Contrarian Consulting

This week’s focus point: Let me understand the World Cup. It unites people in a nationalistic xenophobia. Officials can make calls which reverse momentum, reward the devious, and penalize honest effort. Even the best players posture and pretend, trying to draw attention and favorable treatment. Some scores are accidents–rebounds, off one’s own players, or just bad bounces. You can be exiled from the community with a red card. Teamwork almost always outperforms solo effort, but at the end of the day some players always score more than others. There is obvious corruption and an international organizing body that is distrusted, abused, and not respected by most of its own members. No one is ever really sure of how much time is left at the end of the game. Now I understand the popularity. Soccer is a metaphor for life.

Monday Morning Perspective: C’est plus qu’un crime; c’est une faute. (It’s worse than a crime; It’s a blunder.) — Fouche, on Napolean’s murder of the Duke of Engheim

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This week’s focus point: After World War I, the Sykes-Picot Agreement divided the middle east according to British and French interests (with Russia agreeing). The geopolitical lines drawn were arbitrary and capricious, ignoring tribes and historic settlement (and even common sense). We’re living with the consequences of such imperialism today. We will probably see a very different landscape emerge, for example, with the Kurds having an independent state, and parts of existing states (Syria, Iraq, Iran) perhaps forming a new one. At one point, a hundred years ago, only two African nations (Liberia and Ethiopia) were not ruled by an external power. My quaint idea is to try to help everyone become a “have” as opposed to a “have not,” so they have too much to lose through conflict and a great deal to gain through compromise. Of course, this requires visionary leadership.

Monday Morning Perspective: Having thoroughly enjoyed the gorgeous spectacle of the revolution, our intelligentsia prepared to don their fur-lined overcoats and return to their comfortable houses, but the overcoats were stolen and the houses burned. — Rosanoff, describing the predicament of the Russian liberals

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The Innovation Formula: Learn and apply a dynamic, methodical approach to innovation, from my book which was on the curriculum at the Wharton School. July 1 discount deadline: http://summitconsulting.com/seminars/TheInnovationFormula-2014-09.php