What makes something frightening? Is it what we see? Or what our minds begin to imagine when we can't explain what we're seeing? Guy de Maupassant knew how to create that uncertainty. In The Hand, he gives us a mystery and invites us to decide how much of it we can really understand. It's a short story worth reading closely. readingwithjimmy.com/the-han… #GuyDeMaupassant #ShortStories #ReadingWithJimmy

Everybody tells you to connect the dots. Fine. But what happens when you can't see all of them? I'm red-green color blind. Found that out in college, when a professor showed us one of those pictures with numbers hidden inside colored circles. Everybody saw the number. Except me. That experience taught me something about business. People connect the dots they can see and then assume they've got the whole picture. Sometimes they don't. Which is why I learned to look for patterns instead. Are you sure you're seeing all the dots? Are you ever? I'm glad I'm color blind. interlinegroup.com/mix/the-p… #Leadership #Strategy #DecisionMaking #Business

Why should anybody read classical literature anymore? You really have to ask that question? It's a reasonable question. Especially when there are so many other things competing for our attention. But I don't read the classics simply because they're old, or because someone decided long ago that they were important. I read them because they make you think. About people. About decisions. About things I thought I understood until a writer made me look again. Besides, what's changed in how we are, really? Not much. That's why I started Reading With Jimmy. To remind us of who we are...who we can be...and most important, why. Check it out. readingwithjimmy.com/blog/wh… #ClassicLiterature #CriticalThinking #ReadingWithJimmy

Here's a problem I've had with people who say, "I know it when I see it." What happens when you and I don't see the same thing? I'm color blind. So I learned a long time ago that what I see and what someone else sees aren't necessarily the same thing. And explaining those differences isn't always easy. Now apply that problem to American culture. What is culture? What is civilization? What is common sense? Roger Kimball wrote an essay about restoring American culture that prompted me to ask those questions. He made some provocative arguments, but I kept returning to something that bothered me: he hadn't adequately defined the words on which his arguments depended. And if we don't define our terms, how can we know whether we're even talking about the same things? That's not just a problem in politics. It's a problem in business, education, personal relationships and just about every other human activity. Words matter. Definitions matter. And understanding what someone else means matters even more. Mirror, Mirror…Who's Got American Culture After All? Check out my post. jamesnowakowski.com/mirror-m… #AmericanCulture #Communication #CriticalThinking #Language #Understanding

How Much Data Can You Eat? Apparently, there's no limit. We collect data. Analyze data. Buy more data. Hire people to interpret the data. And now we have AI to help us consume even more of it. Reminds me of Erysichthon, the fellow in Greek mythology who was cursed with an appetite that could never be satisfied. The more he ate, the hungrier he became. Sound familiar? At what point does having more information stop helping us make better decisions? Perhaps the problem isn't how much data we can consume. It's knowing when we've had enough. Read my blog. interlinegroup.com/mix/much-… #Data #AI #MarketResearch #BusinessStrategy

When you read Dostoevsky in English, whose words are you reading? Dostoevsky's? The translator's? Some combination of the two? Translation is one of those things we tend to take for granted until we realize how much of our understanding depends on somebody else's choices. The words matter. And sometimes the person choosing those words matters just as much. Here's why I think readers should pay attention to the translator. readingwithjimmy.com/blog/wh… #Dostoevsky #LiteraryTranslation #ReadingWithJimmy

Here's something that might be worth thinking about: You were always on the layoff list. You still are. And now everyone wants to know whether artificial intelligence is going to eliminate their job. That's the wrong question. Jobs have been disappearing, changing and being created for as long as businesses have existed. Technology accelerates the process, but it doesn't invent the underlying reality. The question isn't simply whether AI can do some of the work you do. It's what you contribute when the tools, the technology and the expectations change. Which brings me back to something I've been writing about recently: the difference between possessing information and exercising judgment. The tools will change. The responsibility for what you do with them remains yours. Check out my latest post: You Were Always on the Layoff List. You Still Are. jamesnowakowski.com/you-were… #Employment #ArtificialIntelligence #Leadership #Careers #HumanJudgment

Everybody remembers the Mad Hatter's tea party in Alice in Wonderland. But what exactly is Lewis Carroll doing in that conversation? What happens when people use language without agreeing on what their words mean? That's one of the things I explore in my analysis of the Mad Tea Party. The more closely you look at Alice, the less childish some of it becomes. Check it out and read it with me. readingwithjimmy.com/blog/ma… #LewisCarroll #AliceInWonderland #ReadingWithJimmy

I read a lot of economic commentary. Wall Street analysts, economists, investment strategists. They have different ways of looking at the economy, and most of them make sense within their own frameworks. But after more than 35 years of running a business, I've come to believe there's something missing from much of their analysis. Friction. Not recession. Not collapse. Not even inflation by itself. Friction. Costs that rise and don't come back down. Customers who become more cautious. Hiring decisions that get harder. Technology that changes how much work one person can accomplish. Margins that seem to be under pressure from somewhere all the time. The economy can be growing while running a business becomes more difficult. So I divided Wall Street's thinking into three groups: the cycle thinkers, the shock-absorber thinkers and the regime-change thinkers. Each sees something important, but none quite captures what the person running a business experiences every day. For that person, survival often comes down to three things. Cash. Tools. Judgment. I explain why in Three Ways Wall Street Thinks About the Economy—and What They Miss. jamesnowakowski.com/three-wa… #Economy #BusinessStrategy #Leadership #SmallBusiness #EconomicOutlook

