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The Firm

The Story of McKinsey and Its Secret Influence on American Business by Duff McDonald The story of McKinsey & Co., America’s most influential and controversial business consulting firm, “an up-to-date, full-blown history, told with wit and clarity” (The Wall Street Journal). If you want to be taken seriously, you hire McKinsey & Company. Founded in 1926, McKinsey can lay claim to the following partial list of accomplishments: its consultants have ushered in waves of structural, financial, and technological change to the nation’s best organizations; they remapped the power structure within the White House; they even revolutionised business schools. In The New York Times bestseller The Firm, financial journalist Duff McDonald shows just how, in becoming an indispensable part of decision making at the highest levels, McKinsey has done nothing less than set the course of American capitalism. But he also answers the question that’s on the mind of anyone who has ever heard the word McKinsey: Are they worth it? After all, just as McKinsey can be shown to have helped invent most of the tools of modern management, the company was also involved with a number of striking failures. Its consultants were on the scene when General Motors drove itself into the ground, and they were K-Mart’s advisers when the retailer tumbled into disarray. They played a critical role in building the bomb known as Enron. McDonald is one of the few journalists to have not only parsed the record but also penetrated the culture of McKinsey itself. His access puts him in a unique position to demonstrate when it is worth hiring these gurus—and when they’re full of smoke.

High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out

by Amanda Ripley When we are baffled by the insanity of the “other side”—in our politics, at work, or at home—it’s because we aren’t seeing how the conflict itself has taken over. That’s what “high conflict” does. It’s the invisible hand of our time. And it’s different from the useful friction of healthy conflict. That’s good conflict, and it’s a necessary force that pushes us to be better people. High conflict, by contrast, is what happens when discord distills into a good-versus-evil kind of feud, the kind with an us and a them. In this state, the normal rules of engagement no longer apply. The brain behaves differently. We feel increasingly certain of our own superiority and, at the same time, more and more mystified by the other side. New York Times bestselling author and award-winning journalist Amanda Ripley investigates how good people get captured by high conflict—and how they break free. Our journey begins in California, where a world-renowned conflict expert struggles to extract himself from a political feud. Then we meet a Chicago gang leader who dedicates his life to a vendetta—only to find himself working beside the man who killed his childhood idol. Next, we travel to Colombia, to find out whether thousands of people can be nudged out of high conflict at scale. Finally, we return to America to see what happens when a group of liberal Manhattan Jews and conservative Michigan corrections officers choose to stay in each other’s homes in order to understand one another better. All these people, in dramatically different situations, were drawn into high conflict by similar forces, including conflict entrepreneurs, humiliation, and false binaries. But ultimately, all of them found ways to transform high conflict into something good, something that made them better people. They rehumanised and recategorised their opponents, and they revived curiosity and wonder, even […]

The importance of press freedom

The importance of a free press to a thriving democracy is well-known. But what is its importance to a thriving economy? Attacks on press freedom – such as jailing journalists, raiding their homes, shutting down printing presses, and using libel laws to thwart reporters – have measurable effects on economic growth. Countries that recorded a decrease in press freedom also experienced a 1%-2% drop in real gross domestic product (GDP) growth. Economies may not bounce back Institutions that uphold a “rule of law” are strongly associated with stronger economic performance. Most significantly is the long-term economic impost of undermining a free press. Freedom House’s own research suggests “press freedom can rebound from even lengthy stints of repression when given the opportunity”: The basic desire for democratic liberties, including access to honest and fact-based journalism, can never be extinguished. But this rebound does not translate to the economy. In nations where freedoms were removed, and then restored, economic growth does not fully recover. That’s a significant point at a time when economic frustration is contributing to waning enthusiasm for democracy, increasing distrust of legacy media, and the rise of populist and authoritarian governments taking action to control the news media. Throughout Asia there has been a tightening of press freedoms. In Hong Kong, new security laws threaten to snuff out independent media. In Myanmar, publications have been silenced and journalists arrested. In Malaysia, journalists have been harassed and jailed for criticising the government. In the Philippines, respected investigative journalist Maria Ressa has been detained ten times in two years and convicted of “cyberlibel” under controversial laws. In India, the world’s largest democracy, the Modi government has curbed press freedoms. These aren’t just issues for other countries. Australia might look relatively free, particularly compared with near neighbours. But recent years has seen Australian Federal Police raids on journalists homes and the new restrictive national security […]

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Sea levels rising fastest in big cities

