A Glimpse of the Future

Adobe

"The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet."

 —William Gibson

He made tomorrow seem joyfully possible. 

Attendance at a seminar decades ago in Orlando, Florida, featuring John Naisbett, was revealing, not for the contents of his 1982 best-selling book, Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives, which were already known, but for the speaker's optimism and excitement about the future. 

Naisbett, whose specialty was futures studies using content analysis, was on The New York Times best-seller list for two years, mostly at the top. The book was published in 57 countries and sold over 14 million copies.   

Some predictions were on the money, such as moving from an industrial to an information-based society, the rise of decentralized organizations, and the importance of biotechnology.

He thought that China and India's production capabilities would become increasingly irrelevant. Instead, they're among the top five countries in global manufacturing, with China number one, according to Safeguard Global reports.

Then there's this: "The political left and right are dead; all the action is being generated by a radical center." Just the opposite turned out to be the case.

As the Danish physicist, Niels Bohr, once said, "If you predict for a living, you have to predict often." 

What's already underway?

Naisbett, who passed in April 2021 at 92, said, "Trends, like horses, are easier to ride in the direction they are going."

His approach highlighted the importance of paying attention to underlying trends near you that are not yet obvious to everyone. Pattern recognition, an early awareness of themes that make sense of the world, is important for survival.   

Naisbett's associates read small-town newspapers to understand personal, social, and consumer behavior. Also, local politics. According to Northwestern University's Local News Initiative, over 3,000 print publications have closed or merged since 2005, rendering that technique obsolete.   

Unfolding in the moment

Here are developing stories of interest from our perspective:

Population growth continues. Dudley L. Poston, Jr., a professor of sociology at Texas A & M University, shines a light on this topic.

There will be more of us. At the start of 2020, the U.S. population totaled 321 million. It is likely to reach 350 million by 2030, and remain the third-largest country. China and India will remain the two largest countries, but India will overtake China as the most populous with 1.5 billion people by the end of this decade. 

Fewer babies are being born, bringing birth rates below replacement levels in Europe, Africa, Russia, parts of Latin America, and the U.S. How can a country grow with declining birth rates? Even with fewer babies per couple, a large cohort of young adults can result in more total births, says the Population Reference Bureau. 

The population will get older. In 10 years, there will be almost as many old folks (74.1 million) as younger ones (76.3 million). Many of the elderly will be baby boomers.  

Racial proportions will shift. At the beginning of the decade, non-Hispanic whites were still the majority race in the U.S., representing 59.7% of the population. By 2030, whites will have dropped to 55.8% of the population, and Hispanics will have grown to 21.1%. The percentage of black and Asian Americans will also increase significantly.  

A two-tier economy is driving growth — for now. There is a widening gap between high-income households and asset owners, who are thriving, while middle-income families struggle with stagnant wages and rising costs.   

The U.S. added approximately 379,000 millionaires in 2024, averaging 1,000 a day, according to the UBS Global Wealth Report. They join an estimated 24 million "millionaire population." That affluence shows itself in travel and leisure, real estate, investment opportunities, and philanthropy. 

Moody's Analytics reports that the top 10% of U.S. households now account for nearly half of all spending, which is up from 35% in the early 1990s.

"This is a post-pandemic look driven by soaring stock/housing values for the rich and reduced purchasing power for others," says economist Peter Atwater. That helps explain why affordability is a major issue for many individuals and families, with middle-income households spending selectively during the recent Christmas season. 

The corrosive effects of inflation. Even when inflation subsides, prices don't always follow. Utilities, insurance, vehicles, food staples (meat, dairy, coffee, baked goods), and repairs remain high. Rent and home maintenance are significant expenses. Drug, egg, and oil prices have come down. 

Inflation erodes purchasing power and stealthily steals the value of your savings and income over time. The overall inflation rate in the U.S. remains elevated, at 3% over the past year and 2.7% currently, well above the Federal Reserve's target of 2%. A single percentage point makes a big difference. At 3%, prices will double in 24 years; at 2%, it would take 36 years. 

AI arrives but requires human supervision. News about what AI can or will do appears daily. Immediate results are seen in disease detection and healthcare treatments. Small businesses are using generative AI to feed information from point-of-sale systems and QuickBooks for analysis. It's like having their own CFO.

In September of last year, ChatGPT, the leading consumer AI model, had almost 800 million active weekly users, according to the Times. 

Gartner forecasts that worldwide spending on AI will total $1.5 trillion in 2025, with a large share allocated to data centers. 

Norway's NEMKO, a safety testing and equipment approval foundation, posted, "Integrating human oversight throughout the AI lifecycle is crucial for organizations. This integration ensures that AI systems are not just technically competent, but also ethically aligned and socially beneficial."

Is AI a threat to entry-level employment? All employment? 

