"Happiness depends more upon the internal frame of
a person's own mind than on the externals in the world."
George Washington
1732-1799
First President of the United States
and Commander of the Continental Army
“Prepare to be Amazed” (ChatGPT)
Executives need to not only know about ChatGPT, but experience its power first-hand. Vistage Speaker and CyberSecurity Expert Mike Foster offers some easy directions for doing so in a recent blog post. As he writes, “…..prepare to be amazed.” Check it out, ChatGPT is a new world, and you’re part of it. P.S. - ChatGPT has just passed an MBA exam created by a professor at one of the world’s best business schools: the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. That professor sums up his experience with this new tool in a short article in which he asserts “This is going to be big, and there is reason to believe we have only seen the beginning.” This short article from Knowledge at Wharton predicts “We’re not going to get the toothpaste back into the tube”. And last week it was announced that ChatGPT passed the US Medical Licensing Exam.
A Goal or a Mission?
One of the primary obligations of leadership is defining why a company exists and what goals it should pursue. It’s easy to confuse these terms or to elevate one over the other in importance.
That this is not just a theoretical exercise is evidenced by the heated debate between President John F. Kennedy and NASA administrator James Webb in 1962. Kennedy had committed the country to putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade and saw NASA’s mission in that context. Webb saw NASA’s mission as more general and strategic.
This short article from Strategy+Business, A Goal Isn’t a Mission, recounts their discussion and how it was finally resolved, with the moral being “Don’t mistake a goal - no matter how big hairy, and audacious – for a compelling organization mission.”
Are your company’s goals and mission meaningful?
Too Many or Not Enough?
Peter Drucker once defined demographics as the “the future that has already happened.” (e.g., the number of adults 21 years from now is already determined). Dr. Scott Galloway takes on the population debate in a recent “No Mercy, No Malice” blog post.
For many years, we were warned about “the population bomb”. Dr. Galloway thinks that the projected decline in population is a far greater problem…and it can’t be solved overnight…..and many of us living today will have to cope with the inevitable consequences in our businesses and our personal lives.
See what he has to say about “More Babies.”
Econ Recon: The Two Big Risks
A Triple Surprise: The most recent jobs report came in at nearly 3X the consensus expectation: 517,000 new jobs versus 187,000 projected, resulting in a 53 year low for the unemployment rate that now stands at 3.4%. Check out this quick summary for more.
The Two Big Risks: It’s a strange economy: another great employment report on Friday 2/3 yet forecasts for recession continue. Brian Beaulieu warns us that we can never identify all the risks, but shares the “Two Big Known Risks to our Macroeconomic Outlook.”
Neither Debt nor Deficit: It’s not like there’s not enough economic drama around us: inflation, war for talent etc. Now add in the political; namely raising the debt ceiling. Dr. Brian Wesbury offers a different view on this issue. He asserts that “The US federal budget is on an unsustainable path…but not for the reasons that most people think.” Find out what those reasons are in his latest blog post “Debt Limit Drama.”
A Note From Scott:
Friends,
How are you planning to learn, change and grow in 2023 - both personally and professionally?
The 22 members of my CEO peer advisory group are growth-minded. And focused on building company value.
If you want to learn and grow by leveraging the experience of successful peers, contact me to explore if you'd be a fit for our group.
Warm regards,
Scott
