Alan Weiss's The Uncomfortable Truth®

Alan Weiss

Alan Weiss's The Uncomfortable Truth® is a weekly broadcast from “The Rock Star of Consulting,” Alan Weiss, who holds forth with his best (and often most contrarian) ideas about society, culture, business, and personal growth. His 60+ books in 12 languages, and his travels to, and work in, 50 countries contribute to a fascinating and often belief-challenging 20 minutes that might just change your next 20 years.

  1. Survey This

    7h ago

    Survey This

    SHOW NOTES: Have you noticed the increase in surveys from hotels, airlines, online retailers, and even medical practices? These are usually accompanied by requests for ratings on the internet. This is related to "calls being recorded for quality purposes." If anyone really listened to the calls, we'd have a lot better services. Even restrooms have a computer screen asking how clean the place was. I really don't want to touch it with my finger. Why not take care of my service problems while I'm experiencing them, not asking about how bad they've been after the fact? I think many of these are a pretense for actually caring. They try to cheaply overcome the unhappiness of customers with a false promise to improve, when they are actually just a vent for unhappiness with no obligation to improve. Executives have "executive assistants" so that they don't have to personally respond to calls and emails, even though they claim to lead "customer-driven" operations. I love the representatives who tell you, "You'll receive a survey after this call, and I'd appreciate your giving me a strong rating." You'll always receive one of these after every Uber trip, along with the tip suggestion. I'm told that Uber drivers rate their customers, as well, and those customers who have given low ratings aren't responded to as rapidly as those who've given high ratings. I don't know if that's true, but I would suspect it is. Please don't rate this podcast. But then again, no one is asking you to do so.

    3 min
  2. Bigger Isn't Better

    Jul 2

    Bigger Isn't Better

    SHOW NOTES: The Super Bowl halftime show; the World Cup; the Masters championship; the US Open Tennis championship; the Oscars; July 4th; Christmas lights; gender reveals; children's birthday parties; destination weddings. Things don't have to get bigger to get better. In fact, the promise of "bigger and better" leads to expectations that can't be met OR exaggeratedly high response to mediocrity to justify the cost of attendance, real or remote. A thousand people marching around a field while someone lip-syncs a song isn't all that impressive. Pre-game, half-time, and post-game analyses by a panel of "experts" just adds talk, not insight. Gender reveals are nonsense and now the trend of mass wedding party dancing as an opening to the ceremony is as boring as running into the same caterer at every fundraising event. You can be married underwater with a jellyfish band for all I care, it doesn't make your love for each other any different in my mind, though it doesn't affect my impression of you self-absorption. Try for quality, not quantity, and certainly not volume.

    2 min
  3. The Road to Excess

    Jun 25

    The Road to Excess

    SHOW NOTES: World Cup attendance and revenues are disappointing. That's hardly surprising. The hype and publicity and exaggerated claims create a level of expectation that's hard to support, and the inflated prices of everything from hot dogs to hotel rooms is absurd. This kind of insistence on constantly "topping" what's come before exists with Super Bowl halftime shows, entertainment award shows (they are proliferating in number as well as production extremes), parades for any variety of causes, political rallies, and even fundraising. The more the pressure to "better" and "outdo" the past attempts as a metric of current success, the more you're prone to fall short. No one has ever sung the Star Spangled Banner better than Whitney Houston, so stop trying to create a canonical version, and just sing the song. Tom Brady wasn't trying to be better than Joe Montana or Johnny Unitas, just the best quarterback he could be.Picasso was just trying to be Picasso. They're wondering why attendance is down when a train ticket was $15 is now $150 to get to the Meadowlands in New Jersey from Penn Station in Manhattan, and it can cost as much as $175 to park at Gillette Stadium on Foxboro, MA for the World Cup (where it's $50 for Patriot game). The road to excess had a lot of potholes.

    4 min
  4. Talent and Tech

    Jun 18

    Talent and Tech

    SHOW NOTES: Steven Spielberg created Jaws and Close Encounters. He used technology for the shark and the spaceship. But he used talent for the creation. Pablo Picasso famously relied on Ripolin, a quick-drying, glossy commercial house paint, instead of traditional artist oils. For tools, he used oversized, long-handled bristle brushes, and stiff palette knives for impasto textures. But the painting Guernica was the result of his talent. Bach created the Brandenburg concertos and the musical advancements that most helped him were the rise of flexible "well-temperament" tuning and the rapid development of the Italian concerto style. Together, these innovations allowed him to achieve his legendary harmonic complexity and contrapuntal mastery. But the talent was already there. Houdini created incredible illusions and escapes using hidden keys, sleight of hand, mirrors, and secret hatched. But the design and the implementation were due to his talent. Focus on your talent, not technology. A microphone can enhance volume but won't help you to naturally sing on key. Superb skis and advance waxes can help your skiing speed and control, but are no replacement for quick reflexes and physical stamina. Technology, whether AI or a remote control, can enhance your abilities and success, but they can't replace your judgment and native talent, unless you try to allow them to, which will only atrophy your unique abilities.

