Thought For The Day

Quote: Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.~Erica Jong

Proverb: He who is not lazy shall get much green~ Czech

Business Book Review: Fail Better By Anjali Sastry and Kara Penn

While innovation fuels the future, failures are inevitable. The authors’ Fail Better approach is designed to make missteps work for you.

1. Launching your project requires the right groundwork. Forget the complicated project plan. Keep it “simple, supple and scrappy.” Being concise ensures that you delve deeply into the causes of the problem, not its symptoms. A concise statement of the problem also contains the specifics of those affected by the process, a prioritized list of deliverables and ways to measure progress.

2. Don’t repeat processes; refine them. Think of the project’s activities as learning-by-doing rather than following protocol.

3. Use knowledge-sharing to embed learning in the organization. Assemble an archive of all projects that includes timelines, priorities, team construction, actions and outcomes. Because no project ever goes as planned, the archive should include shifts within projects and the reasons behind them.

Key takeaway: “The right kind of failure instructs, refines and improves ideas, work products, skills, capacities and teamwork.”

Culled From The Dallas Daily News
By Jim Pawlak

Jim Pawlak reviews business books for The Dallas Morning News. Follow him on Twitter at @JimPawlak. bizbooks@hotmail.com

How To Be A Boss/Leader by Alice Temitope Dako

In almost every area, there is nothing harder than finding our way to the top of the ladder. Well, except staying up there at the top, of the chain. No matter the size of the organisation or business, being a good boss requires more than just wearing power suits and tie all week long.

It is about having certain characters or qualities that make your workers respect you, effective and make clients and prospective customers want to associate with you. Being a good boss is not easy especially in small scale businesses or organisations where the work environment is more casual than formal. Therefore, in order to be a boss who leads by honorable examples, these are some of the things you need to do:

Realize it the joint effort of your workers that make management a success: As a good boss, you have to understand that it is not your effort alone that makes the department you are heading a success. In fact, majority of the work is done by the people working for you. So, it is never about your input alone that makes you a successful leader but the inputs of your workers.

Share duties and responsibilities and trust in the abilities of your workers: A good boss must understand the strength of his team members and then delegate duties accordingly. When duties are shared according to the strength and abilities of the workers, the work is done more effectively and faster than you can think of. Another thing is trusting your workers are not to try to undermine their abilities. If you give them work to do, do not butt in at all times trying to make them feel inadequate and inefficient.

Empower your workers to make decisions and don’t doubt them: Building your workers to be able to make powerful decisions to bring about changes brings about efficient productivity. Do not allow your workers to depend on you every time they need to make a choice and never doubt them. If one of your workers’ decisions does not go well, never chastise him so badly that he never believes himself again. Let every bad decision be used as a form of training the workers.

Help your workers to work out their issues without your intervention: It is normal to have workers who almost never agree about anything. If they bring the situation to you, encourage them both and tell them you trust in their abilities to get along with each and work together. Never takes sides with any of the workers and never let take their bickering in  front of a customer.

Deal with problems quickly and directly: When issues arise, never allow your workers beat about the bust when explaining what went. Ask them to go straight to the bottom line, as polite as you can. Provide solutions to the problem just as fast too.

Show your appreciation: A simple thank you goes a very long way with everybody, including your workers. Always say thank you for every work they do. Pay them good compliment as often as you can, especially in front of your customers. You can also give awards to the workers that did very well to encourage them to better and other workers to follow their lead.

Always pay attention: A good boss must be a good listener. He must be able to pay attention to the things his workers are saying, filter the useful ones and discard the wrong ones. Never see the opinion of your workers as irrelevant.

Being a good boss is about developing a conducive environment for his workers to thrive in, trust and showing appreciation to those that work for you.

Alice Temitope Dako

Father -Son Advice

One day a son came to his father for an advice:
– Dad, I can’t do this anymore, – he said, – those lessons only exhaust me, and the result doesn’t change. It must be not destined for me to play football and my dream will never come true.

The father looked at his son with loving eyes and said:
– You know son, every person in life has a dream, a goal of his life. They are the ones that make us do what we are doing, because it’s what we should do. We have to fight for what we believe in, what we feel. In other case, you will simply brake.

Once – and for all. As thought you were never there. The easiest way is to quit everything and not go until the end, because the path is difficult and we are not used to inconveniences. We want everything to be easy and at once. But the wishes are fleeting! This is how our dream dies, and the goal becomes unreachable. Gradually, life becomes a routine without depth and meaning. Then one day, we try to forget and start everything from the beginning, we wait for a new day to make our life different. But new obstacles come in our way, and we stop again. We become full of despair and anger for our own helplessness.

But you only need to remember one thing: never give up, fight, battle. It doesn’t matter that you have lost one battle and even dozens of battles. Life goes on! Your biggest enemies are hiding in you – laziness, fear, doubt, indecision. Be a warrior of your dream, a knight of your goal and a soldier of your wishes.

Enemy Of Progress

One day all the employees reached the office and they saw a big advice on the door on which it was written: “Yesterday the person who has been hindering your growth in this company passed away. We
invite you to join the funeral in the room that has been prepared in the gym”.

