The Weekly Distillation: No.3
Schools; Leadership; Long term planning; Habits; Isolation; Art; Economy; Bourbon
The long term perspective on a series of short term moments.
Skim it in a minute
Why our children need to learn to reinvent themselves. This Yuval Noah Harari article from 2018 seems perfectly apt in the midst of debates about how to return to school.
Are you leading through the crisis or managing the response? “ The most effective leaders in crises ensure that someone else is managing the present well while focusing their attention on leading beyond the crisis toward a more promising future.”
Why we need to be thinking about the new normal for the long term and not just the immediate. What would this look like for your own life and your organisation in 2020 and 2021 if you followed this approach?
My writing this week
This week I wrote about building habits to help at home and at work. How we can’t control our context. Why we can control our behaviours through habits. And how to develop habits with a simple three-step process.
A long read for the weekend
This article from the Economist about an experiment in living in the dark is fascinating. Artists often go to the extreme to make a point, and this is a good example. Grab a coffee or two and take time to savour this.
But are there applications to our own life and that of those that we lead?
What’s happening to our mental health whilst we are in lockdown?
What are the gaps in our relational structures that are failing us in a way that drive us into isolation, getting wrapped up in our own heads and lead us to escapism as the answer to the world’s problems?
What are the habits that we can cultivate personally and organisationally that filter the noise and create healthy rhythms to rebuild on?
As we step back into post-lockdown life, can we filter the increasing noise and find the healthy rhythms of team in a way that enhances our personal and organisational resillience?
The other weekly distillation
“the action of purifying a liquid by a process of heating and cooling.”
A light and quick look at Spirits that have caught my eye or tongue.
This week's distilled spirit is from a friend in the USA (and one that sits in my house also). It is a Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, Buffalo Trace. With a bourbon mash bill (the mix of grains to make bourbon) and a rye whiskey recipe, it sits at the base of a vast family tree of at least 15 labels and many reserve and limited-release variants within those labels. For <£30,$30, it’s often praised for feeling more like a £50/$50 USD a bottle and is rooted in America's Southern history. Missing your overseas summer holiday this year? This brings a little bit of the US south to you. You can see the distillery in Kentucky here with an interactive tour of the distillery.