RWL #205
RWL #205 - Homeboys, Meatpacker’s sons, the Mission of Applebee’s, & more
Greetings from the University of New Hampshire - FOB LHH! I’m writing to you from the kitchen table on Sunday night, so I’m a little late this week. Friday was officially the last day of classes for UNH, but I finished on Thursday. Friday I moderated an ACHE panel about lessons learned from the pandemic (panel pic above). It was an amazing panel - fantastic panelists who were able to speak from different perspectives (community hospital, academic medical center and hospital system, nursing home system, and the Army’s task force commander for Javits and other support to surrounding areas). I hope to share the video of the event when ACHE is ready to share it - hopefully in the next week or so. So anyway, it was a busy week and I was a bit drained. Oh - and I submitted a paper I’d been working on for months for review on top of it. A good week, but a tiring week. So that’s my excuse for being a bit late.
I have a bunch of great stuff this week - I can’t say there is a unifying theme. Take a peek and see if anything grabs you - I recommend the Fr. Boyle video if you need an emotional uplift.
Stay well and stay safe!
Read
What: George Horace Lorimer, Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21959
Why: Ryan Holiday, of Daily Stoic fame, recommended this book. At first I thought it was a collection of real letters. I was a little disappointed to realize they were fictitious. But they are both funny and deep. Nominally the letters are written by John Graham, a father who is a successful, though uneducated meat packer in Chicago, to his son Pierrepont who is, at the beginning, attending Harvard. Originally published in 1903, it is full of moral advice from an earlier era about the values of hard work and humility. But in spite of that, it’s quite humorous as the “father” lectures his son through mail. A sample quote:
“College doesn’t make fools; it develops them. It doesn’t make bright men; it develops them. A fool will turn out a fool, whether he goes to college or not, though he’ll probably turn out a different sort of a fool.”
The whole book is full of such observations.
Link above is to Project Gutenberg where you can download a free electronic copy. Like Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic, I’ve been reading them one at a time. I realize I don’t usually recommend books, but I thought I’d make an exception here since it’s free.
**
What: Paul Graham, Billionaires Build
http://paulgraham.com/ace.html
Why: Long-ish essay from Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator, a start up incubator, about what makes founders successful when they interview for an opportunity to participate in Y Combinator. The Y Combinator interview is a bit like Shark Tank, as I read it. So what do you have to do to sell these high powered investors on your idea in 10 minutes?
One of the driving points of the essay is, “How do people become billionaires?” Graham is writing specifically about entrepreneurial success. As it turns out, exploitive founders tend not to get very far:
If bad people made good founders, the YC partners would face a moral dilemma. Fortunately they don't, because bad people make bad founders. This exploitative type of founder is not going to succeed on a large scale, and in fact probably won't even succeed on a small one, because they're always going to be taking shortcuts.
This is a really refreshing essay that explores some of the realities of trying to create a great business. The idea that business people become rich and powerful by being exploitive is profoundly wrong. And this does not just apply to tech start ups. I have seen, first hand, just how generous most senior executives are with their time and willingness to lend a hand to a young person over the last five years I have been interacting with the healthcare community. When I ask a senior executive to talk to a student or to come talk to my class, or to provide mentorship for a student, the answer is almost always yes. One final quote from the essay:
Can you imagine a better way to destroy social mobility than by telling poor kids that the way to get rich is by exploiting people, while the rich kids know, from having watched the preceding generation do it, how it's really done?
**
Watch
What: Fr Gregory Boyle at TEDxConejo 2012, Compassion and Kinship (20 min)
Why: I have posted a talk by Fr. Boyle in the past. This one showed up in my feed and my wife and I watched it together and we were both deeply moved. He’s a very effective speaker, so it is worth watching his talk for that. But his mission, providing employment to gang members looking to break out of criminal life, is powerful. His stories will break your heart and inspire you to be a better human at the same time. Homeboy Industries is a remarkable story of successful social entrepreneurship.
**
What: Beyond Management: Life as Your Project (40 min)
Why: This is a recording of my final talk with my graduating seniors. I’ve had some of them for as many as five classes, three of them during the pandemic, and guided them through their internships, so this is a special group to me. I chose to use my last class with them to share a bit of life advice. Some of you have heard me give a similar talk when I retired from the Army. I’ve reprised it a bit, and am still working on it. In this video I was working from a loose outline and improvising quite a bit of it - it is not rehearsed, so please try to ignore the ahs and ums. I draw on natural rights theory in the first part and a mix of planned happenstance and life design literature in the second half. Thanks for indulging me.
**
Listen
What: Ad Age Marketer’s Brief, What Applebee's is doing differently to get through 2020
http://marketersbrief.adage.libsynpro.com/what-applebees-is-doing-differently-to-get-through-2020
Why: Two reasons you should listen to this interview, even if you don’t like Applebee’s.
1) This is a master class on mission and vision. The guest is Joel Yashinsky, Applebee's CMO (chief marketing officer, not medical officer for those of you from healthcare). Every time he answers a question, he constantly refers back to Applebee’s mission and vision. It’s kind of amazing how on message he is, and how the company is constantly building around this very clear, and narrow mission. I turn my nose up at Applebee’s these days, but I’m not who they are marketing to, and Yashinsky couldn’t care less. I’ll probably use this podcast the next time I teach strategic statements.
2) The restaurant business is being crushed by COVID. My daughter was a sous chef in a local restaurant. That is, until Friday when her restaurant shut down until summer because demand had evaporated. Applebee’s is fighting the good fight against COVID and it’s inspiring to listen to Yashinsky talk about the innovations and strategic changes they are making to stay open.
**
What: People I (mostly) Admire, Moncef Slaoui: “It’s Unfortunate That It Takes a Crisis for This to Happen”
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/pima-moncef-slaoui/
Why: I know I just shared something from this podcast last week, but I was listening to this interview today and I wanted to share it because of its timeliness. Moncef Slaoui was appointed to oversee Operation Warp Speed, the US Government’s effort to develop and distribute a COVID-19 vaccine. I think Levitt does a great job interviewing Slaoui, highlighting the challenges and accomplishments of this effort. It’s truly amazing.
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/welcome
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)