"AI optimism is largely confined to AI architects and executives calculating how much it can reduce headcount," writes Greg IP in The Wall Street Journal. Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Amazon, the leading promoters of AI, have all announced layoffs this year. 

In 2025, AI ranked sixth among the reasons for reductions, but that ranking is likely to move up in the coming years. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was the primary driver of total layoffs. Those terminations were in the federal sector and among related contractors, although some have returned to work. 

Immediate and substantial job disruptions are possible. Long-term, technological innovation has a history of creating net jobs, many of which we can't see from here. 

In the meantime, employers in more traditional fields struggle to find qualified, willing workers due to gaps in skills. Ford Motor Company CEO Jim Farley says he needs 5,000 well-trained mechanics  — now. These are positions with annual salaries of up to $120,000.

Screens take up more of our time. Nielsen reported that Americans streamed twenty-one million years of video in 2023, up 21% from 2022. Forbes estimates that there are now 1.8 billion subscriptions to online video streaming services worldwide. Streaming's share of viewing is now greater than the combined share of broadcast and cable. 

Tracking social media, Pew Research found that in addition to teens, a growing share of U.S. adults use Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, and Reddit, but YouTube remains the most popular source. 

While there are over 4.5 million podcasts indexed globally, only around half a million update their programs regularly. Video podcasts are growing in number, but audio formats remain dominant for many. 

Neil Postman's highly influential book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, published 40 years ago, offered something Megatrends didn't — a prescient look at the future of television and entertainment. His arguments were about the dominance of form over substance, the manipulation of perception through advertising, the emotional power of images, and the media's prioritization of spectacle over depth.  

Postman's prediction that society would succumb not to censorship but to distractions has come true. 

K-12 education's disturbing look. The Center on Reinventing Public Education, a research group at Arizona State University, reported that the average American student is "less than halfway to a full academic recovery from the effects of the pandemic five years ago." 

The CRPE says that in the spring of 2023, just 56% of American fourth graders were performing on grade level in math, down from 69% in 2019. Recovery in reading has been slower, with some researchers finding essentially no rebound since students returned to the classroom. 

Education Week studies show that 22% of students, or 10.8 million, are chronically absent, missing 10% of school, a figure higher than pre-pandemic levels, especially in urban areas.

Teachers say kids can't write a sentence or pay attention to a three-minute video. The switch to remote school, along with the trauma of a global health emergency, dealt a blow to students' learning, the Times concluded. 

At the other end, employers see error-filled applications and difficulty with basic work documents, such as emails and proposals. 

An era of groundbreaking pharmaceuticals. In just over a year, the percentage of U.S. adults taking drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound more than doubled to 12.4%, according to Gallup. The survey also reported that the obesity rate fell from almost 40% in 2022 to 37% in 2025. 

Approval for a pill version of Wegovy was granted to Norvo Nordisk by the Federal Drug Administration to begin this year, with a cash price of $149 per month for the starting dose. 

Side effects notwithstanding, The Washington Post reports that these types of drugs could be revolutionary, extending lifespan and improving quality of life. Not to mention how people spend their time and money.

Needless to say, weight-loss drugs for the masses have potentially far-reaching humanitarian and societal benefits.

What discoveries are next? 

Home ownership is in jeopardy. Even as existing home sales have increased in the past few months, a low housing supply and high prices ($415,000 median price for existing homes per the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) are discouraging buyers. The median age of first-time homebuyers was 40 in 2025, up from 28 in 1991, based on data from the National Association of Realtors.

Those under 44 saw significant growth in ownership beginning in 2019, but households under 35 saw declines due to affordability constraints, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Before the pandemic, families earning $75,000 a year could afford to buy about half of all listings. As of March 2025, these households could afford only 21% of listings, says the NAR. 

The need to rediscover statecraft. "Do you not know, my son, with how very little wisdom the world is governed?" was said by Axel Oxenstierna, the Chancellor of Sweden, in a letter to his son Johan around 1648. This quote highlights the often irrational nature of political power and governance. Results from a 2025 Bentley/Gallup survey show that fewer than a third of U.S. adults trust Washington to act in society's best interests.

When good government occurs, it results from elected leaders being in touch with constituents, having strong moral character, and legislative skills. 

Governing is hard work. A polarized culture makes it even harder.

A youthful search for faith. A variety of sources, including Dr. Ryan Burge from Washington University, The Lowy Institute, CNN, and Pew Research, have reached a consensus. There's a notable trend of increased faith and spiritual seeking among young adults (Gen Z and Millennials). This is marked by a rise in church attendance, belief in a higher power, and interest in Jesus. All are seeking hope and a sense of belonging in uncertain times. Observers say it's a search for meaning that continues despite the overall decline in religion. 

