NEXT ONE UP
Good day to you!
With the school buses no longer running, and fewer cars flowing toward the schools each morning, it is much easier for Nova and I to cross the street for our morning walks. I can already feel the slower summer vibes settling in.
Temperatures really popped in the Land of Legend this week…possibly resulting in some showers. I don’t know for sure, because I am writing this edition of the newsletter a couple of days in advance. Lori and I flew out to Oregon for the wedding of dear friend. The wedding was yesterday. Today, we sneak down the coast to the town of Bandon so that I can play a round of golf at one of my favorite places on earth. It’s expected to be breezy with a high of 59 degrees in Bandon today. Chilly, but playable. As the Scottish say, “Nae wind, nae golf.” There are few things more satisfying than a well-struck golf shot, the ball piercing through the wind toward the target.
This past week I listened to this podcast from Seth Godin, and it got my mental gears spinning. In it, he describes the hiring practice of a bakery. They keep a list of people interested in working at the bakery. Whenever they have a job opening, they simply call the person at the top of the list and hire them. No interview, they just hire them. “You have the job. Can you start tomorrow?”
It reminds me of college football coaches in post-game press conferences. Because football is a brutal sport, players are often injured. So often, in fact, that there is a common phrase in the game: “Next Man Up.” For players, this means to always be prepared to go into a game, because an injury could force the starter to exit at any time.
An interesting thing about the bakery, and other business who have similar open hiring practices: They generally have lower turnover than their peers who use more traditional hiring practices. They perform better on other metrics as well. I wonder how broadly this notion might apply while observing similar effects. What if we are not very good at predicting how well someone will perform in a given role? What if our culture was more open to allowing people to try new things, regardless of experience?
In the realm of dating, what if people signed up for a service and it just randomly paired people for dates? The only requirement being that you had to actually spend some time with the person you were paired with before you could be assigned another date. Arranged marriages experience a much lower divorce rate. I’m sure there are many factors contributing to this, but one of them must be the context in which the union is formed - semi-randomly putting two people together, and their job is to figure it out. Both are vulnerable, perhaps unsure. It is in both of their interest’s to work cooperatively. Ands somehow it works out more successfully than the outcomes associated with “playing the field.”
What if it were culturally acceptable, even expected, to have your name on a few job lists with different companies, all the time? Every once in a while you would receive a phone call notifying you that you were the next person up on the hiring list at a different company. The perfect opportunity to evaluate your current position, comparing against the new opportunity. If you are quite satisfied with the status quo, just pass on it. If not - maybe you leap at the chance to work elsewhere. Both scenarios are good, I think. In the former you would essentially be “renewing your vows” with your current employer. And in the later, one company would lose a less-than-fully-engaged team member, with another receiving a new teammate who is eager for a fresh start doing something new. Win-Win.
Maybe we’re getting in our own way more than we need to. Maybe we should let random chance play a bigger role in our lives. It might force us to grow, become more adaptable in general. Who knows? I’m sure this isn’t a silver-bullet solution to everything, but probably worthy of broader adoption.
Sunday Supper
I made these Chicken Kebabs this past week, and they were delicious. This Fattoush salad recipe would be a great accompaniment, and these Cherry Hand Pies would be a rocking dessert.
Sunday Music
I discovered Margaret Glaspy earlier this year, and shared some of her work in this newsletter (back in February). Well, she has a new album coming out in August, and she released the first single. It's great. I really love her sound - it reminds me of a performer who helped define culture during my college years, Miss Juliana Hatfield. Enjoy both of these powerful, rocking' women today!
Have a great week ahead! Offer support to others. Make good use of this day. And let me know how I can help.
Peace & Love,
Neal