Friday Reflections

Just Give Me the Facts!

POINT TO PONDER

There are no facts, only interpretations.

                    ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

 

REFLECTION

facts - something that actually exists; reality; truth

interpretations - to give or provide the meaning of; explain; explicate; elucidate

    Can a fact ever be divorced from the interpretation of that fact? Or does the truth always lie somewhere in between, where each person's truth is different from the other? Perhaps, it is not the truth that matters but how we use it to get what we individually need? 

 

STORY LINE

Have you ever seen Rashomon? If not, check it out (click the photo above for a link to the complete film), not only because it's one Akira Kurasowa's great films but because the film seems to attempt to answer this very question posed by Friedrich Nietzsche. Warning: the following reflection contains spoilers for the film. 

    The film centers around the rape of a wife and the subsequent murder of her husband. The film recounts what happened from four different points of view: the bandit that supposedly raped the wife, the wife herself, the now deceased husband (told through a medium), and a woodcutter who witnessed the rape and kept the dagger that was used to murder the husband.  

    The film takes us into the court hearing of the murder to determine what really happened. The facts at that point were that all the said people were involved in some way, a man was dead, and a dagger had been used to kill him.

    According to the badit, he seduced the woman after tying her husband to a tree. Filled with shame, the wife pleaded that he fight her husband in a duel so as not to dishonor her. After fighting valiantly, he claims to have emerged the victor and the wife ran away. When asked about the dagger, he claims he forgot all about it and made a mistake leaving such a valuable piece at the scene. 

    The wife's story claims that she was not seduced but raped. After which the bandit left her in shame with her husband. Her husband, full of loathing and contempt refused to look or acknowledge her. She took the dagger and begged her husband to kill her to save her from shame. She claims to have passed out from shock and awoke to find the dagger in the body of her dead husband. 

    Through a medium the husband's story is told. According to this version the husband claims that his wife was raped and agreed to escape with the bandit on his journey only if he would agree to kill her husband before they left. The bandit, horrified, asked the husband whether he should kill his cold hearted wife or let her go. She runs away and the husband kills himself. 

    The woodcutter's story is the only one coming from a person not directly involved in the events. The woodcutter did see the rape and the murder. But how things transpired were not exactly as anyone had said. According to his account, the bandit did rape the wife. After begging her to leave her husband and marry him, the wife freed her husband who was too ashamed to defend her honor. The wife chastised both claiming they were not real men and that real men would fight for her. Pushed to fight, the men fought not valiantly - as the bandit had claimed - but pitifully with the bandit finally knocking the husband to the ground after a lucky blow. The husband begged for his life as his wife fled. Roiled with conflict, the bandit finally killed the husband. This version isn't without doubt either as the woodcutter is then accused of tailoring his story to hide the fact that he was indeed the one that had stolen the dagger and didn't want to get caught. 

*Watch the complete film above if you're curious to the outcome of the film*

 

Tradition without Intelligence is Not Worth Having.

*title of this FR is from T.S. Eliot*

POINT TO PONDER

Tradition becomes our security, and when the mind is secure it is in decay.

                                                    -Jiddu Krishnamurti

STORY LINE (Retold by Dipankar Bose)

Years ago, in Russia, a czar came upon a lonely sentry standing at attention in a secluded corner of the palace garden.

    "What are you guarding," asked the czar.

    "I don't know. The captain ordered me to this post," the sentry replied.

    The czar called the captain. His answer, "Written regulations specify a guard was to be assigned to that area."

    The czar ordered a search to find out why. The archives finally yielded the reason. Years before, Catherine the Great had planted a rose bush in that corner. She ordered a sentry to protect it for that evening. One hundred years later, sentries were still guarding the now barren spot.

The Power Curve

POINT TO PONDER

"...things have a momentum, and at a certain point you can't really tell whether you have created the momentum or it's creating you."

                                                   

                                                                        -Annie Lennox

STORY LINE

Thank you Mark Dennen for contributing to Friday Reflections last week and referencing The Power Curve. And thank you to Micro CEO, a reader, who posted the following in response to Mark’s comment about The Power Curve, attaching a reference link which I found very enlightening and worth sharing:

“One of life's under-regarded principles is called being Behind the Power Curve (or "on the back side of the power curve"). The analogy comes from aviation, and is illustrated in this graph, which all would do well to understand:….More in the link that follows……

http://sifter.org/~simon/journal/20100718.h.html

 

REFLECTION

How do you see the Power Curve applied to your work and in your life? How can we utilize the principle of the Power Curve to our advantage?

