The Fix
The Passage
Here is a passage from a blogpost on leadership:
One of the toughest calls that a leader will need to make is termination. And often, who a leader chooses to hire or fire is arguably the most important set of decisions they can make for their organization.
Let’s see what we can do with it.
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You need to think clearly about what ideas you want to present.
The first sentence in the passage expresses the idea that firing people is difficult. In our view, hiring is also difficult. You really don’t understand what you have until a new employee begins to work and, with some time, you determine whether you’ve made a good decision. The second suggests that hiring and firing decisions are among the most important a leader can make. Boiled to their essence, the ideas are: firing employees is difficult; hiring and firing decisions are important. Surely these can be combined a single sentence sans semi-colon.
We have some difficulty with the qualifier “often” used in the second sentence:
And often, who a leader chooses to hire or fire is arguably the most important set of decisions they can make for their organization.
This suggests that, some of the time, who a leader chooses to hire and fire is arguably not the most important set of decisions they can make. Here, the qualifier “often” and the phrase “arguably the most important set of decisions” are working at cross purposes. We’d get rid of the qualifier.
Furthermore, is the phrase “for their organization” really required. We’d argue that it’s implicit. All leaders manage an organization of some kind.
We think the passage could be rewritten
Who to hire and fire are among the most important decisions a leader has to make.
Odds and Ends
Where Surnames Come From
At the time of the Norman conquest (11th century) in England, people generally had just one name. There were lots of Johns, Stevens, and Roberts. To distinguish each other, people decided to take second names. Some of these surnames were based on the trade of the person: John Carpenter (house builder), John Cook (food preparer), John Miller (grain grinder), and John Taylor (suit-maker). Some were based on where the person lived: John Hill (who lived on the hill outside of town), John Brook (who lived near the brook, and John Forrest (who lived in the forest). Other last names were patronymical. So, John Williamson was the son of William and John Jackson was the son of Jack. Some surnames were based on looks. So we might have John Long or John Longfellow (he was tall), John Short or John Little, and John Brown (he had brown hair).
If you’re wondering about The Bard’s last name, Shakespeare comes from “shakken”, the Middle English for “brandish”, and “spear”, the weapon. It would have been a nickname for a warrior or spearman.
Phrase of the Week
From Hurley the Elder:
My wife, Deb, buys me Axe body sprays and expects me to use them, I suppose to relieve her from too many “old man” smells. One day, she sent me out to the store to purchase a few them. There was an older lady stocking shelves relatively close to where the body sprays were. I asked her whether I could sample a few of them. When she said yes, I tried one. It was called “Anarchy.” I said to the lady “This one is Anarchy. It smells pretty good!” She looked at me and without a hint of a smile said “Honey, that’s you.” We both started to laugh.
The most recent one Deb purchased is called “Skateboards and Fresh Roses.” I have no idea what that should smell like but it’s not bad. The name is pretty creative too. We’d like to hear from SL readers. Any suggestions for body spray names for guys who live on the edge?
All this to say that the phrase of the week is “Skateboards and Fresh Roses.”