Friday Reflections

The most important competition is the one between you and your own imagination

"Somebody much smarter than me once said that pessimists are usually right, optimists are usually wrong, but all the great breakthroughs in history were done by optimists." - Thomas Friedman.

Storyline:

Thomas Friedman, the author of the famous book "The World Is Flat", is a real "out of the box thinking" (OBT) practitioner.  He provides excellent views about the world that should be read and pondered by any parent, teacher or manager. 

Here are some excerpts with links to the complete articles:

Friedman: I’ve added something I got from my friend Ramalinga Raju from Satyam, the Indian company. We decided that the greatest economic competition in the world going forward is not going to be between countries and countries. And it’s not going to be between companies and companies. The greatest economic competition going forward is going to be between you and your own imagination. Your ability to act on your imagination is going to be so decisive in driving your future and the standard of living in your country. So the school, the state, the country that empowers, nurtures, enables imagination among its students and citizens, that’s who’s going to be the winner.

Friedman: In the latest edition, I added a whole section on why liberal arts are more important than ever. It’s not that I don’t think math and science are important. They still are. But more than ever our secret sauce comes from our ability to integrate art, science, music and literature with the hard sciences. That’s what produces an iPod revolution or a Google.

Pink: It’s the combination of the left brain and the right brain. Left-brain thinking — rule-based, linear, SAT-style thinking — used to be enough. Now right-brain thinking — artistry, empathy, narrative, synthesis — is the big differentiator.

http://www.aasa.org/publications/saarticledetail.cfm?ItemNumber=9736&snItemNumber=950&tnItemNumber=

But where does imagination come from?  Ah, now we come back to the liberal arts.  My friend, Marc Tucker, who heads the National Center on Education and the Economy, answers the question this way: “One thing we know about creativity,” he says, “is that it typically occurs when people who have mastered two or more quite different fields use the framework in one to think afresh about the other.”  Intuitively you know this to be true.  Leonardo DaVinci, Tucker notes, was a great artist, scientist, and inventor and each of his specialties nourished the other.  He was a great lateral thinker but if you spend your whole life in one silo, you will never have either the knowledge or mental agility to do the synthesis, connect the dots, which is usually where the next great breakthrough can be found.

So I don’t know how many art, music, or literature courses you have been able to take while you have been here (in school) but I hope it was more than zero and I hope even more that after you leave here today you will expose yourself to the richness of liberal arts because the imagination that gives birth to great ideas, products, designs, and intellectual breakthroughs often happens when people who have mastered two or more quite different fields use the framework of one to think about the other.

http://www.rpi.edu/academics/commencement/address07.html

Reflection: For people who have taken "Out Of The Box Thinking" (OBT) classes or are involved in such practices will find Tom's message very familiar.  And as we all know, the best part of learning is doing, so ...........

 

Facts don't persuade, feelings do. And stories are the best way to get at those feelings.

"Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today." - Robert McKee.

 

Storyline:

It was purely by accident that I found out the power of storytelling. In the early '90s, while working for a high technology company, I was asked to substitute for a sick instructor at the last minute. The only thing that qualified me for that class was that I had taken it before, and had demonstrated good use of techniques that were taught.

With no formal training about conducting training, I was nervous about facing an audience of very smart technical and business people. To break the ice (and to also break my nervousness), I tried to explain the concepts and formulas by narrating stories and drawing analogies form real life situations.  I guess it worked so well that my sidekick (after being an engineer) after that day became a trainer too.

The subject of communication and persuasion through storytelling has gained great interest in the corporate world, and many books and executive training programs have been created on the subject. Here are some points to ponder about this subject from some well known people:
 

"Facts don't persuade, feelings do. And stories are the best way to get at those feelings"

- Tom Asacker.

"Why story telling? Nothing else worked. Charts left listeners bemused. Prose remained unread. Dialog was just too laborious and slow. Time after time, when faced with the task of persuading a group of managers or front life staff in a large organization, to get enthusiastic about a major change I found that storytelling was the only thing that worked."