It is well known that climate-induced sea level rise is a major threat. What is less well know is the threat of sinking land. And in many of the most populated coastal areas, the land is sinking even faster than the sea is rising. Parts of Tokyo for instance sank by 4 metres during the 20th century, with 2 metres or more of sinking reported in Shanghai, Bangkok, and New Orleans. This process is known as subsidence. Slow subsidence happens naturally in river deltas, and it can be accelerated by the extraction of groundwater, oil or gas which causes the soil to consolidate and the surface to lose elevation. Subsidence leads to relative sea level rise (sea level rise plus land sinking). It turns croplands salty, damages buildings, causes widespread flooding and can even mean the loss of entire coastal areas. Subsidence can threaten flooding in low-lying coastal areas, much more so than rising sea levels, yet scientists are only just realising the global implications of the threat with respect to coastal cities. In fact, while the average coastal area experiences relative sea level rise of less than 3mm per year, the average coastal resident experiences a rise of around 8mm to 10mm per year. This is because so many people live in deltas and especially cities on deltas that are subsiding. That’s the key finding of our new research, where we analysed how fast cities are sinking across the world and compared them with global subsidence data including less densely populated coastlines. People often choose to live in river deltas, floodplains and other areas that were already prone to sinking, and in doing so will further enhance subsidence. In particular, subsiding cities contain more than 150 million people in the coastal zone – that’s roughly 20% of people in […]

The Empty Shield

-by Giacomo Donis Michael Moorcock’s New Statesman Book of the Year. A people’s history and the horror of war: Howard Zinn meets Apocalypse Now. March 1972, about to graduate from NYU. A journey: two days and nights in the New York subway. Love it or leave it. A decision: become a Great Academic Marxist; blow up the Williamsburg Bridge; go into exile. Vietnam Veterans with placards, for and against the war. Seven placard-men at the seven gates of Thebes, brandishing their shields. A decision. Political or personal? Or pure Zen? Mind or no-mind? Kill for peace! Dylan, Hendrix, or the Fugs. The two Suzukis, or Dogen. Monk and Coltrane! The relation between Hegel’s logic of thinking as such and his logic of practice, which does not exist. The screech of the subway stops. A fork where three roads cross, the realm of shadows, what is to be done? A Chinese menu? Stab it! Stab it with your fork! But what I, myself, decide is not the point. The point is the question of ‘what a decision is and what making a decision means.’ The answer is ‘never stop asking.’ Ask yourself. Ask FDR, JFK, LBJ, McNamara and his band, John Kerry, or a Vietnam War veteran of your choice. Ask Nixon, Kissinger Trump! Ask Trump! Ye great decision-makers, have you ever asked yourselves what a decision is and what making a decision means! That is the question. The Empty Shield asks it. Repeatedly, repetitiously, abysally, and, possibly, once and for all. “The Empty Shield by Giacomo Donis is an extraordinary political biography. Donis describes how his Marxist politics developed and how renouncing his US citizenship (for Italian) proved harder than leaving the Mafia, with federal agents grilling him and warning how people like him could suffer. It’s a people’s history rather than a conventional memoir.

Nick

-by Michael Farris Smith Michael Farris Smith takes the narrator of The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway, and imagines his life prior to the events of the classic novel. The first part of the story is set during WW1 and follows Nick’s fortunes on the front line in France – a long nightmare of bloody battles and constant fear. During short periods of leave in Paris he strikes up a relationship with Ella, a nomadic free spirit ….. an affair, that in his damaged state becomes all consuming. Psychologically broken, Nick can’t face going home as the war comes to an end. He detours, randomly to New Orleans and enters a sleazy, pre prohibition world of chancers, prostitutes, drugs and abject poverty. Nick falls in with some dangerous and desperate characters and a twisted drama plays out that has some strange echoes of the Great Gatsby storyline. In an introduction to the book MFS discusses his writing life, his bouts of depression and why he was drawn to Nick Carraway as a character (he too was a dislocated ex pat feeling his life was running away from him) and it’s interesting how these elements become important themes in the book. In The Great Gatsby Nick is an integral part of the plot but is also slightly detached, an honest outsider observing those around him, not quite connecting. In this novel his relationship to the story and characters felt similar. This was probably intended, but I wanted to know him more and really get under his skin. His PTSD, emotional background and family life were well described but I still felt he was an enigma. I never felt that I fully understood his actions. Michael Farris Smith is a very good writer and creates a convincing picture of post WW1 New Orleans. […]

Technologies-of-control-figure The Mirror website

Break up big tech, make it fairer

With billions of people now members of social media networks such as Facebook and the all-pervasiveness of big tech throughout many aspects of our lives, conversations about digital citizenship have never been more important. Seeta Peña Gangadharan writes that despite efforts by the Obama administration in the late 2000s to improve digital citizenship, the US information economy has now become one characterised by surveillance, targeting, nudging, and manipulation so that digital technologies represent a control rather than an opportunity. For people to be able to exercise a right to refuse these technologies, she argues, we need to reinvent what it means to practice civil disobedience in the digital era. Watch Professor Gangadharan’s recent TEDxLondon talk. It’s about time that we renewed a conversation about what it means an active digital citizen in the 21stcentury. The current conditions of our data-driven economy demand that we explore ways to deny technologies the possibility to control us. Unfortunately, Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, which was the Obama Administration’s signature digital inclusion policy effort, marks the last time the US government paid close attention to digital citizenship. Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009), the program channeled $4.7 billion aimed to drive economic prosperity, drive educational attainment, and create a more inclusive digital citizenry. But the history of the program reveals a cruel irony. While many—myself included—celebrated this policy as a means to meaningful participation in digital society (see here and here for examples), the toxic subprime loan industry and the historic financial crisis—which led to the Recovery Act and subsequent establishment of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program—provided a clue of what was to come in the country’s next chapter of the information economy: surveillance, targeting, nudging, and manipulation. As I’ve written elsewhere, the toxic subprime financial crisis relied on a thriving network of actors who helped enable demand for an inherently […]