In the beginning, they all got sad for the death of one of their colleagues, but after a while they started getting curious to know who was that man who hindered the growth of his colleagues and the company itself. The excitement in the gym was such that security agents were ordered to control the crowd within the room. The more people reached the coffin, the more the excitement heated up. Everyone thought: “Who is this guy who was hindering my progress? Well, at least he died!” One by one the thrilled employees got closer to the coffin, and when they looked inside it they suddenly became speechless.

They stood nearby the coffin, shocked and in silence, as if someone had touched the deepest part of their soul. There was a mirror inside the coffin: everyone who looked inside it could see.

There was also a sign next to the mirror that said: “There is only one person who is capable to set limits to your growth: it is YOU.” You are the only person who can revolutionize your life. You are the only
person who can influence your happiness, your realization and your success. You are the only person who can help yourself.

Your life does not change when your boss changes, when your friends change, when your partner changes, when your company changes. Your life changes when YOU change, when you go beyond your limiting beliefs, when you realize that you are the only one responsible for your life. “The most important relationship you can have is the
one you have with yourself” .

Moral: The world is like a mirror: it gives back to anyone the reflection of the thoughts in which one has strongly believed. The world and your reality are like mirrors lying in a coffin, which show to any individual the death of his divine capability to imagine and create his happiness and his success. It’s the way you face Life that makes the difference.

Milk Bottle Story

When Charles Wilson was president of GE, he was asked by the president of a small mid-western company how his experience as president of a major company could apply to the president of a very small company.

Wilson answered by detailing a job he had when he was a kid. He worked for a dairy and his job was to fill the milk bottles. The bottles were different sizes. Some were pint, half gallon and others were gallons. They all had different size necks.

On his way home from a ten hour work day, he asked himself what he was learning. The answer was that no matter what size the bottle, the cream always came to the top.

Point: Improve yourself to become the cream

The Three Guard Dogs – A Story About Assertiveness

Morris the dog was walking past a property one day and he was suddenly confronted by a large black dog who barked ferociously through the fence at him.

“What are you doing?’ asked Morris.

“I’m guarding this property.” responded the black dog.

“What are you barking at me for? asked Morris.

“Because you’re a threat.  Everyone has the potential to break in and steal from me, so I’m not taking any risks and am barking at everyone.”

Morris shrugged his shoulders and walked away, thinking about how much energy the black dog was unnecessarily wasting.

The next day, he walked past the same property, but instead of being confronted by the vicious guard dog, he was met by a furry ball of fluff.

“What happened to the large black dog?” he asked.

“He annoyed his owners by barking all of the time, so they gave him away and replaced him with me.” replied the ball of fluff.

“You don’t look very scary.” observed Morris.

“I’m not.  You never have to worry about me being too angry.”

“What would you do if someone tried to steal from you?” asked Morris.

“Why would anyone try to steal from me?  I’m such a nice cute doggy that no-one would ever take advantage of me.”

Morris shrugged his shoulders and walked away, hoping that the little ball of fluff would be OK.

The next day he walked past the same property and was met by a large golden retriever.

“What happened to the little ball of fluff?” Morris asked.

“Some intruders came last night and all he did was roll over to have his belly scratched while the place was ransacked.” replied the retriever.

“So, what’s your strategy for guarding this place?”  asked Morris.

“I’ve learned that not everyone’s a threat, so there’s no point in barking at everyone and keeping them at a distance, but I’ve also learned that being nice and polite won’t always cut it either as not everyone has my best interest at heart.  Others will always know that I’m here, but I feel comfortable enough with myself that I don’t need to rant and rave to be heard or look after everyone else’s needs to be liked.  I’ll just be calm and clear when communicating, decreasing the risk of being taken the wrong way.”

“I think I’ll be seeing a lot more of you,” said Morris, suitably impressed as he went on his way.

Let me encourage you to learn from this story that you don’t need to be an angry, rabid dog or a delightful ball of fluff to be successful in what you’re doing.

Instead, learn to express yourself with clarity, honesty and calmness.

Discipline

A boy was flying a kite with his father and asked him what kept the kite up.

Dad replied,”The string.” The boy said, “Dad, it is the string that is holding the kite down.” The father asked his son to watch as he broke the string. Guess what happened to the kite? It came down. Isn’t that true in life? Sometimes the very things that we think are holding us down are the things that are helping us fly. That is what discipline is all about.

Be Yourself ( Self Esteem)

A young executive with poor self-esteem was promoted but he couldn’t reconcile himself to his new office and position.

There was a knock at his door. To show how important and busy he was, he picked up the phone and then asked the visitor to come in. As the man waited for the executive, the executive kept talking on the phone, nodding and saying, “No problem, I can handle that.”

After a few minutes he hung up and asked the visitor what he could do for him. The man replied, “Sir, I’m here to connect your phone.”

Time To Think

Henry Ford hired an efficiency expert to go through his plant. He said, “Find the nonproductive people. Tell me who they are, and I will fire them!”

The expert made the rounds with his clipboard in hand and finally returned to Henry Ford’s office with his report. “I’ve found a problem with one of your administrators,” he said. “Every time I walked by, he was sitting with his feet propped up on the desk. The man never does a thing. I definitely think you should consider getting rid of him!” When Henry Ford learned the name of the man the expert was referring to, Ford shook his head and said, “I can’t fire him. I pay that man to do nothing but think – and that’s what he’s doing.”