Finding our way

"The most exciting breakthroughs of the 21st Century will not occur because of technology but because of an expanding concept of what it means to be human," said John Naisbett. 

That insight was penned four decades before the advent of AI.

Knowing who we are and what we believe matters. Moral bearings, the internal sense of right and wrong, are necessary to help navigate a sometimes confused world. Since we can only glimpse the future, not fully predict it, the better position is to remain self-aware, flexible, and clear about our purpose in life. 

Regardless of the unknowns, Naisbett would encourage us to be, as previous generations were, hopeful and expectant about tomorrow. 

Strategist.com

© Bredholt & Co.

How Will I Know When It's Time to Go?

Warren Buffett, Chair and CEO, Berkshire-Hathaway, Inc. CNN Business

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on."

—Robert Frost

In moments of reflection, clients have sometimes asked, "How will I know when it's time to go?"

That's a difficult question for an outside party to answer. A decision of that magnitude is usually the result of a cascade of experiences rather than a sudden reaction to life. Although moments of finality can arise quickly. 

On May 3, 2025, at the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, Warren Buffett concluded a five-hour question-and-answer session by announcing to a stunned audience at the CHI Health Center that he would be stepping down as CEO at the end of this year. Only two people knew this in advance—his son, Howard, and daughter, Susan, both members of the Berkshire board.

The plan is for Buffett to remain Berkshire's board chair, with Howard as his heir apparent to help safeguard the organization's culture.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal published on May 14, Warren Buffett said he can't put his finger on exactly when he decided to turn the business over to his designated successor as CEO, Greg Abel. 

"There was no magic moment," Buffett, then 94, said in that interview with the Journal. "How do you know the day that you become old?" He added, "I didn't really start getting old for some strange reason until I was 90. But when you start getting old, it does become—irreversible."

First, Buffett began to lose his balance and sometimes had trouble recalling people's names. "Suddenly, he said, newspapers I read looked like they were printed with too little ink." 

Hearing became a problem, too, as he and long-time business partner and sounding board, Charlie Munger, who passed two years ago just shy of 1o0, talked by phone between Omaha, Nebraska, and Los Angeles. 

Buffett was 34 when he took over Berkshire Hathaway, a floundering New England textile maker, in the spring of 1965, initially purchasing shares at $7.50. A share of Berkshire Class A stock, with major holdings in Apple, Coca-Cola, GEICO, Dairy Queen, and See's Candies, closed on Friday, November 28, at $770,100.00. 

Longevity of leadership

Frequent turnover in top positions can harm an organization's health and its ability to fulfill its purpose and implement its strategy. Yet, staying too long poses its own set of risks. Striking the right balance becomes a stabilizing force, especially in troublesome times. Succession planning is therefore a must.

Longevity and leadership are not the same things. There has to be something more to qualify an executive for an extended term than availability. Warren Buffett's investment skills make that point. 

As of the end of September, 43 CEO exits had been announced this year, a 79% increase from the same period in 2024, according to a report from Challenger, Gray, and Christmas. Executives from Kohl's, Kroger, X (formerly Twitter), and Amtrak are among those who left office this year.

Why chief executives are leaving varies. Most simply state they are "stepping down" from their roles, as Walmart CEO Doug McMillon did, reflecting an orderly transition. "Retirement" or "no reason given" were also listed. 

Others leave, too

As much attention as those at the top generate for coming and going, employees in all walks of corporate life come and go as well. Managers, supervisors, and front-line workers think about leaving at different times, especially when co-workers do. 

Major contributors often find it difficult to quit with responsibilities for teams and business units. 

"Quitting as a manager can inadvertently send the wrong message to your future employers. It may raise questions about your ability to handle challenges and resolve organizational issues," writes Jason Evonish. "Depending on how long you have been at your current role, and the nature of your departure, future employers may wonder if you're someone who jumps ship at the first sign of trouble," Evonish adds.

However, being an unhappy manager or office worker can impact those around you. Gallup calls this the "cascade effect."

Camille Fournier, former vice president of technology at Goldman Sachs, offers this advice: "Senior leadership is a hard job. It requires stamina to handle many painful setbacks, interpersonal challenges, and stressful decisions. But that doesn't mean that you have to let yourself get burned out completely." 

Fournier makes the point of regularly checking in with yourself.

"If you spend 3, 6, or 9 months being miserable due to your job, you are risking burnout. Once there, it's hard to bounce back without taking some time off work completely," Fournier adds. "Your team deserves a leader who can give them the right positive attention and energy." 

Nineteenth-century evangelist, publisher, and educator, Dwight L. Moody, said, "I am weary in doing the work. I am not weary of the work."

Moody's thought would resonate with many.

Why leave

While valuing loyalty as a two-way street, Lead-from-the-Heart author Mark Crowley offers two primary reasons why leaving a company would make sense.

