Random Notes from a Crank

Whew. What a Saturday.

I started working at 9am and finished at approximately 7:30

Here's what Mrs. Nasty and I have been doing:

• We planted new flowers--mainly perennials.
• I put new mulch in almost all of the flower beds at the homestead: the front/east side flower bed, the new flower bed by the fence that I created in the fall, the semicircular flower bed around the back patio, and the slim bed that has prairie grasses in the backyard. 
• Sure, that might not sound impressive, but the mulching entailed 36 bags.
• That's three trips to Rural King.
• A bag of brown mulch costs $3.29 there.
• I planted three bell pepper plants (red, orange, and green), four collard greens, a mess of potatoes, and dill weed.

This whole deal today has me thinking about my buddy Foz who is getting married soon. From what I hear, his bride is moving into his house in South City after they get hitched. Carnac sees lots of painting, yard work, and home improvement projects in his future. 

When we go on bike rides, toward the end when he's tired, my son likes to describe his tiredness in this way: "My legs are crying." My body is crying. 

After reading Scott Page's The Difference, I've been thinking a lot about how groups of people work or don't work effectively together. One specific concept I've been thinking about is "groupthink." That is dangerous stuff.

Related to groupthink, I read an article in the March issue of The Atlantic called "Why Companies Fail." It mainly focuses on GM. But these statements are food for thought:

• "Even a dysfunctional culture, once well established, is astonishingly efficient at reproducing itself. The UCLA sociologist Gabriel Rossman told me, 'If new entrants assimilate to whatever is the majority at the time they enter, and if new entrants trickle in slowly, then the founding culture can persist over time, even if over the long run they make up a tiny minority.'"
• "To paraphrase an old joke: 'How many experts does it take to turn around a big company? Only one--but the company has to really want to change.'"

This comic might be related.