Reinke Faces Life

FROM A NOTE I WROTE

***Begin Quote***

I think that sadly all too many people go to their grave and take their DIKW — data, information, knowledge, and wisdom — with them. Like the man, who dies, leaving his family without life insurance, is said to “abscond”. So to, those, who leave, taking their thoughts to the grave, have stolen from all of us. It our duty to humanity to point the way. Probably our mistakes are more insightful. Those tell people what didn’t work for us. Remember Edison’s “now I know 10,000 ways how NOT to make a light bulb”. Powerful advice.

***End Quote***

Steven Covey says the word ‘universe” means one song. I hope everyone “sings” their song on the inet where it will be captured hopefully forever.

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http://lifecoachesblog.com/2007/10/19/when-is-someday

When is Someday?

Rick Cook, October 19th 2007

***Begin Quote***

Let’s see, there’s Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday… but when is Someday?

Show me Someday on the calendar. Point it out to me in your daytimer. How long is a month of Somedays? Even blue moons happen once in a while (second full moon in a month), but Someday? The closest day to Someday is Never.

***End Quote***

Excellent question!

Now?

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FROM AN EMAIL I WROTE

Meetings without notes are just “campfires”.

***Begin Quote***

“Campfire” meetings are just like a potlatch which could involve a feast, with music, dance, theatrically and spiritual ceremonies. In it’s simplest form, the campfire meeting is just a gathering that tell stories. Often, promises are made, deliveries scheduled, oaths given. And all is lost when the meeting ends. Even before the last final Kumbaya has been sung, the agreement begins to erode. There needs to be a “totem pole” erected recording who was to do what.

***End Quote***

I like a very structured meeting. Otherwise nothing seems to be accomplished.

The CHAMPION is the one who calls the meeting, ensures attendance, and justifies the effort. The ORGANIZER is responsible for the venue. The ARCHIVIST (the politically correct name for the Secretary) creates the agenda and minutes. The TIMEKEEPER keeps the meeting on schedule. The FACILITATOR moderates the debate with in the rules of engagement.

At the very least, there is an ANNOUNCEMENT, the AGENDA which may be sent with the announcement, and the MINUTES which may be in the form of informal notes.

Without structure, accomplishments are by luck; not design. I used to have a boss, who would announce at the beginning and end of a meeting, how much that meeting could / did cost the organization in salary dollars. It kept meetings short and focused. He made me crazed about meetings.

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http://sports.myway.com/news/10092007/v2657.html

Alex Rodriguez’s Agent Hints A-Rod Likely to Opt Out of Contract and Become Free Agent
Oct 9, 10:03 PM (ET)
By RONALD BLUM

***Begin Quote***

NEW YORK (AP) -Alex Rodriguez is ready to cash in. Again.

Agent Scott Boras hinted Tuesday that A-Rod will opt out of the final three seasons of his contract with the New York Yankees and seek a new deal in the free-agent market that will lock him up through his pursuit of Barry Bonds’ home-run record.

***End Quote***

And, I’d say “good riddance”. He was an empty uniform in the post season.

As a proxy for the real world, one must always seek to keep one’s options open while locking down “sweetness”.

For example, when I am “in” and the hunter comes calling, I want a contract, or at least double what I have. If I am “out”, then I’m not so choosey because a double of zero is zero.

Take Posada for example. He’s in his option year and did well. He’s old. He’s a catcher. And, he keeps his mouth shut. I’m sure he will do quite well. If I were him, I’d want “long” at the expense of “big”. He might not be physically able to do as well as he did this year. So, if the Yankees have 20M$ budgeted for a first string catcher, then they might off a one year contract at 20M$. He, otoh, say wants a ten year deal (10*20M$=200m$). So let’s say the Yankees offer him either 1 year @ 20M$, 3 years @ 15m$, or 5 years @ 10M$, what does he pick? Sigh, I should have such problem.

From a productivity pov, we are all working for the benjamins. How do you get max? How do you even know what is possible? Hopefully, you’ve thought out what you need to make you happy. Or, at least satisfied.

Now where is my bat and glove.

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http://execunet.blogspot.com/2007/10/whats-in-name.html

Monday, October 08, 2007
What’s In A Name?

