Friday 1 March 2019

2020 Democratic Chances?

Listed Democratic candidates for 2020 primary season, that I give a marginal chance to:

- Senator Booker
- Senator Gillibrand (likely to drop out by 5th primary)
- Senator Harris (likely to drop out by mid-Feb)
- Senator Sanders
- Senator Warren
- Mayor Castro (San Antonio)
- Andrew Yang
- Joe Biden
- Micheal Bloomberg
- Beto O'Rourke
- Presently, there are roughly 10 additional folks 'running' but I don't think they will be able to meet the debate 'requirement'.

What is the debate deal?  Here's the thing....there are six public debates scheduled between June and 1 January.  There's a funny rule that you have to have 200 unique (they don't explain what that means) donors in a minimum of 20 states.

Out of this group....I don't think Gillibrand or Booker can get the donor deal up and they may miss the debates, and thus fall way behind. Same is true for Harris.

So this is mostly a race between Sanders, Warren, Castro, Yang, Biden, O'Rourke, and Bloomberg?  My best guess is yes.  The six debates, and the way of cancelling out potential folks....will limit who shows up in Iowa.

The Iowa event?  The three that I think have excellent chances are Biden, Yang, and Sanders.

All of this is rigged in some ways for three to four people to battle this out, and no one to have more than 35-percent of the primary vote....so the convention this time?  It'll turn into a dynamic event, with Castro or Yang as the VP, and Sanders, Biden or O'Rourke being the top three. 

Bloomberg has the capital to run a four-star race, but here's the thing....his chatter for the past decade is kinda like a left-of-center 'Trump-like' character.  In the south and midwest, it just won't sell well to Democratic voters.

If this were a Booker (President) and Castro (VP) race?  It would draw out a lot of Obama-voters.  But I can't see Booker making it through the debates or the first couple of primary states. 

My ticket for a better-than-Hillary chance?  Biden (President) and Yang (VP).  They would draw the dynamics to take 22 states.

Google's Team Project

Around seven years ago, Google went off (2012) in search of something that they felt would be a worthy project.....they wanted to know how to build the best team.

I know.....it sounds pretty hokey and if you were going to guess the outcome....it'd likely be some 1,700 page study, with no real value.  That's what most PhD-level studies deliver in the end.

But oddly enough, Project Aristotle (that was the name for it), came back recently, and the study laid out five pieces of what makes a team function or work:

1. Basic simple risk assessment.  Whatever the team members felt was the goal....it had to have reasonable risks assigned to it, or the potential for failure was not a big deal.  Once you crossed the line and said your job, or your career were in jeopardy....you met and exceeded the invisible line that existed.

2.  There was a quality of work known to the members of the group.  'Good enough for government work' couldn't be the end-result. 

3.  There was a known beginning and end to the team effort.  In simple terms....there was a clear path ahead, and someone sat there to create a defined end-point.

4.  Curiously, there had to be some reward attached to the project.  They didn't come out and say it.....but all of this was marginalized in terms of a 'gift' at the end, then why do it?

5.  Finally, they came to realize the group's project had to be part of some bigger end-result.  The team left it's 'mark' on the job.

At one point in my military life, I arrived at an organization in transition....it was a division without a compass, a map, or adequate leadership to latch onto the group. Over the course of a year, this group picked itself up.....laid out goals...'gifted' performances....and became noted for taking enormous taskings. 

Looking back over twenty-five years ago, I can say that we had three distinctive characteristics at work: (1) extreme risk acceptance, (2) never turning away a single customer, and (3) letting the lowest level guy to be lightly mentored, while he/she were were actually loaded with taskings beyond their normal level. 

Will Google make use of their team 'discovery'?  That would be a curious end-result.