Tag Archives: Rigidity

Going for the Gold

By now many of us are working through the withdrawal symptoms of POSD, or Post Olympic Stress Disorder. The quality of coverage keeps ratcheting up every time, particularly with the clarity of HDTV, bigger screens, and cameras suspended in truly agile systems. I am amazed at how the athletes perform at levels that continue to redefine what is humanly possible and just how little the difference is between the first and the fifth placers … often a fraction of a second. High performance is redefined.
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A Tale of Two Tigers

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way.” So begins “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens. Although a story replete with social commentary, it brings into focus the impacts of adversity, particularly on the elite and unprepared. Aristocracy meant respect and a special place in the eyes of many, perhaps leading to hubris, and hubris often led to disaster.

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Love that Potential!

A long time ago I studied engineering, mechanical engineering. I loved the subject and the lenses it brought. It was and is about transformation, solving problems, creation, leverage, and making new things that work and making old things work better. …
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Simply Speaking with Albert Einstein

Years ago I was visiting a financial services regional office and conducting an informal “walk-through” prior to deciding on whether to pursue business development with them. This particular division serviced auto loans. As I went around the workstations I noticed a desk with a very large stack of mail, a very large stack. One individual was opening and sorting each envelope. I asked about it and was told that the individual was the accounting manager and they were the only person in the facility authorized to open incoming mail. I tried very hard to mask my reaction as I asked why that rule was in place. “Well, a few years ago we had an individual steal some money from a payment envelope, so we implemented this improved control so that never happens again.” Flashes of Humphrey Bogart and strawberries in the “Caine Mutiny” suddenly appeared.
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Just in Case

Just in case. When packing for a travel, what did we add to the bag as we said, “just in case?” Did we sufficient “in case” stuff that we paid extra weight fees for our baggage? When walking into the closet and seeing a wardrobe assortment spanning 6 years and 50 pounds ago, do we hesitate before reaching for something to put into the give-away bag saying, “maybe I’ll wear it keep it, just in case?” How about the files we keep in our desk drawer or in a section of our hard drives, just in case? Do any of the books on our shelf look brand new and unopened after a decade of taking up space, but we keep them, just in case? Are we saving five year old magazines for “when I have some time to reads them?”
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Thinka Linka Do

“Divide et impera”, or in English, Divide and Conquer is a phrase that we’ve all heard, many have experienced, and the clever have overcome. Forms of it have been attributed to Philip of Macedon and Julius Caesar and some incorrectly to Machiavelli, who in fact was denouncing it. It speaks to the power of effecting fragmentation, disintegration and dissolution of unity as a means to overcome adversaries or as a means to break down tough problems.
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The Real Deal

While driving this morning I caught some news on the radio. One disturbing bit of news reported that a large defense contractor in Great Britain is facing potential fines of over $1 billion for alleged bribery paid in pursuit of business.
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This is Not What I Expected!

Planning has lots of meanings. Often, planning is a bridge between intent and action. That means once we want to accomplish something, get somewhere, achieve a goal, make a number, change, transform, grow, shrink, acquire, dispose, win, or a myriad of end states, we spend time some effort wrestling with the how to (plan) achieve the aforementioned intent (vision). The vision is described with adjectives and nouns, but the plan needs verbs to have any useful meaning. If the vision is big and farther out than the budget, the plan is often called strategic. If the vision looks out as far as the budget, the plan is often called business. The vision creates provide promise and the plan provides confidence to achieve the promise. Planning is getting harder to do.

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“Ouch! Labor Hurts!”

Yesterday was Labor Day in the US. When I was growing up, it was usually a milestone close to the end of summer and a signal that back to school was here. The contributions and needs of labor did not weigh into my view or feelings about the day back then. They are a big deal today and weigh heavy.
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“Something In The Way She Moves……”

We were having a discussion one night about agility. It started with the language of sports or war to develop metaphors for illustrating business parallels. Agility became my pet for that chat and endless ranting to come. I concluded that …
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