)
Why: Useful advice on how to persuade. According to Katyal, persuasion is about empathy, not competence. This is why oral arguments are important. He says that the most important advice he got was from an acting coach, to talk to the audience. The coach made Katyal hold his hand while he made his argument. I thought that was brilliant. How can you be anything other than empathetic when you are holding someone’s hand? Obviously you aren’t going to hold someone’s hand when you are making an oral argument in court, but if you train with that state of mind, it would change how you argue. He also makes an argument against arguing with emotion, which is interesting, because you would think empathy and emotion would go hand in hand (ha ha - see that?). This is all useful rhetorical advice.
I also love that he acknowledges the greatness of America’s rule of law (at about 7 minutes). It’s not perfect, but it is self-correcting. It’s the arc of history bending toward justice.
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Listen
What: HBR Ideacast, Why Companies and Skilled Workers Are Turning to On-Demand Work (25 min)
https://hbr.org/podcast/2020/11/why-companies-and-skilled-workers-are-turning-to-on-demand-work
Why: So the answer to the question is “the pandemic”, but in reality, we have seen a trend toward more contingent work at higher levels in the organization over the last several decades. We’re all contingent workers, if you think about it. Most workers change employers repeatedly during their career. This is part of the Protean/Boundaryless Career that has been discussed since the 80’s. So in a sense, we’re all gig workers, but some of us have longer, more open-ended gigs.
But why on-demand (i.e., gig) work? Need for skills, combined with the ability to telework, have made the value increase and the cost decrease.
I did some research on this topic in the late 90’s when I was doing my MBA and I observed that the “virtual organization” (“virtual” was big back then) would need to have specialized competencies in operating on a modular basis, rapidly adding and subtracting employees and even business units. The role of management would become very heavily involved in project management - helping smooth out the fitting together of gig-units and then knowing when to disband them. I think those thoughts were right on the money, and they are echoed in this interview.
Thanks for reading and see you next week! If you come across any interesting stories, won't you send them my way? I'd love to hear what you think of these suggestions, and I'd love to get suggestions from you. Feel free to drop me a line at mark.bonica@unh.edu , or you can tweet to me at @mbonica .
If you’re looking for a searchable archive, you can see my draft folder here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jwGLdjsb1WKtgH_2C-_3VvrYCtqLplFO?usp=sharing
Finally, if you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here: https://markbonica.substack.com/
See you next Friday!
Mark
Mark J. Bonica, Ph.D., MBA, MS
Assistant Professor
Department of Health Management and Policy
University of New Hampshire
(603) 862-0598
mark.bonica@unh.edu
Health Leader Forge Podcast: http://healthleaderforge.org
'It is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk, that keep the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love.' - Gandalf (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey)