Alan Weiss's The Uncomfortable Truth®

Alan Weiss
Alan Weiss's The Uncomfortable Truth®

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. Generations

    5D AGO

    Generations

    SHOW NOTES: •We should avoid generations stereotyping. •We're really better off than we're led to believe. •Try living in Denmark or Iceland. •Magic bullets won't help. •Can a culture survive on gambling? •There is extreme unhappiness in the land. •It is exacerbated by the internet. •People would rather blame themselves, the boss, or the system rather than accept accountability. •Conspiracies and claims of catastrophes abound. •Self-absorption has become a pastime. •Selfishness has grown to not even wanting to have kids. •What I learned growing up having to challenges without safe havens and trigger warnings. •What I told my son.

    11 min
  2. RIP Frank McGuire

    JUL 3

    RIP Frank McGuire

    SHOW NOTES: Here's just a part of the obituary of my friend and former subordinate, Francis X. McGuire from 2010: "...a unique man whose professional life began as a late night disc-jockey in New York City, led him to serve in the Kennedy White House, work for the ABC network (hiring Ted Koppel), to be on the ground floor side-by-side with Fred Smith during the Fed Ex start-up, and there with Colonel Sanders when he sold." In the mid- to late 70s he wound up working for me at a firm in Princeton, and even I didn't know what he was doing there, and our owner kept trying to fire him in cost-cutting fits, emerging from his office shouting, "Fire McGuire!" I forestalled that with quick thinking and fake assignments. I'm thinking of him now, because Fred Smith, with whom Frank was quite close, just passed away, which is notable because Smith is one of the greatest business leaders of my entire lifetime, in my assessment. So here's to Frank, whom I'm hoping Fred Smith is meeting again, because only God can tell what Frank is supposed to be doing.

    5 min
  3. Fall Down Quaking

    JUN 26

    Fall Down Quaking

    SHOW NOTES: Fight, Flight, Fright, or Fall Down Quaking We feel powerless in an age of volatility and disruption, of lack of trust in our institutions, and of polarization among those supposed to represent our best interests and not merely their own. Fight or flight has added fright to the equation, but it seems to me there's also the new option of hiding under the bed (fall down quaking). Whining has become a national past time, and we hear of "toxic bosses, poisonous workplaces, unfair demands, too little pay for too much work. And the anodyne solutions is "soak the rich, tax the wealthy, take back....well, whatever." Those experiments in Seattle and Portland, which were actually anarchic takeovers and the end of law and order didn't work out so well, did they? The Great City of San Francisco, where we lived for a glorious while in the 70s is not filthy and dangerous in many areas. The homeless often physically confront pedestrians. At least we don't hear "defund the police" so much anymore, since it's such a stupid concept. The homeless, the mentally ill, deserve and require empathy beyond a police response. But when the bad guys are trying to break the law, trying to steal, trying to create chaos, we need more police not fewer. In the long run this is about perceived powerlessness. We've lost faith and thereby feel alienated, which causes us to "drop out" (not vote) and the results are the greater influence of those with whom we don't agree, creating a greater sense of powerlessness and a "doom loop" exsistence. There are a lot of positive things going on in the country, and other things that well-meaning people would like to change. Fair enough, but that takes will power and relative fearlessness, not some kind of hibernation. At least we've stopped taking the names of the Founding Fathers, Lincoln and others off of public buildings. We're more concerned about gender and bathrooms today than we are with public welfare, quality education, and decency. Fortunately, the system is brilliant and survived, made to endure even when run by idiots from either party.

    3 min
  4. Beat Bot

    JUN 19

    Beat Bot

    SHOW NOTES: ° State of the art robots for pools. ° Found two years ago in a high-end magazine. ° Took a chance. ° Outstanding results. ° Second season, this year, one robot fails. ° Company says to send it back, they'll send a replacement first. ° True to their word, everything is good. ° Chinese company, locally in Texas. ° Two people ask to visit. ° Thought it was a scam. ° Two Chinese people, one from China currently, visiting customers. ° Bring me a gift. ° We walk through my usage, they take photos (of course). ° They question my use, show me an app and ask my reaction. ° Expanding into more robotics, they ask for suggestions. ° I point out pool levelers. ° Would I be interested for my cars and house? ° Encourage me to continue to ask questions by phone, offer ideas. The Uncomfortable Truth: 1. I've never seen any other firm in any field go to this trouble, even my investment advisors (who did just take me to lunch). 2. I cannot find any software or devices they left surreptitiously to undermine our way of life.

