Friday Reflections

The Return of Ping: A Frog Still In Search of a New Pond

 

POINT TO PONDER

"Who can guess that precise moment when your world is going to change?"

 

STORY LINE 

In the course of writing these Friday Reflections, I receive good stories from the readers; reflections of their own from their experiences. Roger from Costa Rica recommended a book by Stuart Avery Gold: Ping, A Frog in Search of a New Pond. It is simple, short and worth one hour of reading that returns over the course of a lifetime in learning.

Here are a few excerpts from the book:

Introduction: This is the story of Ping, a frog who  ignored the signs of his pond drying up around him, and is stuck in the mud. Forced to leave his home in search of a new pond, he's unprepared for his journey and many challenges he confronts. Then he meets Owl, an insightful teacher who shares his wisdom, guiding Ping towards his goal.

Ping represents everybody who has encountered a setback or is struggling with change. Owl is the mentor who helps him find meaning and leap to new heights. Engaging in its warmth and simplicity, Ping's tale inspires us to lead a life with purpose and intention, to take risks and persevere, and show us the limitless possibilities that can result.

Quotable Quotes from the book:

The dream does not begin unless you do. Too many wait for just the right time and just the right place to act.The very act of waiting actually pushes the desired event away. You must do in order to be.

Risk converts opportunity into reality. A failure to take risks will result in failure to experience your destiny.

Change-real change-is unsettling. When change happens, it can create the kind of fear that can hold of even the most confident of frogs. Fear of change can grip and grab and seize you with such strength, it can paralyze you. But only if you let it.

 

REFLECTION

As an old saying goes "the only thing constant in life is change." And with the rapid changes that the technology revolution of last forty years has brought about, our surroundings and lives are changing at much faster pace than ever. Even the mightiest of empires and once most stable of organizations are not spared from the massive waves of change. I highly recommend this book Ping. It gives an enlightening points to ponder about coping with change and risk taking.

(Roger is 2/2 for good recommendations; his previous recommendation, in 2004, was the book called Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Link to Ping Site: http://www.stuartaverygold.com/ping.htm)

Recognizing Learning

 

POINT TO PONDER

 

"Learning disabilities are tragic in children, but they are fatal in organizations. Because of them, a few corporations live even half as long as a person. Most die before they reach the age of forty."

 

                                - Peter Senge, "The Fifth Discipline."

 

   
STORY LINE

 

The first step in curing learning disabilities is to identify them.  Even if you do not feel that you have any problems in your current environment, awareness of these disabilities is important in order to proactively prevent them from occurring further down the road in your professional and personal life.

 

Peter Senge identified seven learning disabilities in The Fifth Discipline*:

 

1. I am my own position: when people focus only on their position within the organization and have little sense of responsibility for the results produced when all positions interact.  

2. The enemy is out there syndrome: when we focus only on our position; we do not see how our own actions extend beyond the boundary of that position. 

3. The illusion of taking charge: when we know we should face up to difficult issues, stop waiting for someone else to do something, and solve problems before they grow into crises - but sometimes proactiveness is really reactiveness in disguise.

4. The fixation on events: leads to “event” explanations that are true for what happened most recently but distract us from seeing the longer-term patterns of change behind these events, and understanding the causes of these patterns.

5. The parable of the boiled frog**: the maladaptation of organizations to recognize threats to their survival that are gradually building - just as the frog placed in a pot of water brought to boiling temperature will not attempt to jump out of the pot, but adjusts to the temperature and slowly dies.

6. The delusion of learning from experience: when our actions have consequences in the distant future or part of the larger operating system, which makes it impossible to learn from direct experience.

7. The myth of the management team: because teams in business tend to spend their time fighting for turf, avoiding anything that will make them personally look bad, and pretending that everyone is behind the team’s collective strategy.

 

Preventing such learning disabilities from occurring in your own environment requires a different kind of thinking about your role, your team and your actions. What can you do to prevent such learning disabilities from occurring in your own environment? 

 

  
REFLECTION

 

In 1992, my boss Bob Miller, introduced his staff to Peter Senge's book and the concept of The Learning Organization. It made big impact, and from that point on it has guided our work and life philosophy. Since then, I have been fortunate to be a member of two Learning Organizations who produced extraordinary results with great teamwork.  The memories of those experiences will last for a lifetime. 

 

* Source of this FR is the book "The Fifth Discipline, The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization" by Peter Senge.

 

** Bonus: More about that Frog from Senge

 

 

THE PARABLE OF THE BOILED FROG

 

Maladaptation to gradually building threats to survival is so pervasive in systems studies of corporate failure that it has given rise to the parable of the “boiled frog.” If you place a frog in pot of boiling water, it will immediately try to scramble out. But if you place the frog in room temperature water, and don’t scare him, he will stay put. Now, if the pot sits on a heat source, and if you gradually turn up the temperature, something very interesting happens. As the temperature rises from 70 to 80 degrees F., the frog will do nothing. In fact, he will show every sign of enjoying himself. As the temperature gradually increases, the frog will become groggier and groggier, until he is unable to climb out of the pot. Though there is nothing restraining him, the frog will sit there and boil. Why? Because the frog’s internal apparatus for sensing threats to survival is geared to sudden changes in his environment, not to slow, gradual changes.