***Begin Quote***

Actually, it isn’t just me who’s interested in the “title of the week” stuff. At ExecuNet, we have been following it for a bit as well in terms of how companies are using different titles to describle some of the senior level executives, a few examples of which have been:

Chief Digital Officer
Chief Encouragement Officer
Chief Innovation Officer
Chief Learning Officer
Chief Momentum Officer
Chief Networking Officer

{Extraneous Deleted}

***End Quote***

Everybody wants to be a “Chief”!

Let me tell you that being a “chief” ain’t it is all cracked up to be.

I read somewhere that CIOs only last 18 months on average.

Perhaps this is indicating that the modern large corporation has finally grown to big. The magic number 7±2. Roman centurions commanded 60-80 men. So we can see the limits of humans as limits to organizational growth.

It would appear that this is ignorged at peril.

Maybe everything is just too big.

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text

http://sports.myway.com/news/10072007/v5693.html

Boss of Old: George Steinbrenner Says Yankees Must Win Or Joe Torre Likely Won’t Return
Oct 7, 5:58 PM (ET)
By RONALD BLUM

***Begin Quote***

NEW YORK (AP) -Win or else! That was George Steinbrenner’s message to Joe Torre before the New York Yankees played the Cleveland Indians on Sunday night.

***End Quote***

As a “professional transitioner”, who has been on the … … errr, non-clean, end of the stick many times, I can emphasize with Joe’s situation.

At the beginning of the season, Yankee watchers knew the Yankees had no pitching. Time after time, game after game, we watched Torre tiptoe thru tight spot after top spot. The killer story was the one, years ago, that Pettite and Clemens left the Yankees because no one asked them if they wanted to stay. That story was confirmed with the Yankee GM Cashman. He said they were pursuing other pitchers and the deals didn’t work out.

So, George, you’re threatening the wrong fellow. I think that Torre did an unbelievable job with what your team gave him.

imho

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If I can help you in any way please don’t hesitate to ask. Some times the Universe can be bewildering. So if you just want to ask what you think is the dumbest question imaginable, then feel free to bounce it off me. If I can’t answer it, I’ll ask the appropriate people. They already think I’m a “character, so “dumb” will just be confirming their beliefs.

I personally believe that there are literally no “dumb” questions.

Those supposedly “dumb” questions are: (1) not so “dumb” because probably some one else has the same question but is too “embarrassed” to ask something so “dumb”; AND (2) even if it is “dumb”, all those “smart” people should have made the question unnecessary (i.e., FAQ, documentation, help files, wiki). So as you can see, I never fault anyone who asks “dumb” questions. Or, even think less of them.

And, I’ve learned over my career is that I can learn quite a bit from “dumb” questions. Best is when children ask them because they see things completely differently.

So, if I can help, please just ask.

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Lesson Learned: Always watch the traffic.

Interesting, during my recent trip to LV, there must have been a bad accident on the interstate. Let me start at the beginning, departing one casino, we were waiting at the traffic light. (If you miss a light in Vegas, you have a lot of time to admire the scenery!) I noticed a helicopter hovering in the distance. It had to be a “traffic” copter. You just don’t see helicopters hovering in one spot. What would they be doing — drying a lawn? Upon closer study, it was over my road. So I immediately began thinking of alternatives. (Who wants to waste gambling time stuck in traffic?) So as I closed the distance, I could see the interstate was bumper2bumper. (Hey great, I ain’t going that way, and I wasn’t planning to go that way. Thanks Intelligent Designer for not putting it on my path!) As me, and two of my closest competitors to get across town first raced down Flamingo Boulevard, we approached the on ramp to the interstate. Did the guy in the right lane (I was in middle) get a surprise when some bozo from the on ramp made a tight left turn in front of him. Right-lane guy was doing 65; down-the-on-ramp guy was doing 5 as a result of that tight reverse 135 degree turn! People were streaming down the on-ramp. It was like a TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It) movie where people were escaping from Godzilla on the interstate. Luckily, the right lane guy wasn’t turning to get on the interstate, or it would have made an even bigger big mess. More importantly, (after all this is all about me), I recognized the situation, and in true Christian fellowship, ever mindful of the Pontiff’s directive on Christian Driving, I had slowed down to permit the right hand guy to use my lane to escape the accident that was going to happen should he not have an escape route. (The fact, that if right-lane guy had hit down-the-on-ramp guy, there was a very good chance one or both of those bozos would have hit me, thus delaying me from my appointed rounds delivering my cash to casinos though out the Las Vegas valley! Of course, that fact never entered my mind.)