    6 min
  5. Unmasked

    JUN 12

    Unmasked

    SHOW NOTES: Covid was a surprise, but not completely unexpected. Financial people were prepared for some "big event." The scientific, medical, and political responses were mixed, politicized, and hurtful. In retrospect, was it necessary to suspend schools and deny kids of years of learning and socialization; to prevent families from assembling for important occasions; to shut down businesses and drive some into bankruptcy; to endanger the arts, and see cultural activities stopped, sometimes permanently; to create increased sense of fear, isolation, and helplessness. Closings, suspensions, masks, distancing were clearly huge overreactions, and perhaps completely unnecessary. What IS clear is that the failure to create bipartisan approaches which found and promoted only the best and most reasonable reactions were not present, and not even sought. It was equivalent of social media and conspiracies and absurd opinions. And it encouraged fraud in claims made for financial assistance, circumvention of rules, disrespect for medical opinion. Billions were wasted, and cheats and crooks are still being arrested. This has contributed to a sense of powerlessness, of low self-worth, and of mistrust in the system. This is an age of low trust in government, journalism, entertainment, education, and religion. We need to create more trust in ourselves. We need to demand more, and we need to stop being content voting for the "least worst candidate."

    4 min
  6. Affiliations

    JUN 5

    Affiliations

    SHOW NOTES: Why are politicians asking for support without revealing the party they represent? Because they're embarrassed or duplicitous, or both? Why don't they admit to errors their party has made, or they have made? "We shouldn't have supported this" or "I'm sorry I supported that." Why campaign as if fighting an enemy (the other party) instead of supporting their constituency? Why become a lacky to your party's demands rather than speak out against those with which and with whom you disagree? Why do you insult our intelligence by not providing a positive platform focused on what you can do, rather than merely against what the other side is doing? And how can you claim that you didn't know what you obviously did, and did know what you obviously didn't (or hid)? Why are politicians from states I don't care about with positions that don't affect me, strangers to me, expecting my money, and why are politicians selling each other lists within the party to gain access to potential contributors? It's because their affiliations to party are more important than obligations to us.

    4 min
  7. Claims

    MAY 29

    Claims

    SHOW NOTES: There are jobs that many of us would prefer not to have and businesses we'd prefer not to own, but they provide valuable services. Someone has to run funeral parlors, cemeteries, cesspool cleaning, mold removal, and junkyards. Personally, I wouldn't like to pick up garbage, but we need the service or the rats would overwhelm us. Then there are jobs that I can't comprehend doing because of their impact on others. I knew a woman who incessantly pointed out that her husband was a doctor. I asked him once for a referral for a client who lived in the area, and he couldn't provide me one. I found out when we had dinner once, and I questioned him, that he sat at a desk all day approving and rejecting medical claims. Even with my excellent health insurance, I'm occasionally informed by a distant "claim administrator" that my claim wasn't covered or only partially covered. There's no coherent explanation, only the small print that some attorney, also sitting at a desk and who's never been inside a courtroom, has conjured up to protect the company which pays his or her salary. We do need some claims adjustors, for property insurance—houses and cars—for example, to protect against fraud and to serve the consumer, as well. But there are too many stories about medicines and procedures, to alleviate chronic suffering and even to save lives, that are denied on very arbitrary grounds, other than saving the insurer money. Remember when Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson sang about not letting your babies grow up to cowboys? Well, who on earth says to their kid, what guidance counselor suggests, what story of success supports, "My child, I can see with your skills and personally, you should go into health insurance claims adjusting! You'd be brilliant at it and I'm sure it would provide huge gratification!" Don't let your babies grow up to be insurance claims adjustors. If they display any such inclination, adjust them away from it.

    3 min
  8. Transgressions

    MAY 22

    Transgressions

    SHOW NOTES: When I was teaching a graduate course as a "side hustle" for MBA and PhD candidates at the University of Rhode Island, I inherited a student who claimed he had ADHD and the "documentation was coming from health services." He also answered every question in class with a single word, "reengineering." I found out that he had pulled this con with the full-time faculty, and was in his final courses getting to his MBA. He told me he couldn't take "timed" tests. No worries, I told him, the midterm and the final were take-home essays and everyone had whatever time needed so long as they met the deadline. I gave them the questions 60 days ahead of the deadline. He never contributed anything else in class except that word, and I watched him easily banter with classmates, otherwise. He never turned in the midterm or final. I flunked him, unheard of in the graduate school where everyone received A's or B's or a rare C. He went ballistic and filed a complaint. My grade was upheld. The school's director told me, "You're like a utility player who came into the game and did things the starters never do." Post-script: After teaching two courses over five semesters in the evenings, I was not invited back, because (I was told confidentially) the student evaluations put me above the full-time faculty in quality of teaching and the faculty lobbied to have me removed. Another student who contributed brilliantly in class despite English being a second or third language (he was Indian) turned in a paper I required on an aspect of consulting. I found that he had copied, word-for-word, out of one of the assigned books for the course (not one of mine, but one I was obviously familiar with). I told him privately that I could have him expelled, but if he completed the assignment honestly and then did extra work I assigned him in the next two weeks, we'd get on with our lives. I felt he deserved the chance and I didn't want to end his current pursuit of the degree. He admitted what he had done and did an excelled job on the remainder of the assignment and class. I gave him a C. An obvious learning point for me was that doing something as an independent and for the joy of doing it enabled me to do things that those lobbying for careers, tenure, promotion, and popularity could never do, although my departure did help the rest of them lower the bar.

    4 min
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4.5
out of 5
42 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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