A Sunnier Version of Sweden

I have unexpectedly fallen in love with Ernest Hemingway . As I’m working toward my goal of reading ten classic novels in 2018 previously undiscovered by this fake English major , I picked up A Farewell to Arms while at the library a couple of weeks ago, and finally began reading it last week. I’m sure I’ve read something by Hemingway at some point; there’s a niggling idea in the back of my brain that The Old Man and the Sea was required reading in high school . I also have this just-below-my-conscious-thought idea that I don’t like his style. Given that I can’t remember with confidence whether I’ve actually read any of his works, I think that must be informed by the strong opinions people generally seem to have about his style. As I frequently say, in the absence of information, people make assumptions, and they’re generally negative or bad. In this case, in the absence of information gleaned first-hand, I made the assumption that I wouldn’t like his staccato, almost abrupt w...

It's been quite a week at Kimberly-Clark. Given my job is why we moved to this Sunnier Version of Sweden, being in a good situation professionally is key to this whole experiment working out. The last several months have already been a time of great change, with a global restructure announced for the company at our first earnings release and call of the year. Having been through several of those with Kraft Heinz, though, I wasn't too worried about it, and have for the most part just kept my head down and continued doing my job, leading my team, and trying to set the direction and guidance for the business within my swim lane. This past week, though, was pretty monumental in the journey. First, on Monday, we finally got the formal announcement of who our new President of Sales, U.S., will be. Kurt Laufer will be my new boss, joining K-C from Dean Foods down in Dallas. I haven't run across the guy in my professional life to date, so he's a total unknown to me. There are...