Friday Reflections

It is a small world after all* (and even smaller with wonders of technology)

Point to Ponder:

There's so much that we share
That it's time we're aware
It's a small world after all.
 

Story Line:

In a seminar I attended recently, there was a video that showed creations of the human imagination in art, science, architecture, and music. While watching the video, it occurred to me that the spirit of innovation and the limitless possibilities of the human mind are not exclusive to any one group of people, race, religion, color or national origin. Both qualities are timeless, ageless and boundless. 

When the video ended, the instructors asked the class to share our observations. Mine consisted of reciting words from a song I love from Disneyland, “Though the mountains divide and the oceans are wide, it's a small world after all…”

Throughout history the power of the human mind has created many innovations. Advances in technology have connected the world such that we have the opportunity to share our ideas, creations and discoveries on a real time basis. Our differences are few and our possibilities, endless. Fear holds us back - creating misunderstanding and conflict – where hope can move us forward towards understanding and peace.

With the power of human imagination and the infinite possibility of technology, we have a golden opportunity to make this world a much better place.

 
Reflection:
It's a world of laughter
A world of tears
It's a world of hopes
And a world of fears
There's so much that we share
That it's time we're aware
It's a small world after all
 
There is just one moon
And one golden sun
And a smile means
Friendship to every one
Though the mountains divide
And the oceans are wide
It's a small world after all…

   

*Dedicated to my childhood penpal on our 40th anniversary. Her first letter was dated September 24th, 1970. It was postmarked from the Philippines, a country I did not know at that time. She said that she was Chinese, a culture I did not know much about at the time either. Forty years later we have a multicultural family consisting of Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Dutch, German, English, Scottish and American Indian heritages. It truly is a small world after all.

Who is the most important salesperson of all?

 

 

"A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter is not a nice person. (This rule never fails.)" - from Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management.

Growth comes in seeing possibilities beyond the immediate circumstances.

 

Story Line:

The best salesperson I have known once told me, "In sales, getting inside the customer's door is half the job."

Businesses spend sizable amounts of money in marketing, advertising, promotion, events and travel just to get inside the customer's doors. Only after that, they can talk about the merits of their products or services, make a sale, and then deliver performance that can eventually establish the brand image. (Good Will)

Now think about a situation where many potential customers are knocking on your door every day, without you having to spend the money.  For a business, this sounds like a field of dreams. ("Wait, he is on to something.")

This happens when suppliers, job applicants and many other visitors come to your company's doors. Though they come knocking on your door for an opportunity to get your business or a job, you also have a golden opportunity to make a lasting impression about your brand. Negotiate hard, interview tough, but ultimately how you treat them as people and how you carry yourself as the representative for your company makes the difference in winning the hearts and minds of potential customers everyday.

Now a salesperson would say, "This is what dreams are made of. Is this heaven?"

In a nut shell;     

Cup of Coffee and Doughnuts             $2.00
Common courtesy                               A smile and a warm handshake
Good Will                                            Priceless

For everything else? (nope, not what you think)

It is: Yours and Your Company's Brand Image

  

Reflections:

Look at your job as much broader than as described in your job description.

Imagine: “I am the CEO of what I am responsible at work.”

Anytime you are dealing with any person, it is your opportunity to build relationships and good will.

You are not only enhancing the brand image of your employer but you are also building or enhancing your own brand.

Just Speed Up The Boat

"Join in the new game that's sweeping the country. It's called Bureaucracy! Everybody stands in a circle. The first person to do anything loses." - Javier Pascal Salcedo

"In any bureaucracy, paperwork increases as you spend more and more time reporting on the less and less you are doing" (reference)

Story Line: Just speed up the boat
 

As with many stories in Friday Reflections, this one happened Once Upon a Time.

The boss of a rather large global group had flown in from another state and summoned his local team to discuss a project the team had initiated that had shown great results in their department.

The boss went through standard customary motions as happens in many meetings, and after showing a lot of interest in the project told the three team members in attendance, “Your work is revolutionary and you have gotten great results in your environment. But now there is a similar initiative by a very large support group that they call Company Wide Excellence. They have not been able to show progress with many more resources, and you guys are making them look bad.”

The boss continued, “It is time you let go of your project to them and concentrate on other work.” 

The newest employee in the group, who coincidentally was also in his first job after graduation, told the boss, “We can work with them to explore scaling our work to speed up Company Wide Excellence”

The boss, a little annoyed at naïvete of the young man said, “You don’t understand. You guys are like a speed boat going against a super tanker. They can crush you. Do you understand what I am saying?”

The young man, not being savvy in understanding the hidden message said “Yes, we understand. All that we have to do is speed up so the super tanker can never catch us.”

Sequel: That young man, after delivering great results to his employer, left and is now owner of a  successful business. And those Corporate Wide Excellence folks? After creating a massive bureaucracy which was dissolved a few years later, they are retired or working at other places.

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it

Reflection: Sometimes it make sense to question a rule before mechanically following it

People gather bundles of sticks to build bridges they never cross

POINT TO PONDER:

People gather bundles of sticks to build bridges they never cross.

