November 2009 Entries
As Thanksgiving approaches, my thoughts turned to turkey. This morning a couple of random facts popped into my head, and oddly converged with the management discussion we have been having lately in this space.
Turkeys have monocular vision: Each eye sees a different thing. Since their eyes are also located on each side of their head, they are able to see rather different views from each eye. However, both eyes cannot focus on the same image at the same time (like human eyes can). Although this helps turkeys avoid predators, it doesn’t give them much depth of vision. To focus, they sometimes will tilt their heads to...
I was listening to a discussion of environmental issues on the radio the other day, and the scientist speaking compared the world’s current global warming dilemma with the French parable of the lily pads. Say there is a pond with one lily pad. Without some intervention, every day the number of lily pads in the pond doubles. In theory, the pond will be completely filled with lily pads in 30 days --- choking off all other forms of life in the pond and killing it biologically. On what day will the pond be half full, allowing time to stop the process before it’s too...
Many of us who have spent our career in professional sales have little experience with cold calling, either by design or thru happenstance. I’m a mix of both. I came up through the ranks in account management, so little “business development” style calling was necessary.
In general, sales calls were not terrifying for me. I can run with the best of them. But there was something about those unscheduled calls that would get my heart racing, and produce those sweaty palms and clammy neck that signal we are uncomfortable with what’s going to happen next.
Now that I am consulting, I have to undertake “business development”...
Star Wars legend holds that a Jedi Master is one who has successfully trained a Padawan learner to the status of Jedi Knight. Disciplined, experienced Jedi may become full-fledged Jedi Knights once they have completed “the trials” that test the candidate’s skills, knowledge, and dedication to the Force. The three tests are known as the Trial of Skill, the Trial of Spirit, and the Trial of Knowledge.
Not surprisingly, this process holds forth with the structure of corporate personal development and management progression. We baby boomers --- if we came up thru the ranks in a large corporation --- can recognize the concept and...