The NEW YEAR, 2017 is upon us, sadly with mass attacks in Turkey and Brazil, so it is not a time to celebrate. Yet, perhaps better things are ahead.I am writing to all the registered members of my website, bossesbossingbeingbossed.com to thank you for being on the site and helping me capture and share my thoughts and reflections.

There are about 200 of you, and, in addition, this year several have signed up for the free coaching and those who accepted this have said that it is helpful to have an objective observer to comment on their work life issues. In addition, through the site I have conducted two workshops – a group of Spanish entrepreneurs visiting Berkeley, and a group of Brazilian entrepreneurs also. So I am grateful.

Yesterday was the last day of our NFL football season and with the completion of the last game, several coaches and general manager’s were “fired.” Which leads to a reflection on differentiation and integration! Every team has a quarterback coach, a lineman coach, and a backfield coach – and their job is to make those positions perform well. That is differentiation – focusing on the sub-aspect of a major task. But someone has to put it all together – that is the head coaches job, the one who focuses on integration.

This is one of the better ideas in the business portfolio – and it raises several questions:

• What is your focus as a manager: differentiation or integration?
• You can have too much or too little differentiation!
• You can have too much or too little integration!
• When you move from being a differentiation manager to an integration manager, you undergo a major change in focus! Which takes time.

Focus on the details, focus on the big picture – you need both but at different times.
Hopefully, 2017 will bring you joy and happiness and success….despite the dark beginning.
P.S. I could not let you go without a word about Trump, whom, depending upon what you read, is the worst thing in the world or?????????

Since I am retired and a political junkie I followed the election closely

• I read The New York Times, the New Yorker, the NY Times Book Review, and The Economist – and am truly amazed to see them turn from objective news reporting into progressive/leftist/democratic propaganda
• Same for The Huffington Post on AOL
• Surprisingly, the best source for objective information came from
• A CARTOONIST, SCOTT ADAMS OF DILBERT FAME
• Who is also a hypnotist and interested in persuasion
• Who, 18 months ago, predicted a Trump victory and over dozens of blogs since then explained why
• Which you can find at:http://blog.dilbert.com/
• And if you scroll back to older posts, you will get the analysis
• Post-election we are subject to lengthy analysis of WHY?
• The Russians, the FBI, Wikileakes
• And we will never really know what happened
• But if you call working class people the deplorables, you may find they turn on you
• Which is to say, in my opinion, and I am guilty of this also
• There is a world view, Tom Friedman, THE WORLD IS FLAT that globalization is inevitable and “good for all.”
• And what Brexit and Trump show is that there are masses of people who may lose jobs because of this,
• Therefore, it is time for all of us who are part of the “business elite” to think carefully about our world view
• Finally, for four years in the White House we will have business people, not lawyers, not academics
• It should be interesting – the end of the world or renewed prosperity!
• You will have a chance to watch and see