Love the topic you’re leaning into! I think we have a lot of overlap. I write Honest Office, where I focus on shenanigans, challenges, opportunities, etc., at the office, and how to make the working part of our lives better. https://honestoffice.substack.com/
Oh dear. First, the expansion of B&N and Waterstones leads to the closure of independent book stores across the country and a completely homogeneous assortments of books in all of these stores - and then a decade later they find out that a book store owned by someone who really cares about their customers actually sells more. Not sure this is a success story …
By that logic no non-independent bookshop is ever good news. Or any big record store is good news. It's like an idealised version of life that is both unrealistic and impossible to pass a purity test on.
Sure that’s better. When I was in the UK last week I was surprised how few book shops there were still compared to Germany where market rules like fixed book prices for example protect independent publishers and book stores more than in the Anglo-Saxon world. Of course your focus is corporate culture and from this perspective, B&N might be a great example. And beyond books, there‘s plenty of studies showing that companies that grant their employees autonomy do better. I get that point.
Maybe book chains are never good news? If you want to address the mass market, you have to beat Amazon, if you want to serve niche audiences, you must be better embedded in your community than independents which is more costly and more difficult to explain to shareholders. But there’s probably a good argument for alternative business models like cooperatives where sellers stay independent but share purchasing power. In Germany, book stores and publishers joined forces to build their own ereader and every customer can link his or her preferred book store to the device - independent or chain.
I'm in the US on holiday right now. There's no bookshops. Anywhere.
Of course my dream life would be to put an independent bookshop on every strip mall. Run by a lovely old lady. She enchants young children with the thrill of reading. Make a movie about it.
In a world where we don't get the picture postcard version of life then we can't run a purity test on whether every alternative solution is 100% perfect.
A bigger firm selling books, where each store is run by a passionate independently minded bookseller sounds pretty good to me. So yes, it is a success story. Thank you
Thus my question before. Have the results been observed as behavior as well as reported in self-report. The description does not make that all that clear.
Have those survey outcomes actually been tested or validated to see if they actually predict the responses that people gave? Considering how reliable such surveys tend to be.
I was referring to self-report responses like the following:
"Feeling valued has an impact at work too. In a study of 1700 working adults, 93% of those who felt valued said they were motivated to do their best. 88% were engaged at work. When we feel valued by our boss we do a better job, it’s hard to imagine a healthy culture where this isn’t the case."
The main result here seems to be they said they felt valued and motivated. But does this actually reflect in the day to day behavior? It would not be the first time if self-reports, especially those that are sensitive to social desirability bias, like the above results, would not actually reflect in the day to day behavior of people. If they say they feel better, but when observed they actually don't behave like they are. What do the results actually mean in that case?
On another note: Great interview with Zach! As always much food for thought and I referenced it in my own Substack recently! 🙏
Love the topic you’re leaning into! I think we have a lot of overlap. I write Honest Office, where I focus on shenanigans, challenges, opportunities, etc., at the office, and how to make the working part of our lives better. https://honestoffice.substack.com/
Thanks Bruce - more great stuff, have passed on to my friends at work and also pre-ordered Zach’s book…..roll on 13th May!
Oh dear. First, the expansion of B&N and Waterstones leads to the closure of independent book stores across the country and a completely homogeneous assortments of books in all of these stores - and then a decade later they find out that a book store owned by someone who really cares about their customers actually sells more. Not sure this is a success story …
By that logic no non-independent bookshop is ever good news. Or any big record store is good news. It's like an idealised version of life that is both unrealistic and impossible to pass a purity test on.
Sure that’s better. When I was in the UK last week I was surprised how few book shops there were still compared to Germany where market rules like fixed book prices for example protect independent publishers and book stores more than in the Anglo-Saxon world. Of course your focus is corporate culture and from this perspective, B&N might be a great example. And beyond books, there‘s plenty of studies showing that companies that grant their employees autonomy do better. I get that point.
Maybe book chains are never good news? If you want to address the mass market, you have to beat Amazon, if you want to serve niche audiences, you must be better embedded in your community than independents which is more costly and more difficult to explain to shareholders. But there’s probably a good argument for alternative business models like cooperatives where sellers stay independent but share purchasing power. In Germany, book stores and publishers joined forces to build their own ereader and every customer can link his or her preferred book store to the device - independent or chain.
I'm in the US on holiday right now. There's no bookshops. Anywhere.
Of course my dream life would be to put an independent bookshop on every strip mall. Run by a lovely old lady. She enchants young children with the thrill of reading. Make a movie about it.
In a world where we don't get the picture postcard version of life then we can't run a purity test on whether every alternative solution is 100% perfect.
A bigger firm selling books, where each store is run by a passionate independently minded bookseller sounds pretty good to me. So yes, it is a success story. Thank you
Thus my question before. Have the results been observed as behavior as well as reported in self-report. The description does not make that all that clear.
Have those survey outcomes actually been tested or validated to see if they actually predict the responses that people gave? Considering how reliable such surveys tend to be.
Which ones sorry. There’s made 30 links on that page. On almost every thing I give a link to the academic paper which is of course validated.
I was referring to self-report responses like the following:
"Feeling valued has an impact at work too. In a study of 1700 working adults, 93% of those who felt valued said they were motivated to do their best. 88% were engaged at work. When we feel valued by our boss we do a better job, it’s hard to imagine a healthy culture where this isn’t the case."
The main result here seems to be they said they felt valued and motivated. But does this actually reflect in the day to day behavior? It would not be the first time if self-reports, especially those that are sensitive to social desirability bias, like the above results, would not actually reflect in the day to day behavior of people. If they say they feel better, but when observed they actually don't behave like they are. What do the results actually mean in that case?