How Productive are Priests? The Heat That’s Turning Turtles. And Which Psychological Trait Predicts ‘B***s*** Receptivity’? All this and more!

Grüezi!?I’m Adrian Monck, and welcome to this LinkedIn newsletter featuring seven things that caught my attention this week.?

Also this edition – Europe’s greenest cities, where in the world’s going to run on renewables first and what does working from anywhere do to a business??

Sharing is caring –?Please share this newsletter!

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1???How Productive are Priests?

The immiserating metrics of productivity, including points for ministering to the dying.

Jaw-dropping?New York Times?piece this week on the creepy software measuring productivity.?

The original clipboard and stopwatch wielder was?Frederick Taylor, who wanted to optimize production lines.?

But now online monitoring and metrics have brought factory floor ‘time and motion’ studies to jobs that could barely have imagined the change:

• Rev. Margo Richardson of Minneapolis became a hospice chaplain to help patients wrestle with deep, searching questions.
• Two years ago, her employer started requiring chaplains to accrue more ‘productivity points.’?

A visit to the dying: as little as one point. Participating in a funeral: one and three-quarters points. A phone call to grieving relatives: one-quarter point.

• Sometimes the chaplains sacrificed points, risking reprimand or trying to make them up later. But their jobs depended on meeting the standards...

Economists have been fretting about declining labour productivity since the 1970s (see this great?essay?from?Robert Allen). I doubt they had clerics in mind.?

And will monitoring reverse the decline? Unlikely. Even when God sees what you’re doing.?

???Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised?40% of people want to leave their jobs.

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2?? Who’s Likeliest to Believe Conspiracy Theories?

Step forward – narcissists!

Why do narcissists find conspiracy theories so appealing?

That’s the title of a new academic paper exploring why people who think they’re special love to share stuff to get attention.?

Turns out narcissists are also little paranoid and gullible, with a yearning for dominance, control and proof that they’re special. But narcissism can also affect groups, not just individuals, as the paper makes clear:

• Conspiracy theories might not only be appealing to those high in individual narcissism, but also in?collective?narcissism—a belief that one’s group is exceptional and deserves special treatment.?
• Collective narcissism predicts beliefs in conspiracy theories about outsiders, for instance accusing them of involvement in high-profile events and anti-science conspiracy theories (e.g., vaccines, COVID-19, or climate change).?
• Collective narcissists have an exaggerated threat sensitivity, like the paranoia and threat sensitivity of individual narcissists.?
• They think their group is unique and entitled to special treatment to deflect from group or national failings by pointing a finger towards malign external forces.
• Given studies that link collective narcissism to b***s*** receptivity and low cognitive reflection, it is plausible that gullibility plays a role.

You have to love an academic paper that uses the term ‘b***s*** receptivity’.

???Bad news for conspiracy theorists:?climate change denialism is declining.

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3?? Three Places That will Run on Renewable Electricity

Including Frank Sinatra’s kind of town – it is a windy city after all.

???A new climate action tool is?tracking progress to net zero.

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4?? Temperature and Turning Turtles?

A warmer world means more turtle eggs hatch female.?

???Meet the?‘climate catalysts’ pressing companies to protect the planet.

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5?? Europe’s Greenest Capital Cities

Are probably looking pretty brown right now...

??Why the future of urban development may be?far above the ground.

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6???What Happens When You Can Work Anywhere?

Few people moved, but things improved...

???The 4 forces that?workplaces can’t ignore.

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7?? Seven of the World’s Best Business Books

Ranked by Stanford profs – hope they didn’t pick their own.

???More reading on our?book club podcast.

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If you enjoy this newsletter – please recommend it!

Best,

Adrian

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