- Stephen Denning in 'The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations'.

"Because there is a natural storytelling urge and ability in all human beings, even just a little nurturing of this impulse can bring about astonishing and delightful results." 

-Nancy Mellon, in 'The Art of Storytelling'.

"Why was Solomon recognized as the wisest man in the world? Because he knew more stories (proverbs) than anyone else. Scratch the surface in a typical boardroom and we're all just cavemen with briefcases, hungry for a wise person to tell us stories."

- Alan Kay, vice president at Walt Disney.

 

Reflection:  from Anthony De Mello

"It is a great mystery that though the human heart longs for Truth in which it alone it finds liberation and delight, the first reaction of human beings to Truth is one of hostility and fear. So the Spiritual Teachers of humanity created a device to circumvent the opposition of their listeners: the story.

They knew that the most entrancing words a language holds are 'Once upon a time...,' that it is common to oppose a truth but impossible to resist a story. Vyasa, the author of the Mahabharata, says that if you listen carefully to a story you will never be the same again. That is because the story will worm its way into your heart and break down the barriers to the divine.

You have to understand, my dears, that the shortest distance between truth and a human being is a story."

The difference between a degree and an education

"Education comes from within; you get it by struggle and effort and thought." -Naploeon Hillors

Storyline:

Some years ago, I took two friends to a party hosted by a successful and well-known local businessman. One of these friends had graduated from Stanford, while the other carried triple crown honors: a Bachelors from M.I.T, a Masters from Harvard and a Ph.D from Stanford.

Our host was very cordial and down-to-earth, and my friends spent considerable time conversing with him. They were very impressed with his knowledge of world affairs and business, his positive attitude and the way he treated people.

On the way back, I casually mentioned to them that our host had been profiled in the Bicentennial issue of Time magazine (covering a story of successful immigrants) and that he has also been featured on TV  and in newspapers.

One of the guys asked "Which university did he go to and what did he major in?"

I said, "He has only been through elementary school. After that, he was sent to Africa for labor jobs to support his family. From there he went to England and worked in a machine shop, saved money and came to America to start a business. Now he is living the American Dream."

Said the other friend, "But talking to him, I felt he was very educated. It's difficult to believe that he does not have a degree!"

Too often, we mix up a Degree and an Education.

We get a "Degree" by demonstrating a certain level of proficiency in certain field: e.g. science, arts, business, etc.

Whereas we demonstrate "Education" through things such as: how we respect and treat every individual, how we handle difficulties and successes, our value system, our character, the type of choices that we make.

Reflection:

Most resumes of job applicants list degrees under the "Education" section. But the real proof of education lies in the section called "Experience" and how the person has handled those experiences.

When is the right time to "Light (the) Bulb"?

"I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others... I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent..."  - Edison.

"My principal business consists of giving commercial value to the brilliant, but misdirected, ideas of others... Accordingly, I never pick up an item without thinking of how I might improve it." - Edison.

Storyline:

When is the right time to “Light (the) Bulb”?  Remembering Edison’s creation on its 125th anniversary.

It was late afternoon on September 4th, 1882. The New York Stock exchange had rung its final bell for the day. The brokers at J. P. Morgan, the largest stock broker, were wrapping up their work for the day and New York Times office was busy preparing the next day’s edition. The streets of lower Manhattan were filled with people either retuning home or putting finishing touches on their day.

Just at that moment, Edison and his team flipped the switch on the first electric power station in America. With that the streets of Manhattan, the J P Morgan building and the New York Times offices were lit up with what we call Electric Light Bulb. The thousands of people in the area were just amazed (WOWed!) and could not stop talking about it with fellow workers, commuters and family members. That was 125 years ago. And that one flip of the switch started a new industry and many supporting companies. The next morning’s headlines in the papers were all about Electric Light Bulb: Yet another invention by Thomas Alva Edison, the genius.

