PicoBlog

Friends, Another autumn Friday, another key strategic concept to discuss. Previously, we have covered Stephen Bungay’s strategic intent and Richard Rumelt’s guiding policy. Today, we turn to the amiable Roger Martin and his wildly popular Where to Play/How to Win framework. First introduced in the smash hit Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works co-written with former P&G CEO A.G. Lafley, Martin’s approach to strategy has become the default starting point for many practitioners.

By Ilya Abishev. How was a small group of gunmen able to turn the Crocus City Hall concert complex into a slaughterhouse and then disappear from the scene? How should the security services have acted? How did it happen that the security team for an event involving thousands of people had only civilian means of self-defence at their disposal? Why was it that, close to the Russian capital, where the proportion of law enforcement officers per capita is one of the densest in the world, there was nobody with a weapon capable of defending peaceful civilians when they needed it?

Tuesday marked two years since Manchester United sacked Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as their manager. As is normal on anniversaries like this, people often take a look back as to what’s happened since and wonder what would things be like if that move was never made. I don’t find that particularly helpful in this case. As I wrote just a few weeks before Solskjaer was sacked, it was time for him to go.

(Left to Right, Steve Crispo, Sandra’s son, Sandra Crispo, Laina and Tim McMahon) In the dog days of August 2019, my wife, who is a healthcare worker, came home from her night shift with a story to tell. My wife, well aware of my true crime obsession and at the time, my first book was about a year out from being published. Still, when something happened she usually brought it to my attention.

When new readers sign up for my Substack, I ask a question in the welcome email. It asks what they’re struggling with as a writer. Those emails are often fodder for my writing, especially if I see the same question repeatedly. A lot of people tell me their struggle is finding time to write. Me, too. I can never find any time, I have to make it. It’s what we humans do.

This is sort of a data-dump — or at least, a chart-dump — post… With NBA teams officially able to start negotiating with free agents on Sunday, I thought it might be interesting to dig into which teams have gotten the most surplus value out of free agency for each season in Spotrac’s database, which goes all the way back to the summer of 2011. Here’s how it works: For each contract in the Spotrac data, they list the share of the salary cap represented by the deal’s average annual value.

Running is inherently based on numbers: mile paces, interval splits, finish times, etc. But it’s harder to quantify recovery, one of the most important aspects of the sport. If exercise is the stress that breaks down your muscle fibers, recovery is when your body repairs and rebuilds those muscle fibers so they can adapt to a higher workload in your next workout. Without proper post-workout recovery, you just keep accumulating fatigue, which breaks your body down further and can lead to illness, injury, and burnout.

Those who have followed along with our “Whiskey Journey” articles in the past know that most of my knowledge of the ageing process, grains, and flavor profiles come from working at high end restaurants in Charleston and Brimingham, Alabama.  Even the best training offered by distillers, distributors, and those in sales can miss major nuggets of information that would help anyone’s overall understanding of the entire process.  Hazmat Whiskey is one of those topics that never came up in training or casual conversation.

This newsletter is a collaboration with of the excellent Fingers, which is a great read on the culture and industry of modern alcohol. I’ve got a little bit of a career update at the end, but before I get to that, I’ll let Dave take it away with why we’re talking about grunts and grain alcohol.If Grunt Style and Black Rifle Coffee Co. opened a distillery, what would it make?