Lesson Learned: Don’t assume that on ramps won’t have exiting traffic! There may not be a traffic helicopter hovering over the road to alert you.

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LESSONS LEARNED: Use a code table and use list. Keep the relationship in your wallet.

*** Begin Code Table ***

x-\-x x1 x2 x3 x4 x5
0x U5IB5JCH MO62COFV CXK5NDTC QS5MIJ7Z JDWM3GVU
1x 2VC1HCDX 9H72D530 O1L4LFVW UCUO2I0B UOO6BW2S
2x 0DLEDCCD 1UE0N2MW 98HA8KOZ KA9XE209 X139J5CE
3x 83F4P5ET PNF0OJA0 LCI97MR0 JPUMGL8Q CELBU500
4x PHYCON9A P5UNLY44 IW5ELJU6 PQOWNQUN 357IAZRX
5x X7S20GBQ CYVO3MFS 9V0FKHW8 9V8LPBTG EGIAZSC6
6x B8ZQ86ID LO2Z933A NLNU5Q1B W199RQ4O X9E87EC3
7x 39WIUPC0 50AY93LM I8JU6RZ9 CWOKP55V MY3HIJHO
8x JUJLVVEH 3Q5MYSBI GKENZ791 NZVRLYIS 3M2GWOHJ
9x FF5EJ6E1 DW2G0YB2 0MMEC4AG 0KIOUTQW 0X8UK0SQ

x-\-x x6 x7 x8 x9 x0
0x 824VSDRM 5V6DMV25 YELP0X09 N41LQYSC KPBCYC33
1x 43YVM947 9YC4OCH1 3XYG7PBY 7CKPL5QC MEQ6I2M5
2x R0GBO1BY 3X4W0MF7 KG09IQXU 6E9EJ6SR VUSP17HI
3x 9B2EH2EQ QKUCB07I FK40EBS5 3O2EDQRX K7JLXH0K
4x BMUM4FPO F9PHHC9G EGRVZ9LW AD7460EW UK7TTG1V
5x KILLCL65 B8QNT7X9 DD0NDONJ VZTVZDYW W9NND6KX
6x X6ZL2EK3 8NHB2RTH KM8DY4GF DNX0WQUZ VMLM2BVV
7x Y3VCXTNL U1DQ17HM NOHGF3HF YXIC1JWZ TX6TILCU
8x 8M8LRM81 LUA3MPEO SQ17REAP 4TKHZ2TB CTXNJHZF
9x PAFBK3O4 4OTKORX4 7Z7LXXDJ WVA7UU5L 8955TEXN

***End Code Table ***

and

*** Begin Use List ***

Bank #1, 2, 3, and 4.

Email #1, 2, 3, and 4.

Website #1, 2, 3, and 4.

Blogsite #1, 2, 3, and 4.

*** End Use List ***

and

*** Begin Xref ***

1 31 2 42 3 92 4 81

1 17 2 71 3 24 4 15

1 88 2 92 3 51 4 65

1 14 2 22 3 79 4 52

*** end xref ***

And, all you need is the web page and it will all unfold.

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Lesson Learned: Put the itinerary and all key numbers on paper that you can carry in the wallet. Make copies and put it in several key places.

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http://www.luggageforward.com

Impedimenta
2. The baggage and equipment carried by an army.

This time, to minimize the stress on Frau Reinke, we used one of the many “luggage shipping” services. Again, not cheap! But, handy. IF, and only if, you can be packed and ready to go 3 days ahead of your trip and wait for it arrive 4 days after.

It was easy. And, I recommend it to relieve your stress level.

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I need checklists.

When I was traveling a lot, I used them extensively. When I later traveled personally, I used to make them up. Not having traveled in awhile, I was out of practice. I should have used several on this trip. Most notably, the biggest disaster, the forgotten power supply would not have happened. The forgotten handicapped placard, the forgotten key ring, the needed phone numbers, show times, and reminders would have been front and center.

Be it resolved, from henceforth and forever more, each stage of a troop movement will have it’s own checklist.

Argh!!

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http://zenhabits.net/2007/09/key-question-how-much-is-enough

***Begin Quote***

Enough means having enough to live, and enough to be happy, and enough to thrive.

***End Quote***

When will I have “enough”?

A very tough question. Especially when the future is by definition “uncertain”.

This site always seems to challenge my thinking.

I call this a “productivity” tip because one must realize diminishing returns.