-Unknown

STORYLINE by Rajiv Shah:

Susan Boyle stood backstage at the Clyde Auditorium waiting her turn to audition for the 2009 season of BRITAIN’S GOT TALENT. She was forty-seven years old, overweight, with an awkward haircut that was graying at the temples and thick caterpillar eyebrows that furrowed when the stage lights turned her way. She walked onstage in her outdated dress, coal black stockings and microphone cradled in her hand – seemingly the evening’s joke for the audience. The audience scoffed when she said she wanted to be a professional singer and shook their heads when she stated that she wanted to be as successful as Elaine Paige.

Susan’s story to get onto the stage wasn’t easy. She had turned up to audition at the urging of her mother – two years prior – right before she passed away. Susan was so distraught at her mother’s passing that she did not emerge from her house for five days. She had been living at home with her mother - caring for her when she fell ill - and well into her forties Susan had never been kissed or married. Susan was awkward, unattractive, and her greatest dream was in becoming a professional singer seemed reserved for the young and beautiful.

That’s what Susan believed as she had been quietly taking vocal lessons and singing with the choir at the local parish church. Her mother was ailing but encouraged her daughter to risk - to get up onstage in front of more people than the numbers in her church provided.

Susan wasn’t sure she had what it took. She loved to sing and her mother believed in her, but the voice of doubt kept ringing in her head. She reasoned that singing contests were as much about looks as they were about her voice. And who was she to believe that someone in their forties could become a pop star? Susan Boyle wanted to pull out of BRITAIN’S GOT TALENT.

Susan had already dropped out of another competition called X-FACTOR a few years earlier but she had good reason. In 1995 she auditioned for Michael Barrymore on his show, MY KIND OF PEOPLE, only to be mocked by Barrymore during her audition because of her looks. When her mother passed away in 2007, she put singing in the farthest recesses of her mind.

Two years had passed since her mother’s death and in her memory, Susan kept her audition. She now stood before BRTAIN’S GOT TALENT judges Amanda Holden, Piers Morgan, and the infamous Simon Cowell who was notorious for being cruel to untalented contestants. As the audience squirmed, Susan Boyle put the microphone up to her lips to sing “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables.

The rest of her audition can be seen at the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxPZh4AnWyk

REFLECTION:

Doubt is a dangerous adversary. It is most dangerous because it comes to you as a voice that seems to be your best friend, an advisor, and protector. It feeds on your fears and stops you from pursuing your dreams by outlining all the possible pitfalls along the way. It will make promises of failure and play them over and over in your head should you find the courage to pursue your dream. This voice is most dangerous because it sounds LOGICAL and REASONABLE and when pitfalls come into your path, as they always will, it will seize the opportunity to exaggerate them. It is the voice that will tell you that Susan Boyle’s story is not your story and cannot be – the details are different - she posses more talent than you, is luckier than you, and her story cannot be yours.

So you might continue as you always have, keeping your hobby just a hobby, following your passion only when you have the time, and secretly wanting more than you feel comfortable to admit. Because the voice has been right all along - dreams are meant to be dreams and that this is the reality you deserve.

You never know unless you try!

You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to leave the shore.

Storyline: You never know unless you try - three real life stories.

1. During my college days in the 1970s, I met this fellow who was studying for a degree in Pharmaceutical Engineering. After graduating, I left for the USA and he stayed home and started a business. The first product he introduced was an insect repellent cream. Irony of fate or what, but the formula he used created an opposite effect: i.e. instead of repelling insects it was attracting them. This young entrepreneur became the laughing stock of the town.

Later that year, when I was visiting back home, I asked him how he is handling such an embarrassment. He told me, "Well, at least I tried, and now I know what ingredients don't work! I'll try something different next time." I lost touch with him since then - until two weeks ago. I was talking to a childhood friend, and found out that fellow is now the owner of a large pharmaceutical company, employing thousands of people, with branches in India, Germany, England and China, and the Middle East.

2. Last week, I ran into this Chinese couple that I knew years ago. In the mid 1990s, they founded a company to develop a unique Integrated Circuit product. Every time I met them during those early days, the wife used to tell me, "We are going to make it. We are going to be very big." One day I asked the husband, the designer of the product, "Your idea is good, but it seems that your circuit is very complicated to make. How do you know it will work?" He replied, "Well, the only way to find out is to make it."  Today, their company employs over 5000 people worldwide. During the recession of early the 2000s, theirs was the fastest growing company in the industry, and today it is the leader in their market segment.

3. At the age of 28, Vince Paplae was working as a bartender in a small town in Pennsylvania. From childhood, He had passion for sports and decided to try out for professional football, something unimaginable for a person of that age, and more so because he had not even played college football. At the age of 30 he became the oldest rookie to have played in National Football league. He played as a wide receiver for Philadelphia Eagles from 1976 to 1978. In 2006, Disney released a movie "Invincible" based on Papale's life.

Reflection:

We often hear people complaining why something won't work: Too much bureaucracy, It won't fly by this person, too difficult, he is too high level for me to approach, that is how it is always done in this company etc.

Just give it a try instead of speculating or imagining. Even if it does not work, what's the downside?  Status Quo for a while until you try again!