Party Invite, Priest Chats

Invite: London party mingle, Aug 8. Podcast: chat with young priest, Fergus Butler-Gallie. Tips on a new job. Unintended consequences of quotas Growth. Theatre, Royal Court. Decline of Chippie.

• Invite: London party mingle meet-up, Aug 8

• Podcast: chat with young priest, Fergus Butler-Gallie

• Tips on a new job: for new hires 

• Board quotas: unintended consequences of quotas

• US growth: Tom Forth on the diversity of regional US laws

• UK Growth: Sam Bowman argues UK is behind and should focus on growth

• Theatre: Royal Court has a new artistic director, David Bryne

• Food: The decline of fish and chips

If you are reading this  and in London August 8th, consider yourself invited to my party mingle meet-up.  Eventbrite RSVP here.  Summer Party. For those of you around in London - come and meet-up. I will provide pizza. 

My own interests are broad (see my podcast Ben Yeoh Chats personal podcast series) but range across: progress, sustainability, creative arts, theatre, investing, economics, philosophy, education, food, autism and everything that makes humans human.

I used to say these mingles were for people to reach out across silos. Now I think they are probably just excuses for a party. Maybe that’s a good thing. As conversations between people are still one of the things that spark change.

I made a list of tacit knowledge tips for a new hire. It’s a little bit “Linkedin cringe” but the advice is - IMHO - completely sound. For offices workers mostly.

1. Always deliver on or before time. That means learning to say “No” and judging when taking on too much means you will fail to delivery on work.

2.      Calendar. Learn to sync and block your calendar. You need to be never late. You need to block out time to write/read/work that your manager/anyone can not take over. You need “making” time. You will need to protect it. (Likely 3x 2-3 hour blocks a week min. you will need for work)

3.      Managing up. To do this, you will need to learn manage up. Manage expectations appropriately. Let those above you know what’s happening at the frontline. Ideally, you will want to find mentors as well. In your business as well as in adjacent firms. Mentorship goes beyond work too.

4.      Clothes. Personally, I don’t care about clothes but it is a signal. In your first year (unless you have a certain personality – and I do!) dress close to the median of your office. And for any clients dress to meet their expectations – you want to match the culture they signal.

5.      Be reliable. This follows from being on time, and always delivering. If you agree to something, you do it. If you don’t, won’t or can’t; you need to speak up and explain why an idea or taks won’t work.

6.      Learn your office culture. Assume your company has values and purpose. Align with them. If there is misalignment… talk to a mentor (see 3.)

7.      Have an email system. Ditch or replace any silly personal email addresses. You will need a personal email, if it sounds silly, now is the time to create a new one. You will also need a system to deal with email. Being overloaded on email is a common failure mode.

8.      Be pro-social. You need to build “relationship and social capital”. This is best done by being pro-social.

9.      Shadow and learn. Find people to shadow. Learn all the tacit, intangible information you can not learn on video but gain from being in person.

More in the comments to the post as well.

I have an excellent chat with priest, Fergus Butler-Gallie. Fergus gave me wide ranging thoughts about what it is like to minister in English communities today. Both the joy of really helping in a community but his obvious frustration with the technocracy.

He argues for an old tradition of more a quirky, but full of faith and grace, life. The challenge reflects broader trends in society. The Church challenge reflects the centralising forces in British bureaucracy as well - cf. the government in the last 20 years.

Many of us are not close to religion any more but it’s still a large force out in the world. It’s also been one of the major factors in the development of human society. I think it’s worth engaging and listening into Fergus is one way in.

Fergus Butler-Gallie is a priest and writer. His latest book, Touching Cloth, is a memoir on his time as a priest in Liverpool.

We cover many topics relating to Fergus's life, work, and perspectives on faith and the Church of England. I also ask him what he would do with the Church of England if he had a magic wand.

Fergus provides insights into life in Liverpool, discussing local culture, diversity, and the famous Liverpool accent. He argues that many stereotypes and assumptions about the city are inaccurate.

We explore how Fergus's time as a minister in Liverpool impacted his faith, with Fergus sharing that it was an overall positive experience that affirmed his sense of calling.

Discussing the Church of England, Fergus critiques the managerial bureaucracy and argues for decentralization and a return to an earlier model. He wants more inspiring, eccentric bishops.

We discuss eccentric reverends from history that Fergus has chronicled, including a food-obsessed dean who famously ate the mummified heart of King Louis XIV. Fergus shares thoughts on the Eucharist and transubstantiation, after I suggest an analogy to actors embodying a role. We discusses how wearing a clerical collar changes how one is perceived.

"Dean Buckland was dean of Westminster, which is a very high profile job in the Church of England. And he made it his mission to try and eat everything that had ever existed. So he ate mice, he ate tadpoles...And they go and say, "Oh, now we reach the most impressive thing that we have." And they're very carefully taking it out this casket. And they said, "Because you're such a privileged group of people, we're going to hand it around to all of you. And this is the mummified heart of King Louis XIV smuggled out of France at the revolution and now kept here in our private museum." And it goes around all the people. They look at it and think, "Oh, this is amazing. This is wonderful." It gets to Dean Buckland, he looks at it and he says, "I've never eaten King before." And he pops it in his mouth."

We play a short game of over rated under rated and end on Fergus’ life advice.

Fergus rates: James Bond, the British monarchy, Afternoon tea, The House of Lords, Double decker buses , Black cabs, Pubs, and Cricket. On life advice:

Fergus recommends reversing our instincts - don't take seriously what we think we should, and take seriously what we think we shouldn't. For those considering ordination, he advises prayer and cautions it's not for everyone. "There are things in life that should be taken seriously and there are things in life that should not be taken seriously. The real thing to realize is that they're the opposite way around to the way you think they are. Anything you think should be taken seriously, don't take it seriously. Anything you think should not be taken seriously, take it seriously."

