Issue No. 508 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting asks if you should switch from binge watching to binge reading—especially in a crisis. Columnist George Will says he is “paid to do what I would do without pay.” And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), click here for over 500 book reviews, and click here for my new blog, Pails in Comparison (PIC), with four new book PICs.
So…did you do anything interesting or uplifting from 2008 to 2020? Do you even remember the key events and issues during those 13 years? (Well…we actually remember 2020, don’t we? We’re still living it.)
Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist George Will can help you remember with his latest collection of 750-word columns in American Happiness and Discontents: The Unruly Torrent, 2008-2020. His masterful writing will tempt you to set aside your “B” priorities and drink deeply from his opinions and insights.
Good news: You’ll agree with many of Will’s conclusions. More good news: You’ll disagree with many of his conclusions. (That’s what “deep reading” is all about.)
I’m sure you know that George Will writes a syndicated column on politics, plus domestic and foreign affairs, for the Washington Post. His twice-a-week meanderings through the jabs and joys of front page issues is sliced and diced rather eruditely in his columns—as would befit a PhD from Princeton with a side trip to Oxford.
Yet…George Will’s midwestern roots (Champaign, Illinois) and baseball keep him grounded (no pun intended). Enough so that his love of baseball and the Chicago Cubs pop out often. Click here to read my review of his book, A Nice Little Place on the North Side: Wrigley Field at One Hundred. Will quotes sportscaster Red Barber, “Baseball is dull only to dull minds.”
And speaking of dull minds, how can you not read American Happiness and Discontents when George Will thinks so highly of you? In the required-reading intro, the author nostalgically notes that upon arriving in New York City for the first time in 1958, at age 17, he “plunked down a nickel for a New York tabloid in order to see what was going on in Gotham. This purchase of a New York Post was a life-changing event because in it I found a column by Murray Kempton.”
Will says Kempton “paid a compliment to his readers”—he held them in high esteem. “Furthermore, Kempton knew that reading newspaper columns is an optional activity, so a writer must make the most of his ration of words—in Kempton’s case, often fewer than 700 of them.”
Will waxes eloquent with a similar admiration for his readers: “However, the fact that most Americans do not read newspapers, let alone the commentary columns, is actually emancipating for columnists. The kind of people who seek out written arguments are apt to bring to the written word a fund of information and opinions.”
He adds, “Having a self-selected audience of intellectually upscale readers allows the columnist to assume that his or her readers have a reservoir of knowledge about the world. So, he can be brief—most of the writings in this book are approximately 750 words long—without being superficial.”
I’ll accept that compliment, but it’s convicting. Yikes. Do I hold high the readers of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (i.e., you) with appropriate admiration?
Oops! I haven’t hooked you yet on why you should read American Happiness and Discontents. Nine reasons (within my new 750-word rule!):
1) 19 HOURS IN 192 DOSES! In your car, or while peddling on your Peloton, you can listen to George Will’s insights—one column at a time in just 19 hours of listening pleasure (actually 18 hours and 55 minutes). I recommend Libro.fm audio books and CLICK HERE for a free audio book offer.
2) A JOY TO READ. George Will—whether you agree with his worldview or not—is a joy to read. “Writing—forming sentences and paragraphs, producing a felicitous phrase in the service of a well-made argument—is, for me, a metabolic urge, and more fun than I can have anywhere outside of a major league ballpark.” (He adds that he is “paid to do what I would do without pay.”)
3) 50 YEARS/6,000 COLUMNS. Whew! In January 1973, the author began writing columns for William F. Buckley’s National Review and the Washington Post. Total output over 50 years—about 6,000 columns! (That dramatically exceeds Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours standard.)
4) BOOKS HAVE CAREFUL EDITORS! George Will believes the importance of books is increasing—so many of the 192 columns in his book are well-crafted reviews of important books. “The velocity imparted by the new media [he labels the new media “the instantaneous and essentially cost-free dissemination of thoughts, most of which should never have been thought, let alone given written expression”] somehow is an incentive for intemperate discourse. Books, however, have long gestations and, usually, careful editors.”
5) BINGE READING! For an in-depth staff meeting discussion, assign the column, “In Praise of Binge Reading” (April 19, 2020) to team members. George Will urges us to “mute Netflix long enough” to read several think pieces on deep reading. He quotes Adam Garfinkle’s work that suggests “government’s problem-solving failures reflect not just hyper-partisanship and polarization but the thin thinking of a political class of non-deep readers who are comfortable only with the shallowness of tweets.”