    3 min
  5. The Mixed Media Affect

    Jun 11

    The Mixed Media Affect

    SHOW NOTES: Long ago the Canadian sociologist and business expert, Marshall McLuhan, talked about the "mixed media affect," meaning that experts in one area often migrated to other areas where they are not expert. So you had athletes, entertainers, artists, actors, and random "celebrities" pontificating in fields where they are not expert at all. Barbra Streisand was representative of this phenomenon, with continual political commentary on her web site, at concerts, and in guest appearances. I was in attendance once in Boston Garden, where, in addition to her song lyrics (she couldn't remember them) on the Jumbotron hanging from the roof, was her political "patter" and jibes at the Bushes. (This prompted Laura Ingraham's book, Shut Up and Sing.) At the recent Tony Awards, always great because these are stage actors who don't expect teleprompters and second "takes," a surprise winner for featured actor was Ali Louis Bourzgui for "Lost Boys." He pulled a couple of sheets from his jacket and condemned fascism, racism, misogyny, colonialism, stolen lands, and it seemed also mosquitos and loud noises. It never ended. Fortunately, it was the exception on a stage where the mixed media affect used to predominate. Moreover, no one seems to care anymore. The group on The View, a notoriously liberal and polarizing television cast, embraced Kamala Harris physically and intellectually when she visited them while running for president. And look what happened to her. So ignore the otherwise notable figures who are stepping out of their field of expertise and/or talent. They're just richer, they ain't smarter.

    6 min
  6. The Magic Bullet

    Jun 4

    The Magic Bullet

    SHOW NOTES: We’ve lost trust in major institutions: universities, medicine, journalism, the law, politicians, religion. (The recent rise in Catholic converts and church attendance is not due to any great marketing by the church, but rather due to a desperate need for a source of faith by many.) We tend to see AI as a magic bullet that will help us out of our uncertainly, lack of success, confusion, and sense of loneliness. Yet AI is the product of humans and has the notorious imperfections that one would expect. My GPS, spell check, computer, and other technology has glitches and errors. They are far from perfect. What we truly need is self-belief, confidence in our own judgment. We need to stop seeking the judgment of others, of others’ metrics, of others approval, and of validation for our tentative decisions. This combination of a loss of trust in ourselves and an overhyped AI by an industry seeking to make trillions is a perfect storm. Resist it. Develop faith in yourself. It doesn’t matter what happens to you in most cases, what matters is what you do about it.

    8 min
  7. Contentiousness

    May 28

    Contentiousness

    SHOW NOTES: At a restaurant, I’m asked if I have food allergies when I make the reservation, then by the hostess when I arrive, then by the server who has my table. While I appreciate all the precautions, I think they’re afraid of being sued. Isn’t it the responsibility of someone with a serious food allergy who’s make the decision to dine in a restaurant to inform people themselves? The Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills, a wonderful place, actually has a sign informing its guests that the china, which has artful designs and craftsman ship, has potential cancer-causing agents in the art work. Since these are decorative “chargers” and not used for food, a guest would have to chew on the gold leaf to ingest anything remotely dangerous. People complain that prospects are constantly “ghosting” them and it’s an epidemic of rude behavior. Well, the commonality is the person ghosted, so perhaps they aren’t offering sufficient interest of value to justify a return call and that prospect doesn’t want to waste still more time by having to tell them that. When you think others are uniformly acting improperly, it’s usually you. Do you really need to tell us “do not try this at home” when a commercial shows a driver spinning in circles at high speed or a daredevil leaping from a low-flying plane into a convertible? What about when we see an elephant stand on a pool cover to show its strength? Should I cancel the elephant rental? When you’re a medical or dental assistant and inform people they may not wear fragrances in the office because you have a fragrance allergy, perhaps you should consider not working in crowded spaces. How to do you survive in a plane, train, taxi, or elevator? If you feel your rights have been violated because you hear employees talking politics with which you do not agree while you’re waiting in an office, you’re correct. You have the right to leave, which you’re not exercising.

    5 min
  8. London

    May 21

    London

    SHOW NOTES: Wherein Alan shares his views of exotic car density, cab maneuvers, High Tea, American advantages in admiring the Royals, and the lies and deception around priority luggage.

    6 min
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4.4
out of 5
44 Ratings

About

Alan Weiss's The Uncomfortable Truth® is a weekly broadcast from “The Rock Star of Consulting,” Alan Weiss, who holds forth with his best (and often most contrarian) ideas about society, culture, business, and personal growth. His 60+ books in 12 languages, and his travels to, and work in, 50 countries contribute to a fascinating and often belief-challenging 20 minutes that might just change your next 20 years.

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