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Bucket lists

One item on it has always been a visit to the English town of Bath.  Lots of history in this place, and as was the case with Oxford, I was prepared to be disappointed. And like Oxford, I was not. Scratch one off the list, although it’s certainly a place I’d like to come back to.

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Behind this wall are the reconstructed Roman baths. The Great Bath itself is pretty authentic, as is some of the rest, enough so that the visit was certainly worthwhile. The Abbey next door, which sits on part of the Roman temple complex, is only the latest of a series of religious edifices on this site. Edgar, first king of all England, was crowned in one of these. As I said lots of history.

We stayed in the Harrington Hotel, recommended by Rick Steves. Ol’ Rick came through for us again.

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I’ve decided to add English country pubs to my bucket list.  Three of the most memorable were the Crown & Trumpet in Broadway (above), the Farmers Arms in Guiting Power, and the Snowshill Arms, shown behind and and to the right of the church, in the town of Snowshill. Now I can cross pubs off the list.  No, I think I’ll leave them on for a while.

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Merrier Olde Englande

First, I am happy to report that the parts of Stratford-upon-Avon down by the RST seemed to be much better preserved than the area around the Shakespeare birthplace. But still …

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Yesterday we hiked about 10 miles to Mickelton, which took us around the spectacular Meon Hill Fort. It’s easy to imagine Celtic kings scowling down from the heights while their Druids hurled insults and their warriors rolled stones upon enemy armies struggling up the hill. We spent the night at the Three Ways House Hotel and Pudding Club. I kid you not. The ale (Hooky) was quite nice, as were the puddings.

Continue reading →

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Merrie Olde England

Stratford-upon-Avon.  We start walking tomorrow morning, 10.5 miles to Mickleton.

As for Stratford, well, let’s just say that Helen GA does a more convincing Elizabethan village. And it’s faux Swiss.

I mean, a Subway right down from Shakespeare’s house???? You’d have thought that the town fathers (and mothers?) would have gone to any length to have preserved this place just like Will left it.

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So we abandoned downtown and hiked over to Anne Hathaway’s cottage, stopping on the way at The Bell pub for a Ruddles County ale.  Both were superb.  As we were finishing, the pub keeper sat down for a chat and directions to the Cottage, which turns out to be about a quarter mile away. The Bell met my test for a great local establishment: I may have heard one other American voice in the place.

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Rick Steves had recommended Anne’s house as an antidote to the hyper-touristy downtown, and it is lovely. The garden is in full bloom and the woods are invested with garden fairies.  Did I mention that Ruddles is an excellent ale? That, and some kind of kids festival from over the weekend.

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Merry Old England I

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Landed on time at LHR, 0725. At 0755,  we were off the plane, through immigration and customs, had our suitcases and were making our way to the Heathrow Express (are you listening, ATL??). At 10:45, we were checking into the Royal Oxford Hotel, which, despite its nondescript appearance and location right above a Korean restaurant, was delightful.  Recommend it highly.

I was also prepared not to like Oxford in general, what with all the PR and reputation, but 5 minutes out of the hotel and I was totally won over. This is the Memorial Garden at Christ Church College.

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Spinney on Lind

By now, most of you will have read Bill Lind’s piece on John Boyd that ran in the American Conservative this week. I learned of Bill’s article when Chuck Spinney sent it to his mailing list. Here’s Chuck’s introduction (reprinted with his kind permission):

Most readers of this list should be familiar with the name, if not the ideas, of the late American strategist Col John R. Boyd (USAF ret).  Boyd was my mentor and closest friend, and I am deeply indebted to him for the knowledge he so generously bestowed on me.  While no short essay can capture the entirety of Boyd’s thinking, attached below is an excellent introduction to what some might call John Boyd’s art of war.  It is written by my friend and colleague Bill Lind, a leading contributor to the Military Reform Movement in the 1980s.  Of particular importance is Bill’s concluding point about ‘open systems.’  But you need to understand Boyd’s work to understand the centrality of this point in strategy and grand strategy.

