The layoffs are still occurring, but the reckoning has arrived. There is all this work to do, but only a hand full of people to do it. In addition to the higher volume of it, is the fact that most people actually know very little about what it takes to do the job their laid off coworkers were doing.
This brings me to Dan Ariely. He authored a book called Predictable Irrational which dives into why people make the decisions they do. It is in the space of Behavior Economics. One of the key concepts is that when you make things more complex, people stop thinking it through.
This hits me over the head because we now have a bunch of people whose jobs just got a whole lot more complex. And not only that, they don’t have the leeway to figure it out because they have to prove they can execute. So they are motivated to simply make decisions regardless of if they are the right decisions for the long run.
The optimist in me thinks this will eventually have a great impact on the US. Why? Real leaders will emerge. They will take a step back, breathe deep, realize what is important, adopt time horizons that are realistic, and deliver real change.
Working Thoughts 