"The first would be if the company changed in some way, or if I were given a boss who treated me disrespectfully, or failed to support my needs in important ways.  

"The other reason has little to do with the current employer, and far more to do with a chance to do work that really challenges and makes your heart sing."

Leaving is not always our decision. We can be nudged out, or the working relationship can be terminated, as with the significant layoffs announced at Verizon, Amazon, and UPS. To quote the best-selling author, Arthur Brooks, "Sometimes you leave before you're ready or on someone's terms." 

Legitimate departures include retirement, health, limited growth prospects, and strategic differences. (Oggitalent.com, Schaef and Fassel)

It may be time to see more of the world (and your grandchildren) while you can. 

How to leave

John Quelch, a British-American academic and former professor at the Harvard Business School, suggests ways for leaders to leave. How to resign with grace and class—without burning bridges along the way:

Think it through. Discuss your career ideas and concerns with family, adult children, and two or three individuals whose judgment you trust.

Meet with the boss. No one likes a surprise exit, so don't walk into the boss's office and declare you've had enough. Be prepared to discuss your concerns, career prospects, and workplace culture with your supervisor. Would you stay under different circumstances? 

Prepare your departure announcement. Ask your boss or board chair for permission to see and contribute to the announcement before it's released. Avoid a statement that you are leaving to pursue other opportunities or spend more time with family. If possible, coordinate any announcement with one about your successor.

Advise, but only if asked. Your boss or human resources may ask for your opinions about who should succeed you. Give fair and balanced responses, but do not discuss these opinions with others in the organization. 

Sequence your communications. Make a plan for informing people. Especially a personal assistant, direct reports, and other close colleagues. 

Keep calm and carry on. Once the news is out, plenty of gossip is bound to circulate about why you are leaving and where you are going next (if those details were not included in the announcement). Usually, you won't hear from those who are pleased or relieved to see you go. Second-guessing a decision is normal. 

Prepare to exit. Consider preparing reference letters for trusted colleagues to add to their personal files. Leave a broom-clean office, arrange to have your computers cleaned, and hand in the office and parking area keys. Avoid fanfare on your final day. 

In deciding on matters of great importance, Pericles said, "Time is the wisest counselor of all." Meaning experience alone reveals and clarifies the circumstances before us. So it is with Warren Buffett, who is choosing to leave on his own terms, not someone else's.  

Strategist.com

© Bredholt & Co.

 

 

 

The Act of Giving

 iStock

"No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another."

—Charles Dickens 

The results are in from Giving USA's 2025 report (for calendar year 2024) with a record $592.50 billion in charitable giving, a 6.9% increase in current dollars, and a 4.2% increase when adjusted for inflation. 

This is the first time in three years that total giving has outpaced inflation. 

Generosity —giving to others freely and abundantly —is alive and well, as donors continue to give of themselves and their financial resources to causes they care about.

Sources of giving

Giving by individuals was 66% or $392.45 billion (↑ 8.2%), foundations gave 19% or $109.81 billion (↑ 2.4%), bequests yielded 8% or $45.84 billion (↓ 1.6%), and corporations were at 7% or $44.40 billion (↑ 9.1%).  

The top five destinations for those charitable dollars were Religion at $146.54 billion (↑ 1.9%), Human Services at $91.15 billion (↑ 5.0%), Education, $88.32 billion (↑ 13.2%), Foundations, $71.02 billion (↑ 3.5%), and Public-Society Benefit at $66.84 billion (↑ 19.5%).  

Faith and finances 

The Lake Institute found that in 2024, religion continued to generate the most giving, but was the only sector to see a decline. 

"While religious organizations continue to receive the most giving across subsectors*, the proportion of giving directed toward religion has continued to gradually decline," the report stated.  

Fewer congregants may explain a reduction in giving. Gallup reports that Americans are less likely to identify as members of a church, declining from 70% in 1999 to 45% in 2023. That translates into a 25% decrease in 24 years. The highest membership rate reported in survey research was 73% in 1937, indicating that the steepest declines are more recent.

What about an exodus of older members from church? In 2000, approximately 60% of Americans aged 65 and older regularly attended church services. By 2000, that figure had dropped to 45%. That's a 15-point decrease in just one generation.

Financially, older adults are pillars of strength. The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) notes that adults over 65 account for approximately 40% of all donations to U.S. churches. Their departure is felt throughout a faith community, but especially in the giving of tithes and offerings, which many consider an act of worship.

No one should rely on remote attendance to make up for any differences in giving, as about two-thirds of Americans have little to no interaction with online worship. Pew Research shows that only 14% say they participate online weekly—roughly half the rate of those who attend in person weekly. 

A Mortar/Stone survey of churches found that median household giving declined from $910 in 2021 to $600 in 2024. However, the median increased by 47% in the same period among the top 1% of givers. 

