Alan Weiss' The Uncomfortable Truth

Macroaggressions should be pretty obvious, but even they are often ignored because they are too common. I’ve been involved in shining a light on them for some clients. “Micro” means small and often “unimportant.” So what are “microaggressions”? Well, it certainly is rude to ask an Asian student you don’t know to help with your math homework, which is based on a stereotype. It’s equally rude to ask 6’6” black people if they’re at the university on a basketball scholarship. I know a priest who is that size and immediately says to new people that he never played sports. He’s rather dour at times, and I think it’s because he’s seen too much rudeness that other people simply think is humor. “Dour” isn’t good for a priest. Recently, the leading candidate for superintendent of Easthampton Public Schools claimed he lost his job offer for using the word “ladies” in an email to two women on the board. He said he was “shocked” because he “grew up in a time when ‘ladies’ and ‘gentlemen’ was a sign of respect.” Some of

It’s seldom that you can receive uncomplicated answers about the economy and the impact of these turbulent times. Ask five “experts” and you’ll get seven opinions. So I was overjoyed that Lee Duckworth and Larry Dooley from Capital Wealth Management were able to join me and respond to questions about unemployment, bank failures, the Fed’s actions, the TINA principle, and the TARA principle. (I hadn’t heard of these, either, but they make a lot of sense and you’ll see how they’re changing when you listen to the interview.) We chat about the primacy of cash for individuals and organizations in turbulent times, and what some bare minimums are to consider. I’ve always advised people entering professional services that they should have a minimum of six months of regular expenses in the bank when they launch their practice. Find out if I’m right or wrong. We discuss the very low unemployment we’re experiencing and the fact that there are two jobs for every person seeking one. We review consumer spending, especia

We are largely in conflict with ourselves. This is assured to be destructive to everyone. One person complains that their sixth grader saw the great art work, The David, complete with genitalia, of course, and the teacher is fired. A solitary coach praying on a football field after a game, win or lose, is voluntarily joined by some players and a few parents feel that this is a tectonic issue of church and state, despite the fact that athletes performing well and entertainers receiving awards regularly thank God in gesture and words. Politicians with opportunities in front of them are struggling to deny that they have ever said “defund the police” even though their statements have been captured on tape. We use the “woke” and grammatical horror “they” to refer to individuals, so that the listener doesn’t know if the reference is to one person or a group or a nation. Some doctors are actually endorsing physically-altering therapy for pre-teens and teenagers who claim they identify with the opposite gender.

I’ve known Suzanne for about 20 years. She is the relatively rare example of the founder of a boutique firm who successfully built up its valuation, decided to sell, found the right time to sell, overcame the interruption of the pandemic, and closed with an international buyer. Her journey is a huge example of talent, success, and plain grit. Originating in the media business as a news anchor, she migrated to communications education and training, offering her coaching services and gradually built a company which obtained Fortune 500 clients. She describes, in this interview, the challenges encountered and overcome, often not so easily. (She started preparing to sell five years before the sale was actually consummated.) We talk about the impact today of remote learning, ChatGPT, and leadership in ambiguous times. While it may sound grandiose to say that AI will “change the world,” there are precedents, such as the Industrial Revolution, right down to the advent of the internet (which no one predicted). Shou

Why is it that I trust the doctor when he simply says, “You look healthy, don’t worry, you’re not sick”? The first 90 seconds of your speech will determine how closely people pay attention to you. Not if they pay attention, but to what degree. It’s the difference between them taking notes and asking questions on the one hand, and checking their email under the table on the other. That applies to what you write, your conversations, and what you record, as well. We tend to immediately make conscious or unconscious notes about peoples’ attire, table manners, language, sense of humor, attitude, attention and focus, and emotions. Books are often judged by their covers. Haven’t you found that the plane’s cleanliness or lack thereof can affect your trip, or that the auto dealer’s service area gives you a lot more confidence when it’s spotless and uncluttered? What about the hotel lobby, and the doorman or desk agent? And certainly, when visiting a home, you take into account the grounds, the interior, the layou