Can a reputation become more powerful than the truth? In Guy de Maupassant's The Piece of String, an ordinary event becomes something much larger because of what other people believe. What's the saying? Repeat it often enough and it becomes the turth? Once people decide what they believe, what happens to the person trying to convince them otherwise? It's a short story. But the problem it presents is anything but small. And anything but not relevant in today's age of B.S. Check it out. readingwithjimmy.com/the-pie… #GuyDeMaupassant #ShortStories #ReadingWithJimmy

What happens when someone knows things about you that you would rather keep hidden? John Steinbeck's Johnny Bear raises a question that goes well beyond the story itself. We say we value the truth. But how much truth are we really prepared to hear? It's one of the works people have been finding recently at Reading With Jimmy. Read with me, and let's look at what Steinbeck is doing together. readingwithjimmy.com/johnny-… #JohnSteinbeck #ClassicLiterature #ReadingWithJimmy

When does obedience become a problem? Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience asks a question that never seems to disappear: What responsibility does an individual have when the law and conscience point in different directions? It's easy to say we should do what's right. It's much harder to decide what that requires of us. That's why I think Thoreau is worth reading rather than simply quoting. Read with me. readingwithjimmy.com/civil-d… #HenryDavidThoreau #ClassicLiterature #ReadingWithJimmy

One of the dangers of artificial intelligence isn't that it will become intelligent enough to replace us. It's that we might decide we no longer need to think. I recently heard about two architects who walked into a client's office and were handed AI-generated renderings. The client wanted them to build what AI had produced. One architect turned to the other and said, "I guess we're working for AI now." Funny. But not really. AI can produce a rendering. It cannot relieve the architect of responsibility for determining whether the building will stand, meet code, function properly or satisfy the client's actual needs. Information isn't judgment. And if we voluntarily surrender our judgment because AI can produce answers faster than we can, we've created a much more immediate problem than the hypothetical dangers everyone is arguing about. Check out my post: Who Works for Whom? jamesnowakowski.com/ai-human… #ArtificialIntelligence #HumanJudgment #Leadership #CriticalThinking #AI

Don’t get hired. Hire the company. It took getting fired the first time for me to understand that. When you interview for a job, you tend to think the company is interviewing you. Reverse the positions. You are interviewing them. What kind of people are they? How do they treat people? What do they believe? What are they telling you without realizing they’re telling you? You are doing the hiring! That point-of-view change will help you see through the noise for the true signals. Because no company can guarantee your future. And you shouldn’t turn responsibility for your future over to one that thinks it can. I learned that one the hard way. Along with quite a few other things after being fired three times. jamesnowakowski.com/you-were… #Careers #Leadership #Management #JobSecurity #Business

I always used the light bulb test. Each person in a company is a light bulb. Pull their plug and ask what happens. Does the room dim? Get brighter? Stay the same? When you pull a person’s plug and the room gets brighter, don’t put the plug back in. But if it gets dark, how dark? Really dark? Better put the plug back in quickly. There’s a lot of talk right now about layoffs, RIFs, workforce reductions, resource realignment and all the other nice words companies have invented for firing people. But companies should remember something: firing someone doesn’t only change that person’s life. It changes the company. And you better understand what you’re changing before you pull the plug. Check out my post. jamesnowakowski.com/you-were… #Leadership #Management #Layoffs #Business #Workplace

Why should anybody read classical literature anymore? You really have to ask that question? It's a reasonable question. Especially when there are so many other things competing for our attention. But I don't read the classics simply because they're old, or because someone decided long ago that they were important. I read them because they make you think. About people. About decisions. About things I thought I understood until a writer made me look again. Besides, what's changed in how we are, really? Not much. That's why I started Reading With Jimmy. To remind us of who we are...who we can be...and most important, why. Check it out. readingwithjimmy.com/blog/wh… #ClassicLiterature #CriticalThinking #ReadingWithJimmy

Here's something that might be worth thinking about: You were always on the layoff list. You still are. And now everyone wants to know whether artificial intelligence is going to eliminate their job. That's the wrong question. Jobs have been disappearing, changing and being created for as long as businesses have existed. Technology accelerates the process, but it doesn't invent the underlying reality. The question isn't simply whether AI can do some of the work you do. It's what you contribute when the tools, the technology and the expectations change. Which brings me back to something I've been writing about recently: the difference between possessing information and exercising judgment. The tools will change. The responsibility for what you do with them remains yours. Check out my latest post: You Were Always on the Layoff List. You Still Are. jamesnowakowski.com/you-were… #Employment #ArtificialIntelligence #Leadership #Careers #HumanJudgment

Everybody remembers the Mad Hatter's tea party in Alice in Wonderland. But what exactly is Lewis Carroll doing in that conversation? What happens when people use language without agreeing on what their words mean? That's one of the things I explore in my analysis of the Mad Tea Party. The more closely you look at Alice, the less childish some of it becomes. Check it out and read it with me. readingwithjimmy.com/blog/ma… #LewisCarroll #AliceInWonderland #ReadingWithJimmy

What happens when someone knows things about you that you would rather keep hidden? John Steinbeck's Johnny Bear raises a question that goes well beyond the story itself. We say we value the truth. But how much truth are we really prepared to hear? It's one of the works people have been finding recently at Reading With Jimmy. Read with me, and let's look at what Steinbeck is doing together. readingwithjimmy.com/johnny-… #JohnSteinbeck #ClassicLiterature #ReadingWithJimmy

Can a reputation become more powerful than the truth? In Guy de Maupassant's The Piece of String, an ordinary event becomes something much larger because of what other people believe. What's the saying? Repeat it often enough and it becomes the turth? Once people decide what they believe, what happens to the person trying to convince them otherwise? It's a short story. But the problem it presents is anything but small. And anything but not relevant in today's age of B.S. Check it out. readingwithjimmy.com/the-pie… #GuyDeMaupassant #ShortStories #ReadingWithJimmy