Podcast available wherever you listen. Video available on Youtube or Transcript link and full exposide here.

Does Mandating Women on Corporate Boards Backfire? This paper is quite challenging. The authors argue that board quotas lead to lower share of female employment. This is again the unintended consequences of a solid progressive aim.

Abstract: Despite a growing number of countries mandating women on corporate boards, little is known about the impact of these mandates on gender equality outside the boardroom. Exploiting the staggered adoptions of board gender quotas in Europe, we document a significant post-quota drop in the share of female employment across countries and industries. To shed light on the underlying mechanism, we apply textual analysis to job ads in the US to detect gender biases and quantify firms' labor demand preference for different genders. We find that firms with a high female director share write less female-friendly job ads, suggesting lower female labor demand. This is especially true among firms that face less competition, lack female leadership, or are Republican-leaning. Tracking changes around the 2018 California board gender diversity statute provides causal evidence. Additional analysis based on employee reviews and labor-related violations reveals that backlash persists after women are hired. Overall, our results highlight that board gender quotas trigger backlash among firms, worsening female labor market outcomes.

SSRN link.

Debates on growth. Coming after the Progress Summit. Sam Bowman argues the UK is behind and UK should focus on growth.  Tom Forth argues the diversity in the US regional federated system is its strength.  (This might in part explain Switzerland too? If this idea is correct)

Bowman argues:

“...My claim is that the UK is now a lot more like Poland than it is like the United States in terms of the kinds of growth it needs to do – driven by improved use of existing technology and inputs, and accumulation of capital, rather than driven primarily by technological advancement. With the exception of a few sectors like AI, we are so far behind the frontier in terms of economic development that worrying about technological progress doesn’t make much sense, and at worst is a serious distraction. …” Full post here.

Forth argues:

“...It is the USA’s diversity in unity that I think remains a superpower and one of its unique advantages over the UK.

Before you start reaching for data on ethnicities, disabilities, sexualities, women on company boards, variety of accents, languages spoken at home, or anything else, I’m not talking about that kind of diversity. The UK and the USA are not too dissimilar there. Today both countries do well on most of those things, and much better on almost all than they did in the surprisingly recent past.

The diversity I want to talk about is in the law.

Full post here.

I think both sets of arguments have some merit even if I don’t think the strongest forms are completely correct. The real economy continues to be complex. But - if you believe these arguments - the broad answers - more local devolution particular at the metro / city / regional area and a focus on what might unlock growth (eg housing, planning; local transport - Tom is keen on buses) are probably part of the answer.

In theatre world, anyone who follows British theatre knows that the Royal Court will have a new Artistic Director. The newAD, David Bryne,  is very well regarded for new theatre work. Why is this important? 

British theatre remains one of the few centres for live performing new writing. While Netflix and Hollywood continues to curate screen new writing. Theatre still centres in London and New York and a few regional centres.

The Royal Court remans a lodestone for new writing. The direction the Court heads in influences where story telling and theatre making goes both in its direction or in its opposition, or in conversation with the work that goes on there.  Press release here. 

The slow death of fish and chips. I’m reading the latest Fuchsia Dunlop in anticipation of a podcast with her in August. Any questions, let me know.

Echoes of what she writes about the loss of certain kinds of artisanal and labour intensive Chinese food, and how that reflects trends in wider society, I found echoed in this Tom Lamont long read on looking at fish and chips.

Lamont asks:

“It is an article of faith that fish and chips tastes better – best – when eaten by the sea. I’ve agreed with this sentiment all my life, without wondering why it might be so, except to think that being near a shoreline must equate to freshness of fish.”

This was explored by Heston Blumental and he has made a deconstructed version. 

To me, the obvious component is the place, smell and cultural memory we bring to our meals and occasions. 

A meal you have on holiday has all the connections of holiday with it, so the meal brings much more than the raw ingredients. That’s why we can value experience in our memories so much.

His piece is really a social anthropological insight, but I thought this bit on what we associate with fish and chips also note worthy.

When a chippie died, there was a huge number of mourners:

“...The following morning there was another extraordinary sight in Pittenweem. The village was full of people, not only Wyse’s family and friends but his customers, hundreds of whom had turned out to say goodbye. There were so many mourners that the church did not have enough pews. They ran out of standing room. Mourners left outside started to line the route to the cemetery and later joined the funeral procession as it passed. Wyse was buried next to his father, who had run the family shop before him….”

In my take, this in part is because we are mourning even more than the man, and his way of life; but a reflection of the community and an even larger way of life.

Worth the long read and reflecting.

Some idle reflections… If you take this piece together with the policy challenges, you can see how this can be a glimpse through one lens of the nation state of Britain. 

The Royal Court is the centre of the story we tell ourselves. Particularly the British elite. 

The decline of the fish and chippie. While local tourism is arguably up from Brexit, the frictional trade costs are unhelpful, inflation for the cost of potatoes and fish make a marginal profitable  business become breakeven or loss making. 

Fish in the 1960s was a fairly cheap protein, and potatoes a cheap carbohydrate. Today that is no longer quite true. 

The way we eat, the community in how we eat, how we spend our money has changed. 

New jobs or new training will unlikely help the older generations. Perhaps their children and grandchildren. Same for growth.  Perhaps local Infrastructure would help and local (lack of) rules could help at the margin. 

But perhaps like the eel shops before them, this style of chippie faces a slow decline.