But the genius of Edison was not only in the inventions but more so in creating an entire system (infrastructure) for converting creative ideas into useful products as judged by the users. In fact many of the inventions attributed to Edison were the result of hard work of many scientists and supporting cast in his laboratory.

Edison considered The Research Laboratory as his greatest invention. Edison created an organization and a culture that utilized the talent and strength of his people and effectively leveraged the resources of the laboratory. That infrastructure produced a system of continuos inventions.

Reflection: 

However, it was Edison’s keen ability to understand consumer needs and the timing of product introductions that put the finishing touches to this and created a total system. And there lay the Genius of Edison.

In Edison’s own words: “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”  And as you can see from the above story it takes a lot of perspiration to create an entire system for innovations.

Effort is important, but knowing where to make an effort makes all the difference...

"Give me the best person to do the job, the second best is too expensive." - Senior Rockefeller.

Storyline:

Ever heard the story of the giant ship engine that failed? The ship's owners tried one expert after another, but none of them could figure but how to fix the engine. Then they brought in an old man who had been fixing ships since he was a youngster. He carried a large bag of tools with him,  and when he arrived, he immediately went to work.

He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom. Two of the ship's owners were there, watching this man, hoping he would know what to do. After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed!

A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for ten thousand dollars.

"What?!" the owners exclaimed. "He hardly did anything!"

So they wrote the old man a note saying, "Please send us an itemized bill."

The man sent a bill that read:

Tapping with a hammer ......................... $          2.00
Knowing where to tap  ......................... $       9998.00

Reflection:

"Experience is not what happens to a person; it is what a person does with what has happened to him/her."

Do you know your worth?

"Tell yourself you are a great individual and believe in yourself, for if you don’t believe in yourself, it will be hard for others to believe in you."  -- Walter Payton, one of the greatest American football players. (Source: The autobiography of Walter Payton NEVER DIE EASY. Walter Payton with Don Yeager) 

The world is too big. There are an abundance of opportunities. If you believe in yourself (know your self worth), there is always room at the top for your talents somewhere in this world. Pravin Shah 1965.

Life gives you exactly what you bargain for; nothing less or nothing more. (except in this story)

Story Line:

This is the story about a fellow who, several years ago, left his job and went into the consulting business. After he had finished a presentation about his services to a potential customer, the Vice President of Operations of the customer company asked him to come to his office  to work out the terms of the agreement.

When the fellow arrived, Mr. VP handed him a piece of paper and asked him to review and fill up the required information. This fellow was surprised because he was expecting a lengthy, legal terms and conditions type documents. Instead, there were only four words on that entire piece of paper. Rate…….Hours…….Others Conditions.

Never having expected this in his wildest imagination and still in a state of disbelief, the fellow told Mr. VP, “I will take whatever is the going rate with your other consultants with similar experience.”  After further insistence from Mr. VP that he must fill up that information himself, this fellow put down certain $$$ and Hours.

After a few months, as their work relationship became closer and the fellow had delivered good results, Mr. VP told him, “I know that you have not been in business for yourself before, but whether it is your own business or a job, you must know your worth all the time. We were willing to pay you twice as much because that is what we had assessed in terms of what you could do to save our biggest customer from moving away.”  He continued, “So now that we have been able to regain our customer’s confidence in us with your help, how much are you worth?” And he again gave him a piece of paper to fill up. It had the same four words as the first one.

Reflection: 

It is hard to believe that such things could happen in business world where some one  would be so gracious to  increase the compensation rate without negotiations. But I have seen it happen more than one time.

But the key point of this real story is the lesson that Gary Remmen (Mr. VP, now retired in Florida) taught this young fellow. Whether you are in a business or an employee, you must regularly do an analysis of the portfolio of your capabilities and services (talents) and determine what it is worth. This allows you to:

1. Constantly look at the return your customers as well as you get on your personal assets (your talents and what you offer)

2. Explore new opportunities to expand the scope of your existing talents.

3. Develop the new skills and thus grow your portfolio of capabilities and services and your value.

SO WHAT ARE YOU WORTH?  (Share  your comments and stories below.)