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http://ririanproject.com/2007/09/05/10-benefits-of-power-napping-and-how-to-do-it

10 Benefits of Power Napping, and How to Do It

***Begin Quote***

How Long Is A Good Nap?

# THE NANO-NAP: 10 to 20 seconds. Sleep studies haven’t yet concluded whether there are benefits to these brief intervals, like when you nod off on someone’s shoulder on the train.
# THE MICRO-NAP: two to five minutes. Shown to be surprisingly effective at shedding sleepiness.
# THE MINI-NAP: five to 20 minutes. Increases alertness, stamina, motor learning, and motor performance.
# THE ORIGINAL POWER NAP: 20 minutes. Includes the benefits of the micro and the mini, but additionally improves muscle memory and clears the brain of useless built-up information, which helps with long-term memory (remembering facts, events, and names).
# THE LAZY MAN’S NAP: 50 to 90 minutes. Includes slow-wave plus REM sleep; good for improving perceptual processing; also when the system is flooded with human growth hormone, great for repairing bones and muscles.

***End Quote***

Always seemed like a smart idea. But not in an american workplace.

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http://zenhabits.net/

May I suggest that this site is worth the investment of your attention?

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http://zenhabits.net/2007/09/simple-living-manifesto-72-ideas-to-simplify-your-life/

Simple Living Manifesto: 72 Ideas to Simplify Your Life
By Leo on Simplicity

***Begin Quote***

7. Limit your communications. Our lives these days are filled with a vast flow of communications: email, IM, cell phones, paper mail, Skype, Twitter, forums, and more. It can take up your whole day if you let it. Instead, put a limit on your communications: only do email at certain times of the day, for a certain number of minutes (I recommend twice a day, but do what works for you). Only do IM once a day, for a limited amount of time. Limit phone calls to certain times too. Same with any other communications. Set a schedule and stick to it.

***End Quote***

Hmmm? Blogging and email.

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Lesson Learned: Carry some trash bags as a travel aid.

In my recent trek, we wound up some distance from the ice machine. If I had some grocery bags, I could have put one in my pocket and, upon returning to my floor, used it to bring ice back to the room. But, no I never thought of that, so I’d have to go to the room and trek back to the ice machine right by the elevator. That was at least five wasted trips.

In packing to go home, some big garbage bags would have been handy for the dirty clothes.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/31/nyregion/31vacation.html?em&ex=1188878400&en=85d48b525e1ab1fe&ei=5087%0A

At I.B.M., a Vacation Anytime, or Maybe None
By KEN BELSON
Published: August 31, 2007

***Begin Quote***

Some workplace experts say such continued blurring of the boundaries between work and play can overtax employees and lead to health problems, particularly at companies where there is an expectation that everyone is always on call.

“If leadership never takes time off, people will be skeptical whether they can,” said Kim Stattner of Hewitt Associates, a human resources consultant. “There is the potential for a domino effect.”

Frances Schneider, who retired from an I.B.M. sales division last year, after 34 years, said one thing never changed; there was not one year in which she took all her allotted time off.

“It wasn’t seven days a week, but people ended up putting in longer hours because of all the flexibility, without really thinking about it,” Ms. Schneider said. “Although you had this wonderful freedom to take days when you want, you really couldn’t. I.B.M. tends to be a group of workaholics.”

***End Quote***

(1) Leadership turns an expense (i.e., someone has to pay for the time not producing widgets) into a “benefit”. If you’re “entitled” to three weeks vacation but can not take it, then do you really have such a benefit?

(2) If a company’s leadership announce that vacations were being cut from three to two, then all manner of strife would break out. There are the Federal Labor Standards Act and innumerable state laws, and maybe even local diktats. SO in essence, the company is getting unpaid labor.

(3) White collar workers are so scared for “their jobs” that they can’t object. The team players that don’t go along with the gag, will be let go for “poor performance”. In the world of knowledge workers, standards of good and bad are very subjective.

(4) Leadership may be learning that people can drive themselves harder than any slave master’s overseer. At that point, there is very little difference between being in one’s own business and working for the man. The only difference may be in the individual’s perception of being on a big team and their self confidence in their abilities.

(5) What about fraud? There are banks with policies that mandate vacations. Some even specify end of quarter time periods. So that the “loyal employee who never takes a vacation” can’t cover an ongoing fraud.

Interesting how things silently change. Is our own productivity used to our detriment?