Surveys from Finances and Faith and EPIC report that while median church income increased from $150,000 to $165,000 since 2010, revenue would need to reach $209,603 to keep pace with inflation. 

The difference is frequency

A hopeful sign comes from the Giving USA Foundation's Giving by Generation Report, which found that Millennial giving per household, which increased 22% in 2024, has surpassed that of Gen X. 

Millennials report attending religious services more frequently than Gen X. That regular attendance aligns with an earlier finding from the Lake Institute, suggesting that a person's frequency of in-person worship is the single biggest indicator of overall charitable giving. 

Worship service attendance and generosity are correlated worldwide, not just in the U.S., based on Gallup surveys conducted in 145 countries from 2005 to 2009. 

Religion — primarily churches — remains the largest recipient of overall giving, and religious giving continues to be a philanthropic priority for many individuals in the U.S., according to Giving USA.

Philanthropy is resilient 

Consider these insights and trends from the Nonprofit Leadership Center, Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, Nonprofit Quarterly, and consulting firm, BWF:

o Strong donor relationships and clear communication of impact remain essential. Reaffirm the case for support. Be bold and specific about why your mission matters at this time. 

o Economic conditions make a big difference. Giving is linked to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), consumer confidence, stock market performance, tax policy, and donor trust. Now is the time to double down on transparency, governance, and impact reporting.

o Diversify funding streams. No one source. Prevent the organization from becoming vulnerable. 

o Expansion and promotion of online giving corresponds with a higher level of giving on digital platforms. 

o Charitable giving is higher, but the number of donors continues to decrease. Fewer donors are giving more money. Donor attrition and lower retention rates erode the future pipeline. AI is providing tools for retention and for identifying major gift prospects, but staff must know how to use them effectively. 

o More households are not creating wills. The numbers have dropped from 24% in the 2025 report compared to 33% in the 2022 report. More than half have no estate planning at all. The wealthy are increasingly turning away from wills and toward trusts and other sophisticated estate planning vehicles. 

o The two markets are baby boomers and younger generations. Donor-advised funds (DAFs),  qualified charitable distributions (QCDs), and required minimum distributions (RMDs) are means to a successful fundraising end with those demographic cohorts. 

An intelligent relationship

"The single biggest mistake people make in fundraising is not asking for money," says Stephanie Roth, a principal of Klein & Roth Consulting. "The next biggest mistake people make is the failure to understand that building a base of loyal donors involves much more than asking for money."

Discerning where people are in their relationship with a nonprofit is a good place to start. Donors support charities that can effect the change they seek in the world. Therefore, the importance of knowing in advance whether there's a values match between the parties cannot be overstated. 

The question is, how to create that kind of relationship?

Ms. Roth answers that "Like any other relationship, donors require some attention, some thought, and some common sense to help make that relationship as strong and meaningful as possible." 

*Churches, denominations, religious media, and missionary societies.

Strategist.com

© Bredholt & Co.

Learning From History: What Not to Do

iStock

"To be ignorant of what has occurred before you were born is to remain always a child."

 —Cicero

On November 4, 2011, during a lecture at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author David McCullough (John Adams, 1776, Truman) rephrased Cicero's quote to say, "A leader who does not read and study history has the outlook of a child."

Regardless of which version is preferred, the quote explains the current state of ingenuous leadership, as history teaches us how to behave. Unnecessary mistakes are repeated when learning from the mistakes of others is absent. 

The problem's source

Scholar and friend, Dr. Stan Ingersol, educated at Duke University, observes that we don't truly know history. "Historical ignorance is pervasive. The study requires a prerequisite interest that many people do not have," he notes. Dr. Ingersol goes on to say, "That in place of serious historical study, people then create myths about the past and use those myths to guide their thinking."

A 2018 analysis by the American Historical Association found that since the 2008 recession, history has suffered the steepest decline in undergraduate majors among all humanities disciplines. Data from the University of Michigan suggest that this downward trend is national, although not inevitable. 

Eighth graders' knowledge of both history and civics fell significantly between 2018 and 2022, according to the latest scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). After modest increases over the last few decades, performance in both subjects has returned to levels measured in the 1990s, when the subjects were first tested, according to The 74 website, a statistical educational database.

Taken together, the scores provide only the latest evidence of declining U.S. academic performance across a range of disciplines, says the report. 

Learning from history

B. H. Liddell Hart (1895-1970) was a military historian who wrote tracts on Sherman, Rommel, and the principles of military strategy. His insight into human nature, as seen through the lens of war's folly, of which Hart was active in three (WWI, WWII, and the Cold War), may be his most significant contribution to the topic. 