 

Learning to see slow, gradual process, requires slowing down our frenetic pace and paving attention to the subtle as well as the dramatic. If you sit and look into a tidepool, initially you won’t see much of anything going on. However, if you watch long enough, after about ten minutes the tidepool will suddenly come to life. The world of beautiful creatures is always there, but moving a too slowly to be seen at first. The problem is our minds are so locked in our frequency, it’s as if we can only see at 78 rpm; we can’t see anything at 33 1/3. We will not avoid the fate of the frog until we learn to slow down and see the gradual process that often poses the greatest threats.

The Fine Art of Want

 

POINT TO PONDER

"You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want."

                                -Zig Ziglar

 

 

STORY LINE by Rajiv Shah

Recently, I co-wrote a draft of my next screenplay with another writer. Now that the script is in good shape, the next step is to get professionals in Hollywood to read the material. That's easier said than done.

Most of the time scripts are read by assistants or script readers who then give it a "recommended" or a "pass" evaluation on your work. All too often, the script doesn't even get read at all, finding its way into someone's trash. So it's considered a success if you are able to get the script read by the person you actually sent it to in the first place; whether that be a director, actor, or producer. 

Now my co-writer on this particular project is a genius at getting people to not only read, but to also respond with notes and/or feedback on our script. I call him the magician because for a long time it was a mystery how he got people to read our work. 

The first time we received a favorable response, he called to tell me a foreign director who had been nominated for a Palme d'Or at Cannes would read it and get back to us. Two weeks later, sure enough, that same director responded and actually had kind thoughts for us on the script. I wrote this first one off as luck.

About a week later he let me know an established producer of the hit show Dawson's Creek would read our script and give us notes. Not only would this producer read the script, but also offered to give us feedback too. And sure enough, this producer also delivered. Now I was really starting to wonder.

Then a little later he called to tell me that a famous director who had been nominated for two Academy Awards (and who also happens to be responsible for one my favorite films starring Robert Duvall) would read the script to consider directing as his next project. Now I was totally dumbfounded. 

Now mind you, these are people that he did not know before hand. They were people he ran into at parties and events in and around Hollywood. He went up to them, talked to them, and then managed to get their personal contact information to send them our script, thereupon bypassing all the agents, readers, and filters these people had at their disposal. 

How did he do it? The question really started to plague me. Finally, I just came out and asked him to share his secret. 

Apparently, it was pretty simple. After brief introductions, he asked the people he targeted what they were looking for and what they needed. If it aligned with what we had, he told them about our script. According to him, people were more than happy to share their personal contact info. If our script didn't match up with their needs, he thanked them and moved on. 

My writing partner told me that he approached every interaction not from a place of what he could get from them and what he needed, but from a position of opportunity to fill someone's else's needs. He believes that by shifting your focus to fulfilling the needs of another, you will ultimately fulfill your own.  

You Cannot Do Kindness Too Soon Because......

 

.....you don't know how soon will be too late. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

POINT TO PONDER

“All those honors are great, but personally I would ask that anyone who wants to pay tribute to me, for any reason, I would say there is one thing you could do above everything else and that is: Never let a day go by where you neglect to tell your loved ones that you love them.”

                                - Walter Payton, one of the top ten American football players of all time.

STORY LINE by Anand Shah

In this FR, I would like to share a story about people and an event that has influenced my career and life in a significant way. The message is especially relevant in current times.

The story is about three executives from the high-tech industry: three superiors from my first job. Two were in their early-50s and the third was in their late-50s. All of them had very successful careers; one was a General Manager and President of a semiconductor division of a Fortune Fifty company by the time he was 38 years old. The second was the head of manufacturing and the third superior was the CEO of a company in Asia. For whatever reason, two of them often related personal stories to me about their lives and careers. They were very kind to me and helped me improve my career as well as my personal life through their stories*.

It was the first week of March in 1984. At that time I had met two of them at a party the previous week and the third I met for dinner on the 8th. As in the past, they shared career reflections but what has stayed with me about that night is what they spoke about their families. Each one of them told me that they planned to retire in 2-5 years. They shared some of the things they planned to do in retirement, the most important to them was spending time with their families. They never got the time they wanted to spend with their families and felt retirement would allow them to make up for the time they missed over the years. The conversation then shifted to their plans for that Friday. They had taken time off from work to go fishing just outside Golden Gate Bridge, in northern most point of San Francisco. Not really that big of a deal at the time and we finished dinner and parted ways.

But that conversation still lingers in my memory, though the years have passed and I am older now than they were then. It haunts me to this day. 

Because on the following Sunday morning, I got a call from a friend. He asked me if I had read the newspaper. Those three people whom we knew dearly and respected immensely were missing at sea. They never returned nor were they ever found.

That event and those great individuals made a huge impact on me in shaping my life and career that followed. 

“To live in the hearts one leaves behind is not to die.”

REFLECTION

The reflections that two of those three individuals had shared had similar message as contained in the following paragraph from "Never Die Easy", the autobiography of Walter Payton:

Make everyday count. Appreciate every moment and take from those moments everything you possibly can, for you may never be able to experience it again. Talk to people you have never talked to before, and actually listen. Let yourself fall in love and set your sights high. Hold your head up because you have a right to. 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. You can make your life anything you wish. I hope my story is at least the example of that. Create your own life and then go out and live it with absolutely no regrets.

Most important thing though, if you love someone, tell him or her, for you never know what tomorrow may have in store. Remember, tomorrow is promised to no one.