The Treasure was the Journey Itself (and the lessons learned and shared)

 

 

POINT TO PONDER

 “The treasure was the journey itself, the discoveries he made, and the wisdom he acquired.”

                                                                ~Anna Hassapi

STORY LINE Recently Mark Dennen, a good friend, retired at a young age after a very successful career in sales as an executive of a multinational company.  A day before he boarded the plane to the place of retirement, Mark was gracious enough to satisfy my curiosity by sharing his experiences, lessons learned and impart the wisdom acquired through the years. Here are a few of the many things I captured.

 

1.   Customers are looking for desired outcomes not just products. (You are not buying a drill, but a means to make a hole or perhaps fasten boards with a screw)

2.   Presentations: People come to hear me speak, not to read my slides. 

3.   Three things that helped him to be successful:   Work Hard, Be Respectful and Don’t waste money. 

4.   Why he took accounting and business classes:   In any company, it is all about making money for the stockholders. The best (most secure) jobs are those directly related to revenue generation

5.   Risk Taking: People spend too much time worrying about smallest  incidents which could impact them by $1 to $5 million, instead they should be focused on those could impact them by $5B-$10B (The Power Curve)

6.   Status: It is nice to be important, but it is more important to be nice.

7.   Appreciation: Selling is personal and small things make a big difference such as a hand written Thank You, a small gift (specialty tea, jam, or flowers for the spouse at dinner), the sharing of an article or even a personal photograph.  

8.   Ethics: It’s easy to have high ethics when you are making lots of money (it’s easy to be good with no temptations), but it is far harder when times are bad. 

9.    “If only thing you do is follow a recipe, then you are not a good cook.”

10.  During a crisis, usually the first thing to get dropped is courtesy. (Unfortunately)

11.  Read. Read. Knowledge is the differentiator. In the age of chivalry, friendly knights would greet each other by raising their visor with their right hand (the hand which normally held the sword).    The handshake probably evolved in a similar manner, to demonstrate that each person was not holding a weapon.  Today, most  business discussions (interviews, sales presentations, claim settlements, etc.)  begin with the standard handshake, but it is the short verbal handshake immediately following which can establish the tone for the success or failure of the meeting. 

Meetings are like a chess game, there are variety of openings and one can never accurately predict how they are going to start.  It could be the weather, politics, sports, medicine, finance or pets, but regardless of the topic, it would be helpful if you could engage in the discussion and establish some level of competency, thus creating a favorable impression.  The best way to do this, in my opinion, is to read from a variety of credible sources on a daily basis to improve your chances in this initial engagement. For newspapers, I like the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal and although many will have problems with their Op-Ed pages, both are well-written, very credible and cover diverse topics.  For magazines, Scientific American, the Economist and Fortune cover a variety of topics and events of interest to a variety of professionals.   Everyone will have their own preferences, but the important thing is be read, to be aware and be current. 

12.  Interview: Competing against many who want the job. What differentiates you, all happens in just a brief conversation. Once you get the position, then how you perform is all that matters. One interview: a Ph.D., from a prestigious university, when asked,  “What do you read?, answered,  “I read my phone.”  (not a good answer). 

 

REFLECTION 

Thank You Mark. “Things that are given away are never lost.”

 

You Never Get a Second Chance to Make a First Impression...?

POINT TO PONDER

"It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else's eyes." 

                                        -Sally Field    

REFLECTION by Rajiv Shah

Usually first impressions are what we judge people on. Often, it is the only chance that we have to tell someone who we are. So much rests on the first encounter that it can be a job in itself to put our best foot forward. It's sometimes hard to accept that we can't help what another thinks of us. We can do the best we can and put our best self on display and still we are judged harshly, poorly. That we can't control. 

    What we can do is remember to be kind to others when we first meet them - to hold off judgement, to forgive an awkward comment, and understand that others are struggling with their own problems as well. 

    I often think about Boo Radley from Harper Lee's classic novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird." Boo was judged by reclusive behavior, his haunted looks, and the rumors in town that he was a horrible person. When the central characters in the book, two children, are saved by Boo from an attack from another adult, we start to see past the image to who the man really is. 

    We never do get a second chance to make a first impression but sometimes the first impression is not all it's cracked up to be. There have been countless crooks, murderers, and thieves that appear to be respectable on first glance. Ted Bundy ring a bell? 

    Then there are those like Boo Radley that we judge too soon. A teacher once said to me, "if you can hold out just long enough from deciding on what a thing is, then maybe we can see what it truly can be."