In Why We Don't Learn from History, here are Hart's invaluable lessons:

• We begin with the importance of the truth that man could, by rational process, discover truth about himself—and about life. That this discovery was without value unless its expression resulted in action as well as education. To this end, he valued accuracy and lucidity.
• The object of history is to determine what has happened while trying to understand why it happened. History has limitations as a guiding signpost, for although it can show us the right direction, it does not give detailed information about the road conditions. 
• Even if history does not teach us what to do, we can learn what to avoid by identifying the most common mistakes that mankind is apt to make and repeat. Learn by experience or profit by the experience of others.  
• History is the record of man's steps and slips. It shows us that the steps have been slow and slight; the slips quick and abounding. It provides us with the opportunity to profit from the successes and failures of our predecessors. 
• That history is the corrective to all speculation. 

Is historical entertainment the answer?

First, there was Ken Burns on an old medium—broadcast television. The Civil War, Baseball, and The Vietnam War are highly rated productions that informed diverse audiences. Burns' newest documentary, The American Revolution, premieres this November 16. 

Now, with the advent of technology, the market for "people stories" is expanding into new realms.

Published reports indicate that the business of history is thriving in audio, with the genre becoming one of the most successful in the podcasting industry. 

Podcasts like The Rest Is History attract large audiences. Hosted by historian and author Dominic Sandbrook and popular historian Tom Holland, this podcast, launched in November 2020, is the highest-ranked U.K. podcast on Spotify and Apple and in the top ten on U.S. charts.

In October of 2024, The Wall Street Journal reported that The Rest Is History achieved 11 million downloads per month. And that seven out of ten listeners were under the age of 40.

Story-telling is a powerful medium.

There is a surge in sales of history books. In the U.S., history was one of the few book categories to experience growth, with sales increasing by about 6%. In the U.K. and Ireland, sales of history books reached their highest levels since record-keeping began.

What about streaming? Nonfiction programming, including historical documentaries, is a rapidly growing category on platforms like Netflix. That kind of access has helped programs like "Roman Empire" and "Testament: The Story of Moses" reach a broader audience and increase funding for production.

Concludes one industry expert: "The apparent contradiction between the decline in academic history and the rise of popular history media reflects a broader trend in how the public engages with the past." 

Why history matters

Peggy Noonan, a Pulitzer Prize winner herself, draws our attention to a newly published volume, History Matters, from Simon & Schuster, which features a collection of David McCullough's essays, interviews, and speeches. 

In that book, McCullough, who passed in 2022, and who wrote all fifteen books on a second-hand Royal manual typewriter, offers this reminder: "History teaches, reinforces what we believe in, what we stand for, and what we ought to be willing to stand up for."

"At their core, the lessons of history are largely lessons of appreciation," he writes. 

Everything we have, he says, all the great institutions, the arts, our law, exists because those who came before us built them. Why did they do that? What drove them, what obstacles did they face, and how are we doing as stewards and creators?

"Indifference to history isn't just ignorant, it's rude," McCullough notes.

Is learning about the history of your organization worthwhile? Could that exercise provide a new perspective on why it exists, what it believes in, what it stands for, and the sacrifices made to arrive at this moment?  

While information is abundant and AI is an increasingly prevalent reality, the well-springs of institutional knowledge are running dry. 

Regardless of the season, now is the time to draw from those fountains of wisdom and experience. Not to know what to do, but to avoid the most common, repeatable, and costly mistakes of the past.  

Strategist.com

© Bredholt & Co.

What's So Great About Duct Tape

(C) iStock

"Duct tape is not a perfect solution to anything. But with a little creativity, in a pinch, it's an adequate solution to just about everything."

 —Jamie Hyneman 

The lists are extensive when you search the Internet and inquire about the possible uses of duct tape, a product originally developed for the military. 

Applying duct tape to the bottom of furniture with the adhesive side facing up creates temporary sliders, protecting floors from scratches.

That same material offers a creative and temporary bug trap to keep pests away from your home. What about taping a small hole in a shed roof to keep water out?  

Or covering an accessible splinter with duct tape and then gently pulling it out to remove the wood or fiberglass. Fixing a cracked plastic or a split in your office chair. Even keeping the cover on a worn leather Bible. 

Duct tape can be used just about anywhere, except on air ducts, since these need to withstand temperature fluctuations, according to HVAC contractors.

A successful failure

One of the more ingenious uses of duct tape occurred during the Apollo 13 moon-landing mission, which ultimately failed to reach the lunar surface. 

Apollo 13, made famous by the Oscar-winning movie of the same name, starring Tom Hanks, launched on April 11, 1970. The Apollo spacecraft consisted of two independent spacecraft joined by a tunnel: the Orbiter Odyssey and the Lander Aquarius. That design would prove pivotal for Commander James Lovell (March 25, 1928-August 27, 2025), Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise (November 14, 1933-), and Command Module Pilot John "Jack" Swigert (August 30, 1931-December 27, 1982). 

