All posts tagged: difficult task

Think Twice Before Taking the Top Job

Think Twice Before Taking the Top Job

Published by Sam

Want to stay current with Arthur’s writing? Sign up to get an email every time a new column comes out. I teach many young adults who aspire to be leaders in the private and public sectors. In their classes, they study inspiring cases of success, but they also learn that a good education is no guarantee that things will go well for them. Indeed, as the Harvard Business Review reminds us, some 50 to 70 percent of new executives in private business fail in their role within 18 months of being hired or promoted. We don’t have comparable numbers for the public and nonprofit sectors, but success is far from assured there as well. The reasons usually presented for leadership failure are predictable enough: an inability to build a team, poor communication skills, an unwillingness to do hard things, selfishness, misconduct or moral turpitude, and so forth. But one huge reason that I have seen again and again almost never gets serious attention: Leaders fail when they hate being the leader. People commonly assume that …

Taika Waititi Has Lost a Step

Taika Waititi Has Lost a Step

Published by skeptic

Next Goal Wins is a dire, uncomfortable watch that misuses Taika Waititi’s breezy humor. Searchlight Pictures November 15, 2023, 8 AM ET Taika Waititi made a name for himself by finding the funny in dark topics. His breakout movies include What We Do in the Shadows, a shaggy hangout comedy about bloodsucking vampires, and Hunt for the Wilderpeople, about a wayward foster kid on the run from child protective services. Waititi’s breezy sense of humor, combined with his willingness to tackle thorny subjects, made him an interesting talent in the world of comic filmmaking. His first Hollywood project was Thor: Ragnarok, a film that blew an extended raspberry at the Marvel Cinematic Universe but still managed to work within its complicated lore, earning plaudits as the Marvel movie for people who don’t like Marvel movies. A film like Next Goal Wins, Waititi’s latest comedy effort, is about lovable underdogs triumphing against the odds—theoretically a far lighter lift than vampires, foster homes, and figuring out what’s up with Loki. An inspirational sports comedy based on a …

Tell Me How This Ends

Tell Me How This Ends

Published by skeptic

In the year leading up to the invasion of Iraq, technocrats in Washington deployed their laptops and prepared for war. Their plans for the governing structures that would replace Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship filled bulging white papers, organizational flowcharts that spilled across thick binders, and dense memoranda for managing esoteric ministries. Israel is on the brink of testing a far different approach to regime change. Its leaders have announced a desire to dismantle the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip. Rather than entering battle with a carefully constructed blueprint for what might follow victory, though, they are winging it, improvising in the dazed aftermath of a devastating massacre that left its military and political leadership in a state of shame and confusion. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government announced its war aims before it had fully sketched out how it might effectively realize them. But the Israeli operation faces the same question that ultimately vexed the American project in Iraq: What comes next? Removing murderous Islamists from power solves one problem, but it creates another. Who will …

Give Invasive Species a Job

Give Invasive Species a Job

Published by skeptic

In 2014, William Simpson II was in his cabin in the Soda Mountain Wilderness area, near the California-Oregon border, when he heard a mountain lion screaming in the night. He got a flashlight and went outside. “I saw these big blue eyeballs seven feet off the ground,” he told me. Only once his eyes adjusted did he realize three black stallions were out there, staring right at him. Simpson had spent time with domestic horses—he had grown up on a ranch, before studying science and working in forest management and logging—but he had not known that wild horses spent their nights avoiding predators. He began closely observing the horses. Now, after more than 15,000 hours studying them, he has become an unofficial expert in wild horses, which many people consider little more than a nuisance. “I’m close enough to know what they smell like, what their feet look like, what parasites they have,” he said. He’s also gotten close enough to believe that the horses have a beneficial impact on the landscape, especially when it …