Djokovic and Inconvenient Truths

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DJOKOVIC - AND INCONVENIENT TRUTHS

This week, I want to inspire myself and all of us to get more comfortable with being uncomfortable. Nothing probably has contributed more to the current polarization and erosion in the civility of our public discourse than notions of identity politics and its evil companion, political correctness, and as an ultimate consequence the distortion of the truth.

Bear with me. 

Life is complicated. Truth is complicated. Every decision and fact we need to contemplate and process can't fit neatly into our clean and simple narrative of reality. Our media in general and our social media in particular, driven by its attention-thirsty algorithms, is constantly creating uproar when a small fact isn't consistent with an overall political or personal narrative. And as we collectively keep "forcing" each fact to fit perfectly into our story we end up eroding our shared experience and we grow further apart. That is exactly what is happening. 

I have read this past week a ton of comments around the US decision to not allow Novak Djokovic to enter the US Open Tennis Tournament. I am certainly not an expert on neither epidemiology, tennis, or truth and I am merely using this as an EXAMPLE of when we let means triumph over ends. There are hundreds of examples like this one and in concert, they have chipped away at the public trust for our institutions and ultimately for anyone who holds a different point of view than our own. We have become a culture where everyone seems entitled to their own facts. It's a very slippery slope. And an even more dangerous one. 

I will post below the most thoughtful post I read about why the Djokovic decision is completely at odds with our scientifically stated objectives as well as any concern for public health. There has been much written about it. In fact, I have struggled to find any compelling pieces in support of the decision. If you have, please share it. The only thing you really need to know is that every American player in the open, and every spectator visiting the open don't have to be vaccinated. I think I will rest my case right there. 

So what could be the motivations here? 

The only conclusion I can draw is that our political leaders are concerned about trust in vaccinations. It's obviously a serious concern. I am a big believer in vaccinations. I believe the facts around COVID are undeniable and supremely compelling relative to how COVID vaccines reduced mortality in our population. The same is of course true for many historic and possibly future viruses. Vaccinations are a critical tool to keep large populations healthy. 

But we cannot treat every fact the same. Novak Djokovic is NOT the average population. The main reason why COVID was so fatal to our particular population is that our underlying health is so poor. Do you really think there are a lot of similarities between the average American person's lifestyle and the way Novak eats, lives, and takes care of himself? But again, those are inconvenient facts that our institutional leaders don't want to talk about since they might make many people upset. 

But more importantly, his rights and freedom to do what he believes is best for him, including assuming the possible risks associated with those choices, must be more important than any concerns we might have in managing the complexities of distorted narratives. 

And I don't want to overdo the Djokovic example because every single day, we hear examples of institutional leaders afraid of saying what most people know over concern of being accused of not sticking to the party line. There are too many examples to mention. But I will give you two recent ones. The first one hits very close to home for me.  

I have been committed for over 30 years to more of a stakeholder form of capitalism. I have never subscribed to the shareholder primacy that has ruled the world for a long time. It never inspired me and I simply never believed that you can build strong cultures and organizations being committed to only one of several key stakeholders. Any company that wants to be successful in the long term must have strong and deep connections with its core constituents. Customers, employees, communities, and shareholders. Fortunately, more and more people are joining this way of thinking including the Business Roundtable which a few years ago changed the very definition of the purpose of the corporation. 

Some believe this is semantics and still believe the only objective of a corporation is to maximize returns to its shareholders. I do not believe it is semantics. Perhaps when time horizons are very long and owners own and control shares in companies for decades the tension between different stakeholders harmonizes. But in today's short-term world, when stocks are held for months, not even years, let alone decades, the conflicts between the interest of one stakeholder are in stark contrast with the interest of another. 

Obviously, we have a lot of work to do on how to better manifest this shift in purpose. Today there are vibrant debates around how to do exactly that. Not sure if you have followed the entire ESG discussion but that reminds me of the Djokovic US Open problem. Stakeholder capitalism is akin to public health. And ESG is akin perhaps to vaccinations. You can be in favor of stakeholder capitalism but critical of ESG. I have much to say about these discussions but will leave that for other posts (in the past and surely in the future). 

Perhaps not allowing Djokovic to play in the US Open is a bit like when Tesla was removed from a key ESG index. While I don't have the details there, at face value it's impossible to reconcile how indexes targeting more environmentally sustainable practices can include Exxon while removing Tesla. It's form over substance and I fear some form of 'optics orthodoxy" that erodes so much trust in what the rules themselves are trying to promote. In this case, the result is that many are reversing the commitment to stakeholder capitalism. Throwing out the baby with the bathwater you know.

One last but well-known example. The recent Inflation Reduction Act that was passed a few weeks ago. We can have lengthy arguments around the contents of this bill and whether or not they are good, bad, or indifferent. I won't debate that here since I am simply not sufficiently well versed in policy making. However, almost no economist, whether they like the bill or not (and many do), believes this bill was designed or will have any effect on reducing inflation. So here are a bunch of politicians who coming up for re-election believe (probably rightfully so) that inflation is one of the key issues facing voters and they want to talk about what they are doing to reduce it. So let's name one of the most significant bills ever passed the Inflation Reduction Bill, whether it reduces inflation or not. 

This continuous incongruence of facts is producing a gradual decline in public trust and is adding to the meanspirited division and polarization we are feeling all around us. We simply have to be better at accepting the annoying non-linearity and non-conformity of reality. It's not a neat and tidy box of perfection. I know we'd like it to be. But any living soul knows life is a curvilinear and quite messy journey and we also know that it is in the middle of the mess where we often find the nuggets of wisdom and growth spurts that takes us to the next evolution. We simply can't avoid them. And in fact, we shouldn't. It's like trying to avoid rain, darkness, or sorrow. It's futile and will have the exact opposite effect. 

So here is to more truth. We can have big dreams and grand ideas. And we can embrace a plurality of ideas and ways of getting there. In fact, it is only if we do that our big dreams will become reality. Otherwise, we'll all wake up in a nightmare. 

Here is the article I mentioned about Djokovic and vaccinations. 

Have a great week!