In documenting the Apollo 13 flight, Dr. Elizabeth Howell reports that a fire ripped through one of Odyssey's oxygen tanks and damaged another. "Oxygen fed the fuel cells in the spacecraft, so power was also reduced," Dr. Howell notes. "Fortunately, the spacecraft Aquarius — designed to land on the Moon — was still in working order."

But Aquarius didn't have a heat shield, so it wouldn't survive re-entry back to Earth. The crew crammed themselves into Aquarius — designed for two people, not three — and began the long, cold journey home.

"Without a source of heat, cabin temperatures quickly dropped to near freezing. Food became inedible. Water was rationed to cool the hardware down," says Kimberly Hickcock, a free-lance science writer. "In the hours before splashdown, the exhausted crew scrambled back over to the Odyssey and powered it up." 

The astronauts are saved — by duct tape

The New York Times reported that the day after astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert returned to Earth on April 17, 1970, near Samoa, President Richard Nixon awarded NASA's mission operations team the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 

In his remarks, President Nixon singled out Ed Smylie and his deputy, James Correale. 

Why these two engineers among the 60-member team?

Smylie was at home on the evening of April 13 when Jack Swigert, not James Lovell (as in the movie), radioed mission control with this famous (and frequently misquoted) line: "Uh, Houston, we've had a problem."

The engineer responsible for safety was aware of the issue with the astronauts' retreat to the Lunar Excursion Module. Designed for two astronauts, three humans would generate lethal levels of carbon dioxide, Smylie thought.

To survive, the astronauts would have to refresh the canisters of lithium hydroxide that absorb the poisonous gases in Aquarius. 

Smylie and the other engineers have less than two days to invent a solution using materials already onboard the spacecraft, a crisis depicted in Ron Howard's 1995 blockbuster film.

A printout of supplies included two lithium hydroxide canisters, plastic bags used for garments, cardboard from the cover of the flight plan, and a roll of gray duct tape, according to the Times.

"That's where we were. We had duct tape, and we had to tape it in a way that could hook the environmental control system hose to the command module canister," Smylie said in an Apollo 13 documentary, XIII, produced in 2001. "Command module canisters were square, and lunar modules were round. You can't put a square peg in a round hole, and that's what we had."

The astronauts followed the mission control instructions, and the adapter, using duct tape, worked. They could breathe safely in the lunar module for two days as they awaited the appropriate trajectory to fly the hobbled command module home.

A simple product and a humble man

The proverb "Tools require someone who knows how to use them" is apt here. The value is not in the tool but in the knowledge and skill of the user.

The same was true for Ed Smylie, who passed away in May of this year at the age of 95.

A graduate of Mississippi State University with bachelor's and master's degrees, Smylie applied for a job at the space agency in Houston, Texas, upon hearing President John F. Kennedy announce plans to send astronauts to the Moon. Smylie eventually became chief of the crew systems division, which was responsible for the life-sustaining equipment used by Apollo astronauts in space. 

As to his quick response with lives at stake, "If you're a Southern boy, if it moves and it's not supposed to, you use duct tape," he said during the documentary, always playing down his ingenuity and role in saving the Apollo 13 crew.

"We would have died had their solution not worked," Fred Haise said in an interview. "I don't know what more you can say about that."

Sometimes complex problems are solved with simple solutions and the tools at our disposal. Such was the case with Apollo 13.

In frigid conditions nearly 240,000 miles from home, astronauts Lovell, Haise, and Swigert were thankfully reminded by NASA engineers why there's something great about duct tape.

Strategist.com

© Bredholt & Co.

 

Until September

© Data USA

A Quiet Lake

‘tis by a quiet, glassy lake

astride an island cool and green,

where I have chosen to awake.

Of all the paths that I could take

I choose the one that can redeem

‘tis by a quiet, glassy lake.

Before I sleep one glance I take

At this fond place whereof I dream

Where I have chosen to awake.

I picked this place for my soul’s sake,

And chose not swiftly flowing stream,

‘tis by a quiet, glassy lake.

It’s free of thunder, noise and quake

And other ills I find extreme,

Where I have chosen to awake.

It’s where my life can take its break,

Where I can cease to plan and scheme.

‘tis by a quiet, grassy lake

Where I have chosen to awake.

--Allpoetry/kirbysman 

Strategist.com

©  Bredholt & Co.

Remembering Charles Handy 1932 - 2024

Getty Images

"Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers."

—Alfred Lord Tennyson

We are told that a wise counselor judges things as they are, not as they are said or acclaimed to be. 

Suppose it were necessary to sum up the life and works of Irish-born author and social philosopher Charles Handy, who passed on December 13, 2024, at 92. His mission, simply stated, was to get top management to question conventional wisdom and consider the moral implications of their strategies. 