6) “THE PAST IS NOT DEAD.” Will’s fascinating look-backs at selected columns from 2008 to 2020 are, ironically, forward-looking. He quotes William Faulkner, “The past is not dead. It is not even past.” You’ll appreciate these issues under the George Will microscope:
• “A Nation Not Made by Flimsy People”
• “The Perverse Fecundity of a Perfect Failure”
• “The Announcement of a Presidential Candidate You Will Never Hear”
• “How Not to Select Presidential Candidates”
• “Anti-Capitalist Conservatives versus Progressives: The Narcissism of Small Differences”
• “Bootleggers and Baptists, Together Yet Again”
7) TOO MUCH POTUS! “There is very little in this book about recent presidents. What William Wordsworth felt about the world—that is ‘too much with us’—is how I feel about almost all presidents.” From a presidential message (tweet?) you will never hear: “I will not ruin any more American evenings with televised State of the Union addresses. I will mail my thoughts on that subject to Congress from ‘time to time,’ as the Constitution directs.”
8) FOOTBALL/BASEBALL. Interestingly, the author has strong feelings about football (remember—he’s a baseball guy), especially the brutality, concussions, and brain injuries. His first of 11 columns in Section 11, “Games,” features his 2012 column, “Are You Ready for Some Autopsies?” He bookends the sports section with a sweet column for Dodgers fans, “Vin Scully, Craftsman” (Sept. 4, 2016), marking Scully’s final season in the broadcast booth (eight years in Brooklyn and 59 in Los Angeles!).
9) CRISIS COACHING. George Will highlights his fair share of CRISIS issues in the book—and the historical look-backs are helpful in making sense (if we can) of the current crisis in Ukraine. Section 9, “Darkness Remembered” features 10 columns on the German resistance, Eichmann, falsification, China and Churchill, fascism, and authoritarianism. Not recommended for light beaching reading. In fact, sobering!
If you read or listen to one column every day for the next 192 days, you’ll widen your interests, deepen your insights, and enjoy fascinating conversations with family and friends. Email me on September 19, 2022 (192 days from now), when you’ve read (or listened to) the final pages of the book and the poignant column, “Lieutenant Colonel Jim Walton” (July 6, 2008)—about a solemn CACO (casualty assistance calls officer) visit to deliver sad news. (And sadly—being repeated every day now in Ukraine.)
To order from Amazon, click on the title for American Happiness and Discontents: The Unruly Torrent, 2008-2020, by George F. Will. Listen to the book on Libro.fm (18 hours, 55 minutes). And thanks to Hachette Book Group for sending a review copy.
YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Not every George Will column solves society’s deepest dilemmas. At your next staff meeting, invite a team member to read “The Plague of Denim” (2009). He quotes a WSJ writer who writes that wearing denim is a manifestation of “the modern trend toward undifferentiated dressing, in which we all strive to look equally shabby.” DISCUSS! Why did Vin Scully wear a coat and tie in the Dodgers broadcast booth for 67 years (not a typo!), yet denim (with unholy knee holes) is the accepted clerical vestments in many Protestant churches today? What’s the deal? Has anyone thought deeply about this enigma?
2) In The President’s Club (read my review), the authors note that John F. Kennedy asked Clark Clifford for counsel on how to navigate the transition into the White House. Kennedy’s team, said Clifford, “behaved as though history had begun with them. The new elite did not appear to show much interest in history.” He added, “I regarded this as a form of arrogance.” So…in your next transition, how do you avoid the triple sins of ego, ignorance, and arrogance?
Warning! Failure to prepare—in advance—for a crisis will exacerbate the crisis. Read The Crisis Bucket chapter in Mastering the Management Buckets.
The 20 Buckets Countdown:
The Crisis Bucket (#13) Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook: Management Tools, Templates and Tips from John Pearson, with commentary by Jason Pearson (2nd Edition, 2018) - Order from Amazon.
The Crisis Bucket Core Competency: “We are prepared for most crises. We have plans in place and a crisis facilitator trained, and we drill our team members frequently and spontaneously. Yet we trust in God, who is our Protector, Comforter and Sustainer."
Harry Truman said: “The only thing new in this world is the history you haven’t read.” To sharpen your competencies in the Crisis Bucket, consider reading how other leaders and columnists have addressed American and global crisis moments:
• See the four books highlighted on the Crisis Bucket webpage, including: Eisenhower 1956: The President’s Year of Crisis—Suez and the Brink of War, by David A. Nichols.
See also:
• The Time of Our Lives, by Peggy Noonan (read my review)
• The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington, by Robert D. Novak (read my review)
The 20 management buckets are perfect content for the lifelong learning segment in your weekly staff meetings (you do have weekly staff meetings, right?). Visit the 20 buckets webpage here.
PAILS IN COMPARISON: Check out John’s new blog, Pails in Comparison (PIC), with new reviews of four books:
[ ] PIC #2: Roar: Into the Second Half of Your Life (Before It's Too Late), by Michael Clinton – (read review)
[ ] PIC #3: Connectable: How Leaders Can Move Teams From Isolated to All In, by Ryan Jenkins and Steven Van Cohen – (read review)
[ ] PIC #4: Converted: The Data-Driven Way to Win Customers' Hearts, by Neil Hoyne – (read review)
JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Do you have a deep and historical understanding of your customer? Do your communications compliment your customer’s intelligence? Is your social media uplifting, informative, and inspiring—or just boring? Do your customers wear denim? Contact Pearpod Media (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).
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