Lind’s essay is very timely, given that Republicans and Democrats alike have driven America into a grand-strategic cul de sac that is weakening our position abroad, while wrecking our democracy at home.  IMO, this grand-strategic trap is a self-inflicted wound and is well summarized by Lind. (Boyd’s criteria for a sensible grand strategy can be found here.)  Hopefully, Lind’s essay will tweak your interest in Boyd’s important work.

Exiting America’s grand strategic mess will not be easy because the Military – Industrial – Congressional Complex and its wholly owned subsidiaries in academia, the thinktanks, the pol-mil apparat, and the mass media have a vested interest in continuing down what has become a clearly a self-destructive evolutionary pathway.  A parasitical “faction” is now exploiting the interplay of chance and necessity to benefit itself at the expense of the “whole.”  Boyd’s ideas — particularly those relating to his moral design for grand strategy — offer a way to begin thinking about how to get off this pathway and return to one where the interplay of chance of necessity leads more naturally to salutary growth at home and abroad.

If you are not familiar with Boyd and his ideas, my advice is to start with Robert Coram’s superb biography, (about 100,000 sold and still in print).  It is by far the best general introduction to the man and his work.  Those interested in heavier lifting can dive into James Fallows’, Chet Richards,’ and Franz Osinga’s analyses of Boyd’s strategic thought.  For the truly masochistic, a complete compendium of Boyd’s briefings slides can be downloaded from this link.  But beware, these briefings are long, albeit highly condensed, idiosyncratic, and a bit didactical.  Nevertheless, determined readers will find their study to be infinitely rewarding, because like the writing of Sun Tzu, their essence is one of ever expanding timelessness.

Chuck Spinney
Cannes, France

Chuck and I have edited all of Boyd’s briefings, and the latest versions of these are available on our Articles page. The link that Chuck provides will take you to the Boyd archive at DNIPOGO, where you can also find pdf’s of the original charts in all their typewritten glory.

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New Edition of Path to Victory

My good friend and colleague, Don Vandergriff, Major, US Army, ret., has put his time in Afghanistan to good use. He writes:

I am proud to announce the availability of Path to Victory (2nd Edition), forward by Doug MacGregor (COL, USA, ret.).

A revised 2nd Edition of Path to Victory is available with two new chapters and updated information. I worked on it over the last six months at night while here in Afghanistan.

The Path to Victory is available now as a Kindle book on Amazon.  I hope to have paperback copies available in the next week or so.

Note that because it’s ~650 pages in the paperback form, Path to Victory will be priced at $24.99 (paperback) and $16.99 (Kindle).

The Path to Victory:  http://www.amazon.com/The-Path-to-Victory-ebook/dp/B00EHV3ADW/

Thanks, Don

Don published the original, The Path to Victory — America’s Army and the Revolution in Human Affairs, in 2002. It was a seminal text not only for the Army but for anyone looking for ways to make large organizations work better. I’m anxiously looking forward to reading this version.

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Tipping: The Aussies weigh in

James Fallows posted a comment on tipping from a reader in Australia:

We do not tip in Australia. We find it demeaning to the tipper and the tippee. We have a relatively egalitarian society (compared to the US), and social safety nets that preserve the dignity of the poor, the sick, the hapless and the downtrodden. Yet we are an aggressive capitalistic society, like the US. Why then, are there these differences?

Tipping, to us, is an insult. It insults our egalitarian core. It reminds us that we once were servants to undeserving masters. We have abandoned this relationship, and I can assure your readers, that levels of service (eg in restaurants), in Australia, are not seriously diminished by the lack of tipping.

I agree with Fallows’s assessment — that this certainly rings true — but the real point is not tipping, per se. It’s orientation, or rather orientation lock.

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Dismal science of airline travel

Airlines are not a public service, unless you fly a lot on C-17s and C-130s. Like many of the rest of us, they’re in the game to make money or at least not to lose so much that the stock price tanks and the CEO gets fired.