Making a difference

The killing of George Floyd at the hands of police officers on May 25, 2020, caused a surge in anti-racist activism across the world. From Tokyo to Cape Town to Stockholm to Rio de Janeiro, Black Lives Matter protests advocating the basic principles of social justice – equity, rights and participation – have taken place in more than 60 countries. The social unrest has also ignited the debate about the role and responsibility of business as trustees of society to accelerate social progress. Racism is manifested in current social, economic and political disenfranchisement of historically marginalised and underrepresented ethnic groups such as the lack of opportunities, lower socio-economic status, higher unemployment and the racial wealth gap. Between Floyd’s death and the end of October, about one-third of Fortune 1000 companies responded by making a public statement on or commitment to racial equity, and the private sector pledged a total of $66 billion towards racial justice initiatives. Yet companies have been repeatedly reckoning with the gap between intentions and progress. There have only been 15 Black CEOs over the course of the 62 years of the Fortune 500’s existence, and currently, only 1% of Fortune 500 CEOs are Black. There are no Black female CEOs of the Fortune 500 and only three women of colour. Too often, company programmes take a broad-brush approach to diversity and offer uniform policies and training. These strategies fail to address norms and practices that are rooted in specific historical and societal patterns of exclusion, marginalisation and disadvantage. In addition, varying national laws and regulations, demographic compositions and societal norms across the world also mean organisations struggle to design common indicators and strategies. A global coalition to boost effectiveness To address these challenges and drive systemic and sustainable change towards racial justice, the World Economic Forum is creating a global coalition […]

Will 2021 be the year of living dangerously?

As the third decade of the 21st century gets under way, we will look back on 2021 as a year when the future of our life on earth balanced on a fulcrum. But which way will we lean? Will we grind out a post-COVID-19 recovery along the lines of the recovery from the last great global financial crisis in 2009 towards a more dangerous future of higher consumption and emissions? Or will policy-makers, politicians, business leaders and civil society summon their collective imaginations, cooperative spirit and willpower to craft stimulus packages and investments that lead to a more sustainable, nature-friendly future? Last year broke yet more of the wrong kinds of environmental records. A peak temperature of 38°C inside the Arctic Circle. Wildfires in the Amazon that spread to the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland, driving a drought that cost Brazil’s agriculture sector $3 billion. Historic levels of flooding along the Yangtze, affecting 63 million people. More Californian fires to add to the $148 billion of losses from 2018’s fires. A record number of Atlantic hurricanes making landfall. 300mThe estimate of the number of people who live in places where climate-triggered flooding will likely occur by 2050 5xGreenland’s loss of ice when compared with the melt rate 25 years ago 23%The percentage of global climate change emissions that the degradation of ecosystems is responsible for $44tnOr one-half of all global GDP depends on nature and is threatened by its loss 1mThe number of species at risk from extinction Yet amid the storm clouds of grim statistics are some sunbeams of hope. Last year saw a doubling in the number of companies committing to net-zero targets. The election of Joe Biden means the three largest carbon emitters in the world – China, the EU and the US – have all committed […]

Review: Figuring by Maria Popova

Figuring, by Maria Popova, publisher of Brain Pickings, explores the complexities of love and the human search for truth and meaning through the interconnected lives of several historical figures across four centuries – beginning with the astronomer Johannes Kepler, who discovered the laws of planetary motion, and ending with the marine biologist and author Rachel Carson, who catalysed the environmental movement. Stretching between these figures is a cast of artists, writers, and scientists – mostly women, mostly queer – whose public contribution has risen out of their unclassifiable and often heartbreaking private relationships to change the way we understand, experience and appreciate the universe. Among them are the astronomer Maria Mitchell, who paved the way for women in science; the sculptor Harriet Hosmer, who did the same in art; the journalist and literary critic Margaret Fuller, who sparked the feminist movement; and the poet Emily Dickinson. Emanating from these lives are larger questions about the measure of a good life and what it means to leave a lasting mark of betterment on an imperfect world: Are achievement and acclaim enough for happiness? Is genius? Is love? Weaving through the narrative is a set of peripheral figures – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Darwin, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Herman Melville, Frederick Douglass, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walt Whitman – and a tapestry of themes spanning music, feminism, the history of science, the rise and decline of religion, and how the intersection of astronomy, poetry and Transcendentalist philosophy fomented the environmental movement.

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