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Top of Mind Thursday Memo Archive
Top of Mind Thursday – January 11, 2024: Flying High
Since the start of the year, we’ve seen two scary incidents involving in-flight aircraft.
In the first, a JAL wide-body plane burst into flames when it collided on landing with a Japanese coast guard plane about to take off from the same runway. Five people on the coast guard plane were killed, but everyone on the JAL flight survived with only a few minor injuries.
Then, three days later, a piece of the fuselage blew out of an Alaska Airlines flight shortly after it left Portland, OR. The plane was able to return to the airport and land safely without losing any passengers or crew.
Two incidents this close together may feed a fear of flying in some people, but there’s good news here.
First, safety procedures really do work. The JAL crew followed procedures to evacuate all passengers and crew in minutes, in spite of fire and smoke filling the cabin. The flight crew on the Alaska flight followed procedures for handling a rapid depressurization and brought the aircraft to the ground without further incident.
That’s not to say the people involved aren’t traumatized by these events, but they could have been a lot worse. In the case of the Alaska flight, it was sheer luck that no one was sitting next to the door plug that blew out. The JAL situation was helped by the fact that passengers followed crew instructions and left their carryon baggage behind as they exited the aircraft using only some of the emergency evacuation slides.
Second, in both cases, forensic teams immediately jumped into action to determine what caused the incidents. In the case of the Alaska flight, the NTSB and FAA immediately called for grounding all similar Boeing aircraft until they could be inspected and deemed safe. United Airlines found loose bolts on several of their planes, other potential tragedies have been diverted.
The last fatal airline crash in the US was in 2009, likely caused by pilot fatigue. It’s safer to fly now than it is to drive on your local freeway. We have systems in place to analyze incidents like this and take swift appropriate action to see they don’t occur again.
What processes do you have in your organization to review failures and learn from them? Are you prepared to take action to change direction when necessary? Do you have a plan for how to quickly respond to a serious crisis?
We can’t avoid all failures, but how we respond to issues when they occur separates those who will continue to soar from the ones who drop out of circulation.
Check out our marketing leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.
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Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com
Top of Mind Thursday – January 4, 2024: Above Reproach
This week, Claudine Gay resigned her position as president of Harvard University.
Gay was one of three college presidents who, during testimony before Congress, equivocated on whether calling for the genocide of Jews would be against their school’s policies. Liz McGill, president of the University of Pennsylvania, has already resigned (as has the chairman of the Penn Board of Trustees), because of the school’s tepid response to ongoing antisemitic acts at Penn. The third president, Sally Kornbluth of MIT, remains in her role.
The Congressional testimony was damaging and Gay apologized afterwards. But she has a unique situation the other leaders aren’t facing—charges of plagiarism based on not citing primary sources for Gay’s scholarly research.
Following her resignation, Gay says she was the target of racist attacks. While I’m sure there are those who didn’t like having an African-American woman as president of Harvard, her race or gender had nothing to do with why she was pressed to leave.
Anyone can make a mistake and improperly forget to cite a source, but Gay has been accused of plagiarism more than 40 times!
Some have said what Gay did was more likely “plagiarism light” and that she shouldn’t have been harshly punished. Really? We have to wonder if a Harvard student had the exact same charges made against them, would they still be associated with the university after even the first or second incident? Most likely not.
One researcher who does feel harmed by Gay’s actions is also an African-American woman. Supposedly Gay picked up entire sentences from this woman’s work without attribution. How is that acceptable?
Earlier last year, Marc Tessier-Lavigne resigned as president of Stanford after allegations arose of falsified data in his research. It was determined that Tessier-Lavigne wasn’t involved in the falsification but hadn’t properly supervised those who should have been on top of the situation. So he had to go.
Gay, McGill, and Tessier-Lavigne were pushed out because their behavior was not what was expected from leaders of elite educational institutions. The head of a university is an exemplar for the student population. Let’s hope other schools copy the correct behavior moving forward.
Check out our marketing leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.
.
Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com
Top of Mind Thursday – December 28, 2023: Wishing You Less Next Year
This is the time of year when we receive holiday greetings from friends, relatives, colleagues, long-lost connections, and of course everyone we ever did business with—ever.
Most of these well-meaning messages wish you more of something or another in the coming year. But this message is different: I think we’d all be better off with LESS in the future.
So here’s what I’m wishing you:
- Less illness: COVID, flu, RSV, more serious stuff like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and more boring stuff like the common cold. Let’s have less of all of it.
- Less conflict in your everyday life: Whether it’s a driver who cuts you off, a rude or unhelpful sales person, or someone in your life who drains the energy from you—we could all do with less of this.
- Less violence in the world: This includes gun violence, rape, murder, terrorism, or the horrors of war.
- Less bias and hate: We’d have a better world with less racism, sexism, antisemitism, and other types of institutionalized discrimination.
- Less drama: Wouldn’t it be nice if people could just interact with each other in a kind, friendly way without having to bring an agenda to each encounter? What if people could do their job right the first time?
- Less time spent on things that don’t matter: We all have things we do just because we’ve always done them. What if we could eliminate those activities and have more time to spend on things that are really important?
I’m sure you have your own list of items in your personal or business life that you’d like to see less of. Feel free to add to the list. But remember: The goal is to create less angst, anxiety, discontent, and distraction in your life—not more. The less said the better!
p.s. I’d wish you less annoying political campaigns and ads, but given that we’re entering an election year, that’s not something we’re likely to see in 2024.
Check out our marketing leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.
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Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com
Top of Mind Thursday – December 14, 2023: Dodge Ball
This week, Shohei Ohtani signed a 10-year, $700 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Ohtani is a unique entity—perhaps the best two-way player (both pitcher and hitter) since Babe Ruth. He was the first player in history to unanimously be named Most Valuable Player multiple times.
Ohtani’s contract is a quarter of a billion dollars larger than the previous highest salary in Major League Baseball—in fact, it’s the largest contract in the history of sports. Nearly the entire amount—$680 million—will be deferred to the end of the contract, allowing the Dodgers to meet payroll ceilings for the next decade.
While Ohtani is an outstanding talent, one wonders how wise it is to invest such an enormous amount of money in one player for such a long period of time—especially since Ohtani had surgery on his pitching arm in September (for the second time).
Athletes who appear healthy today can easily be derailed by accidents and injuries. Yet, the Dodgers will owe Ohtani nearly 3/4 of a billion dollars, regardless of whether or not he stays healthy and is able to perform.
Ask the NY Mets what happens when a big investment like this goes south. In 2000, they agreed to pay Bobby Bonilla a deferred $1.2 million per year for 25 years, starting in 2011. Bonilla last played in the major leagues in 2001, but he’ll be paid by the Mets until 2035 (when he’ll be 72 years old).
Will the bet on Ohtani pay off? Only time will tell. Will he bring a championship to LA? Or will his new team be on the hook for a payment that’s hit long and deep but doesn’t score?
Check out our marketing leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.
.
Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com