Friday Reflections

When Rome was burning Nero was fiddling

 

Point to Ponder: Things That Matter Most Shouldn’t Be Put At the Mercy of Things That Matter Least.

Story Line: A few days ago, while talking to some old friends about our days in the corporate kingdom, the memories of some great kingdoms that are no longer in existence came up. There was a common theme to their demise; losing focus on the core things that keep business great (ex: Product, Service Excellence) and spending too much resources on sideline things (ex: Logos, External Org Awards, Slogans, Program of the Year, …… ). Listening to that, the memories of Nero, the last Roman Emperor of Julio-Claudian dynasty came to my mind.

Nero Claudius Caesar, the ruthless Emperor had a mad passion for music, art and sports. He notoriously ignored many essential needs for the country and focused his energy and attention on a crazy passion for music and art to make Rome great. He eliminated people who brought him in power, refused to follow sound advice from well-meaning people and purged the ones who did not align with his way of thinking.

There is a story that he was on the roof of his palace during The Great Fire of Rome, dressed in a theatrical costume singing the Greek epic “The Sack of Ilium.” Many citizens believed that the fire that destroyed most of Rome was started by Nero's orders to clear land for expanding his palace and scope up against it. Nero blamed senators for not controlling people and then deflected any negative attention by blaming a religious sect of Christian worshippers. He ordered brutal persecutions.

In addition, Nero exhausted the Roman treasury by rebuilding the city around his palace complex. Having solved none of the major problems of the country, he was declared Public Enemy #1 but committed suicide before the people could get to him.

Reflection: When I assumed the responsibility for an important supply chain organization, I asked my predecessor for some advice. One of the most important things he said was “Your No 1 job is to prevent supply problems to factories (main customers). If customers are happy, you will have a lot of time and support to do all kinds of other things for your people and organization. (even the types of things like music and dancing that Nero had asked of his senate).”

Following that advice made all the difference.

 

When Nero is confronted by the Senate. (Scene from another movie).

 

 

A Fine Thing

 

Point to Ponder:

It’s a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test. – Lou Holtz Legendary Notre Dame Football Coach

Story Line: Lou Holtz coached 132 games in 11 seasons at Notre Dame and guided his teams to an overall record of 100-32-2. Holtz took his Notre Dame teams to nine straight New Year's Day Bowl games from 1987 through 1995.

In the undergraduate commencement address to the students at Franciscan University Lou- with his incredible sense of humor- conveyed important lessons about personal responsibility, trust, and love.

A few highlights from his speech are in the video link on top of the page. For those interested in the full speech (17 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3LOo_Ccyws

Reflection: In my career and life I have learned more from others’ experiences. The lifetime experiences of people like Lou and his willingness to share with people are very valuable asset. In a short time we can learn many important lessons.

How Good is Your Title?

"My job title not only represents the scope of my assignment but most importantly it represents the enormous obligation I have to deliver great value to my stakeholders."   - Joe Z, my fourth boss, who went to become a very successful and respected executive 

Storyline:

How good is your title? Well it depends on what you do, as Joe said in the above quote.  What happens when the focus on your title becomes more important than the focus on the value you create?  Consider the following true story:

One Friday afternoon in the late 1970s, we were having a birthday celebration and some cake with our director, "SD". SD asked Ken and I, two recent college graduates, to join him in his office for a chat. He lit a cigar and started telling us different events from his life with every puff of smoke he took. In those days, there were no smoking regulations, and as new hires, we had no choice but to endure a lot of smoke!

He (SD) was 28 years old (puff), had a Ph.D. from a prestigious university by the time he was 24 (puff), he had already become a director at the age of 27 (puff), repeated thrice that he was a director (puff, puff, puff), had a house on the hills (puff, puff) and land in an affluent area ...

Just at that moment, his phone rang. It seemed to be from his boss. As soon as he hung up the phone, he told us "My boss (the General Manager) is calling an emergency meeting. I need to go."

As he was leaving his office door, he looked at us with a smirk and said, "You guys are lucky. You don't have Friday afternoon emergency meetings at your level."

That was the last time we saw SD. On Monday morning, we were summoned to our own emergency meeting by the General Manager and introduced to our new director.

Reflection:  As our meeting with the GM ended and we were leaving the room, Ken and I had learned one of the most important lessons at an early stage of our career: your title is as good as one phone call from the boss.  What matters is the value you deliver to stakeholders.

Repeat: This reflection was originally published on July 2008. Worth revisiting once in a while. Comments from the original posting included.

Norway The Happiest Place on Earth

 

Point to Ponder: "When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life." John Lennon

Story Line: Norway - The Happiest Place on Earth

Norway is rated as the happiest country on earth by the United Nations Agency’s World Happiness Report. The measure of Happiness may be subjective, but what we experienced on our latest visit there felt very real. 

I have a shared a video above that captures many of our wonderful experiences with the people and places in Norway. Here is a sampling of a few of those locales and people with whom we are now connected.

It starts with a celebration on the streets of Bergen featuring the incoming Freshman class. Students dress up in various costumes and go around the town celebrating. 

 

While strolling around the residential areas of a the small town of Rosendal, we met a lady and her son who invited us to stay with them before going to the next place. Their open, warm, and giving nature spoke volumes about the generosity of the Norwegian people.

While enjoying the immense beauty of a sunrise in Odda, we missed our bus. With limited, to what seemed like, no options; an off duty Taxi Driver understood our predicament and was kind enough to drive us 40km out of his way so that we could make it for our boat ride.

Then there was a lady in the train to Oslo who requested me to keep an eye of her things while she stepped of her seat for a while. Upon return we started talking and three hours passed by in minute and the exhaustion of a long day was forgotten. During our chat about Medical system, she mentioned that an American family had to rush to a Norwegian hospital when their son got injured. After registering the father handed his credit card. He was told not to worry about the payment because Norway’s medical system has provision for visitors in the budget. The next day she sent us a detailed email suggesting places to visit and dine, and recommendation for a Bed and Breakfast in Southern Norway for our next trip. Since then we have exchanged many emails

On our way to the airport the bus driver told us about the girl who loved to sit and enjoy coffee and tea more than anything else. He liked her. So he invited her for a hike. After three days and 140km that included climbing 1800 meters, the girl said “Yes”. I guess Nature can do wonders. 

In a recent note to us he wrote “Life is strange! How do we end up where we are just now? Education and planning is two great tools to control the future. I do have some education and have the best woman to help me control life. My workplace is a wonderful place where i meet great people, sometimes they do make me feel like a mere grassstraw compared to a redwood tree. These people also make me proud of my country and gives me an urge to see out of my little buble called Norway. I just want to say thank you for giving me a very good day at work.”  

Reflection: In addition to many Norwegian friends, we also became friends with a family from Colombia, an Israeli-Norwegian couple and an Indian-German couple.

We returned home with many new friends and wonderful memories. Yes indeed, the two weeks we spent in Norway were very happy times for us and we understand why Norway is rated so highly on the Happiness Index.  

It made us sad to leave the happiest place on earth but then also glad that we were returning home to be with our grandsons and family.

 

Sentimental Version: The Happiest Place on Earth