And so be it

The year of heightened emotions

Is that Christmas, knocking on the door, earlier than usual?

So many people seem so very ready for the festive cheer. You don’t even hear much grumbling about the abundance of chocolate Santas that took over shops weeks ago already. In fact, I know people who didn’t even wait for December to get the tree up. (Scandalous!)

More disturbingly, a business news programme I often watch had a whole segment with the presenter in a red chapeau and a fake white moustache talking to a Santa trainer. Yes, a Santa trainer, staying in character, explaining how to talk and laugh like a Santa. Somewhat inappropriate for a business programme yet it had me (and the presenter) laughing.  

It’s only mid-November so I worry we will peak too fast, too early.

But I get it. It’s been a year. It’s been a decade.

By the way, remember that first COVID Christmas? It was only four years ago. But the world has been slapping us all in the face, regardless of geography or convictions, on the regular.

So I can’t really blame people for getting out the tinsel early, especially here in Europe where there is no such thing as Thanksgiving. Though maybe this is a tradition we should import to this side of the Atlantic. No presents, no tree, just a universal get-together over food and drinks. (But no turkey for me, thank you.)

You might have noticed that over the past weeks, I’ve only been posting for paying subscribers. The reason is, frankly, that those loyal subscribers (thank you!) don’t scream at me about what I write, whether purely business-related or about wider geopolitical issues. Even if they disagree.

It is hard not to have strong opinions nowadays if you are even a tiny bit plugged into the world, online and IRL. There is so much information! Such strong opinions! So much unchecked faux-expertise! So much emotion! This is so much fun! It feels so good to rage! And everyone seems to be screaming.

We knew this year was going to be big with hugely consequential elections in large democracies all around the world. But just how angry people are everywhere, and how much they’ve been struggling, all those emotions, showed up in all these elections – with so many voting against incumbents. Often the votes were cast more against the incumbents than for the incoming parties.

2024 might go down as the year of heightened emotions. Let’s hope the early festive cheer will lower the temperature somewhat. If I say this often enough maybe I will even believe it myself.

It continues to feel like the pendulum is swinging widely: there is a backlash against a backlash against a backlash against a backlash… and I am not certain the pendulum will find equilibrium any time soon. Last week I wrote about this and how business leaders can operate in such explosive environments.

“It helps to be non-ideological. In many ways, it is easiest to run a business with a pragmatic mindset anyway since, let’s not forget, your main responsibility is to the business and its stakeholders.

A pragmatic mindset also helps when dealing with changing conditions, crises, and upheavals. Because whatever happens, you need to keep the ship straight.”

In the same piece I also wrote about the perils of relying on advice when the advice giver is projecting.

“Basically, if someone tells you “You shouldn’t do this…” whether that’s about starting a new career or taking the business in a new direction, ask them what makes the direction unsuitable in their eyes.”

The week prior I wrote about mapping out informal networks in organisations and the necessities and perils of cost-cutting and redundancies:

“It is good to build contingencies and a bit of fat into your operations – you want to have flexibility. Contingencies and a bit of fat are what allow you room to respond, wait things out or pivot.

A couple of years after the 2008 financial crisis I heard Michael Porter utter the sentence that I consider one the most important in an uncertain world. It is the one thing from a business thinker I had never forgotten. The essence of what he said was such: be careful when responding to a crisis or a slowdown because you can cut so much that it will be impossible to come back. You can cut so much that when the conditions are right again you will not be able to grow.”

I also wrote about why words matter and why we should be careful with labels:

“It is a scourge of our social media-driven cultures that words often lose their meaning once they are used as a weapon. So, my issue here is the same as always, it’s the reason I am being nitpicky about definitions and continue to call out the lack of nuance.”

You can find the full details in the past two newsletters, which you can access if you subscribe at the link. 

And with that, I bow out for today and wish you all a peaceful weekend, with some festive cheer if you fancy it.