With that in mind, here’s an excerpt from a piece the New York Times ran week before last on the economics of business class travel:

Travelers in business and first class may represent 10 to 15 percent of long-haul seats globally, but they account for up to half of the revenue of airlines like Lufthansa or British Airways, says Samuel Engel, a vice president at ICF SH&E, an aviation consulting firm. … But there is only so much space inside a plane. As the more lucrative seats expand, the coach section often contracts, with more seats jammed into the same cabin space and more discomfort for coach passengers.

You should be able to read the handwriting on this bulkhead. I made my prediction a while back in “Newly merged airline ends coach service“, and we may get there sooner than I thought. If the economics swing just a little bit, coach will become a loss leader, sort of, and the bean counters will start pushing to end it:

Generally speaking, a first-class seat takes up the space of six to eight coach seats and a business-class seat takes up about four coach seats. The same is roughly true for ticket prices: first class is generally more than twice the price of business; business class is usually four times the price of coach.

As a bonus, they can get rid of all those pesky, whining, bargain-obsessed coach passengers.

Can you make money off coach? I don’t know. Maybe relaunch Sir Freddie Laker’s original Skytrain concept with used widebodies in an all-coach configuration flying only major city pairs? The rest of the country can go Greyhound. Once the majors exit the coach business, they won’t be as motivated to sabotage a discount start-up as they were back during the 1970s. May even be glad to have someone take it off their hands.

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Here’s a tip for you

As I was signing the credit card slip last week, I mentioned to the dentist that he was missing out on a sure source of revenue to the tune of about 18%.

“How? That would double my profit margin.”

“Above the signature, add a line for a tip.”

Ah, the simple solutions are often the best.  We had a polite, if maybe just a little strained, chuckle.

Tipping has always struck me as a bad way to run a business because it doesn’t reinforce the virtues that Boyd associated with superior performance in organizations. As you might recall from Certain to Win, for example, these included his EBFAS climate and his “Theme for Vitality and Growth,” IOHAI.  In particular, it doesn’t seem to do much to promote teamwork, such as wait staff pitching in to help out when one waiter became overloaded, or taking the initiative to solve non-wait-related problems in the restaurant (like tidying up common areas or making suggestions for improvement — kaizen).

Plus, it reinforces a caste system, with some staff on straight hourly wage, some on salary, and one particular group on sub-minimum wage plus tips. Not good for Einheit.

But then, the restaurant business isn’t one I know much about; I don’t have any Fingerspitzengefühl for it.

Turns out, though, that I may be right. Check out restaurateur Jay Porter’s article, “After I banned tipping at my restaurant, the service got better and we made more money.”

Note the conclusion, which might come straight out of Boyd:

By removing tipping from the Linkery, we aligned ourselves with every other business model in America. Servers and management could work together toward one goal: giving all of our guests the best possible experience. When we did it well, we all made more money. As you can imagine, it was easy for us to find people who wanted to work in this environment, with clear goals and rewards for succeeding as a team.

One you have everybody together as a team, you can start investing in people and really get the benefit from Boyd’s climate. You may even be able to evolve an implementation of the principles that underlie maneuver warfare and the Toyota Production System/lean production. History suggests that if you do, you’ll wipe the table with the competition (a little pun, sorry).

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Incestuous delusion

It’s coming up on 30 years since Chuck Spinney and the group working with Boyd coined the term “incestuous amplification.” You can Google it to see how it has entered the mainstream.

Some of the definitions roughly equate it to “groupthink” or to situations where people limit their associations to those who agree with them.  But the underlying idea can manifest itself in many other ways, none of them beneficial to an organization’s ability to thrive and grow or even to survive.

Chuck’s definition is:  “It occurs when the preconceptions in the decider’s Orientation (which is his/her repository of ideology, belief systems, cultural heritage, previous experiences, education, genetic heritage, etc) misshape the Observations feeding that Orientation.”  As he notes: “Once IA is set into motion and is left uncorrected, it always tears any decision cycle to pieces from within. Boyd showed why there are very fundamental epistemological reasons for this unfolding evolution.” For more detail, see Chuck’s essay “Incestuous amplification and the madness of King George.” Continue reading →