Handy's disciplines included choosing his words carefully. 

"... he employed the Socratic method of inquiry to learn about those seeking help and the nature of their problems."

A Fortune magazine article published on October 31, 1994, was retrieved. That six-page cover story with photos gives the reader a close look at Oxford and MIT-educated Charles Handy's thinking, at least to the age of 62. 

Adding another 30 years of advising diverse groups, such as PepsiCo, BP, Silicon Valley start-ups, and the Save the Children's Foundation, means that more than half a century of sound management thought has been shared privately and publicly in Handy's 23 books. 

An engagement with Charles Handy, the son of a Protestant clergyman and the only layman to deliver a religious Thought for the Day on the BBC, began with a required visit to his 19th-century apartment in suburban southwest London. There, he employed the Socratic method of inquiry to learn about those seeking help and the nature of their problems.

Discontinuous thinking

The Age of Unreason was my first Charles Handy book, and it was filled with fresh ideas. Published in 1989, it forecasted faster and more unpredictable change, which would materialize in the form of the internet, terrorism, smartphones, the COVID-19 pandemic, and artificial intelligence. 

In his "shamrock organization," Handy envisioned a corporate headquarters that would shrink, with more tasks outsourced. The shamrock design has three types of workers: a core of permanent employees, a group of contract workers, and a flexible labor force. The criticism is that flexible but casual workforces often lack the discipline of on-site supervision and exhibit a loss of corporate culture. 

Handy also foresaw that associates may not stay with one company for a lifetime but would have a "portfolio" of experiences, including entrepreneurial opportunities.

"My job is to be ten years ahead, which is why many people tend to say I'm stupid," says Handy to Fortune reporter Carla Rapoport. How do you associate a self-disparaging term with someone who sold two million books and commanded respect and high fees from global clients? 

Yet, Charles Handy admitted to making mistakes throughout his career. 

That learning process would culminate in "decent doubt" and being open to the possibility of wrong decisions and alternative perspectives. Handy believed that questioning one's assumptions helps reduce the impact of potential mistakes. 

His teaching used management metaphors. For example, the sloping lines of a sigmoid curve indicate that companies will eventually fail if they do not adapt and reinvent themselves during good times. 

The book brought Handy to the attention of leaders everywhere. He believed that discontinuous change necessitated discontinuous thinking about profound social and economic shifts, and that the past was an unreliable guide for navigating what comes next. 

A designed future

The New York Times obituary highlighted how Handy envisioned decentralized, community-oriented "federal organizations" in which a small corporate headquarters served the needs of diverse and far-flung business units. The corporate center would retain key financial control, while the creative and production energy would be centered among workers close to the customers.

Handy taught that corporations should be viewed as communities of individuals who need to be nurtured and inspired by a worthy purpose, rather than machines to be re-engineered. Getting bigger didn't have to be the goal; getting better was enough.

"I truly believe that managing people, instead of leading them, is wrong ..."

"Why are villages and platoons better than mass organizations? Because they are human scale. They allow you to be a person, not a cog. Already, young people are turning away from the traditional pyramid organizations in which you clamber your way up the hierarchy over the years. The world of work is increasingly going to realize that small is better," said Handy at age 87, writing to his four grandchildren in 21 Letters on Life and Its Challenges. The purpose of the book was to help them with life's choices.

What didn't he do?

Handy said he struggled with management responsibilities while working at Shell. That may explain why the one thing he couldn't do was teach people to manage. That would only come with practice, if at all.

"I truly believe that managing people, instead of leading them, is wrong and has resulted in too many dysfunctional and unhappy workplaces. People are more than a human resource," Handy wrote in 21 Letters. 

He also avoided prescribing behavior. "In most human situations, there is no textbook answer. You have to make your own judgments most of the time," Handy observed. 

Upon further reflection

Charles Handy said the following—

• Steer clear of consultants. No one is better qualified to solve your problems than you.
• Retirement should be banned. Society can't afford it.
• Language can trick you into believing in ways you would normally avoid. Words are devious, dangerous things. Always watch your language lest you send messages that you never intended.
• Progress depends on unreasonable people, for they are the ones who try to change the world, while reasonable people adapt to it. 

A favorite Handy quote:

"The companies that survive the longest are the ones that work out what they uniquely can give to the world—not just growth or money but their excellence, respect for others, and ability to make people happy. Some call those things a soul."

A loss of light and love

In 1960, at a party in Kuala Lumpur, Charles Handy met his future wife, Elizabeth Ann Hill, who worked for the British High Commission in Singapore. She became a successful professional photographer, Mr. Handy's agent, and business manager.

In 2018, Elizabeth Handy was killed in an automobile accident in Norfolk County, England. Mr. Handy was driving their car.  

 

Strategist.com

© Bredholt & Co.