Steven and I have known each other for over a decade. He’s an expert on a widely-studied field—teams—and a field not studied enough—honesty. In this conversation he explains about fear being the cause of a lack of honesty. He explains the novel notion that “It’s not what we say, but what we don't say.” Steven does believe that honesty is making a comeback, contrary to what many people may think. We talk about the government actually rewarding “whistleblowers” to come forward by offering seven- and even eight-figure payments, and the problems that creates when people make false accusations to try to get some of that money. We discuss the modern “guilty until proven innocent” reversal that seems to have taken hold of society and the media, as embodied by TSA: Prove to us that you’re not a terrorist. Steven doesn’t feel the pandemic dramatically changed teamwork but he does see a trend to get people back into the office because socialization is a huge part of effective teamwork, and you can’t do that remotely

In dealing with a global community of thousands—and hundreds of thousands who have read my books—I’m able to keep my finger on the pulse of the profession and its clients. I’m sharing in this podcast some of the repetitive discussions and challenges that are extant internationally. For example, “remote” now rules. It’s often the default interaction, and often represents more value, not less. (A huge amount of time and money are saved.) However, leaders are not sure how to deal with combinations of remote, onsite, and hybrid employees. They are frustrated that they’re not getting their “40 hours” of productivity from them, when, in fact, even employees in the office physically are not providing 40 hours of productivity! This goes back to “Scientific Management” and Frederick Winslow Taylor in the early 20th Century, the first time-and-motion consultant. The problem is that he fudged his numbers and never factored in fatigue and boredom. Supply chains are changing, but they’re changing from global (do we rea

Connie is a former anchor on two major networks. She has moved from broadcasting to coaching, consulting, and speaking with remarkable ease. She’s created her own psychometric testing instrument, and has clients on six continents. I’ve had the pleasure of working with her for many years, and her innovation about, and intelligence in, leadership and executive presence is creating state-of-the art interventions. We talk about the relationship of charisma, presence, and leadership. She tells us about how she became engaged in places such as Kuwait and Dubai, dealing with inclusion and equity.  Connie raises the issue of those who think they’re influential but really are not. (My term is “legends in their own zip code”). We focus on the differences among manipulation and actual, long-term, mutually supportive influence.  I ask her about the effectiveness of leaders in remote and hybrid environments and about the changes necessary intergenerationally. When I asked about a leader who exemplifies her beliefs abo

Well, is this a further step in the dehumanization of civilization, or a Jonestown Kool Aid romp, or another Y2K flop? When you put a variety of documents or fictional passages through the system, I find they are seldom improved and often seriously injured. In some cases, such as in instructions or directions, I think there is huge potential. But I examine in this podcast the downsides of people jumping on this latest “bandwagon” amid the pet rocks and hula hoops. Are we eager to “homogenize” writing? Or eager to duplicate with grammar what we’ve done with math, which only a few people seem to be able to do in their heads anymore. (I fall down laughing at people who can’t figure out a tip in a restaurant, so that the restaurants overcome this by suggesting percentages to tip and the amounts represented therein.) What does this mean for dissertations or term papers? What does it mean for book proposals or reviews? Are we going to live in a world of automated writing, automated math, autonomous cars, and sy

I’ve been staying at the Lotte Palace Hotel in New York City since it was solely “The Palace” and run by the legendary Leona Helmsley. It’s ideally situated on Madison Avenue between 50th and 51st, right across from St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and in easy walking distance to all Broadway plays and only about 300 good restaurants. Becky Hubbard has been the general manager for a dozen years amidst her 20 in the hospitality industry. We speak here about staffing and sustaining a highly supportive and polite work force; of the rebound since Covid; of international tourism rebounding; and of a day that had her walking home around eight at night, while her daughter tracks her location on her cell phone. She presides over a 900+ room, elite hotel which she calls her “inn” and has just overseen a $140 million renovation. We talk here about her preference for dealing directly with guests and the importance of the “first see, last see” front door staff. We discuss the dramatic rise in hotel charges to guests (in Fl

I recall walking out of a church in the twilight in San Diego and thinking it was horrible that store owners and residents had left their garbage on the sidewalks. As I came closer I realized these were homeless people who were being stepped over by pedestrians. There are almost 600,000 homeless people in the US according to 2022 statistics, and about 20 percent of them in California alone. They form communities for protection, but also suffer from crime, disease, addiction, and brutality. We have no cogent plan to deal with homelessness despite who is in political office. People buying homes in Los Angeles are often faced with the difficulty of finding one for a decent price with the reality that a few hundred yards away, beneath on overpass, are scores of homeless people, often violent and often ill. There are the mentally ill, who are protected from institutionalization by laws that actually place them in greater danger. There are the truly dispossessed, who have suffered from job loss, inflation, hous

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