Podcasts · Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
Steel and Kindness: Clash of the Skyscrapers
· 40 min · S5 E20
Episode Steel and Kindness: Clash of the Skyscrapers
Paul Starrett has just won a major building contract. If everything goes according to plan, this will be the tallest building in the world. But will everything go according to plan?
This prestigious new project will have Starrett's biggest workforce yet. Everyone will need to pull together, but labour relations in the United States have been rough. There have been tens of thousands of strikes in recent years, many ending in shootings and arbitrary mass arrests.
Something else is bothering Starrett too: enormous steel-framed buildings normally take three or four years to complete. The deadline on this one? Just thirteen months.
This is the second episode in a four-part series about how to succeed without being a jerk. It's based on David Bodanis' excellent book The Art of Fairness: The Power of Decency in a World Turned Mean.
For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Links in the notes 1
Transcript
Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them. Explicit shows are for adult profiles only, and children’s profiles hear only children’s shows. More about this list.