The Interesting Times: Being Glue

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Being Glue

No Idea Blog

One of the recurring themes of my writing is legibility, the notion that different aspects of the world can be more or less legible. In one sense, making something legible can be very useful. As Peter Drucker said, "what gets measured, gets managed."

As Einstein pointed out though, "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." Legibility then is always something of a double edged sword - it can unlock a lot of productivity if managed well, but also destroy a lot of if you forget that there is more to reality than will fit in a spreadsheet.

This piece summarizes a talk on one of the ways in which legibility can fail in organizations: people doing the less legible, albeit very valuable, work can tend to get passed over. Some people are good independent contributors, but others are what the author calls "glue," the people that stitch together everyone else to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

How To Survive In The New Economic & Financial Order | Russell Napier

Hidden Forces

A thought-provoking conversation on economic history and what it might suggest about the path forward.

Napier discusses the seeming crumbling of the foundations of the post-Bretton Woods system of flexible exchange rates and dollar hegemony to speculate on what comes next in terms of an international monetary system.

They discuss inflation, war, and how to position oneself for a new world where old assumptions about monetary policy, risk-taking, and the power and influence of governments to shape economic opportunities will need to be rethought.

As with all macro predictions, I take it with a large grain of salt but having an understanding of the history is certainly helpful.

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