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http://www.populistamerica.com/ripple_and_ripley_effects

Ripple and Ripley Effects
August 7, 2007
by Clay Barham

***Begin Quote***

The Ripley effect, however, is a syndrome related to incompetence. The night nurse making her rounds illustrates incompetence. She wakes the patient at 2 AM to give him his sleeping pill. Thought never enters into the situation. It is that kind of thinking that pervades the halls of government, if you can call it thinking. It is associated with government because thinking is actually frowned upon and dangerous for the one who might do the thinking. It is always better to stick with instructions and the already established practice. Even better, avoid all thought and action by delays or further investigations and hearings.

This brings me to General James Ripley, Chief of Ordnance under Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. President Lincoln did not suffer from a condition of normal bureaucratic mental constipation, as has always been the dominant thinking process for civil servants and political appointees. When confronted by a builder of hot air balloons, one equipped to soar above a battlefield for observation, Lincoln ordered General Winfield Scott to try it. Reluctantly, Scott used one at the Battle of Manassas. The information provided by the observers helped the outnumbered Union forces win that battle. The Ripley Effect set in, however, and General Scott refused to use it again, though it proved useful. After all, it was NIH, not invented here, but by Lincoln.

***End Quote***

On display everywhere!

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http://thelibertarianforum.com/General/Minimum-wage-is-not-necessary.html

Minimum wage and other labor laws hurt the poor and aren’t necessary. Written by Omer Altay
Tuesday, 14 August 2007

***Begin Quote***

Minimum wage and other labor laws are aimed to protect workers and raise standards, but does that really happen? Minimum wage by definition creates unemployment. It eliminates every job that’s worth less than $5.15 an hour (the federal minimum wage). The fact is that a business is not a charity. If a business determines that a person’s labor is not worth $5.15 an hour, or whatever the local minimum wage is, they have no reason to keep that person employed. Paying the worker a bonus to meet the minimum wage would be charity work, and many businesses don’t have the finances or interest in such charity work, and will instead lay off the employee instead of raising their pay.

Minimum wage simply does not protect the worker at all, but instead, gets rid of every low skilled job that’s worth less than $5.15 an hour.

***End Quote***

So we have to be productive above the minimum wage. Businesses are not charities; nor are they tax collectors. Everything is passed along.

But who do we pass our costs along to?

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From an Early To Rise ezine

Learning From Saddam
By Robert Ringer

***Begin Quote***

Unfortunately, there is no foolproof way to avoid making The Big Mistake, but a method that I find works very well is what I refer to as “looking backward from the future.” Here’s how it works:

1. Project yourself into the future before you act.

2. Picture the worst possible consequences of your actions.

3. Pretend to look over your shoulder from the future – at where you are today.

4. If Step 2 is much worse than what you see in Step 3, you would be wise to rethink your plans. Put another way, if you’re not prepared to live with the worst-possible consequences of your contemplated action, take a pass.

***End Quote***

This may be another way of saying above and below the waterline.

Have to think about the two and compare.

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http://www.making-ripples.com/2007/08/are-you-ready-f.html

Aug 04, 2007
Are you ready for self-employment?

***Begin Quote***

One of the first things you discover when you shift from being an employee to being self-employed, is that your time is no longer structured. All of the reminders and nudges you used to get from your boss and co-workers now come from your own mind as it races to keep track of the obligations you have inadvertently stacked up for yourself.

***End Quote***

I’d make the observation that even if you are “working for the man”, as our Japanese friends call it “salaryman”, in today’s economy, you are “working for yourself”. While it may not look like it, you are. You have to be burning the candle at five ends, just as if you were working for yourself.

Whether you are satisfying a Customer in your own business, or you are satisfying a Colleague in someone else’s, it’s really just semantics. You need to be:

• delivering value to Customers or Colleagues;
• publicizing what you’ve accomplished without being a blowhard;
• anticipating your current Customer’s needs;
• maintaining your personal productivity in your “guild”;
• preparing for any shift or change in your “guild”; and
• managing ruthlessly your personal finances.

Let’s dive into the weeds, just a tad.

1. You retain value for yourself, regardless of whose business it is, by unleashing value in far bigger multiples that what you “cost”.
2. You must ensure that your “Customers” understand the value you create. And, you have to do it with panache.
3. You have to anticipate what your “Customers” need, want, and will want. In some respects, it’s hard because your Customers may not know what they need or appreciate you “looking out” for them.
4. You have to be continually improving your skill set. Last year’s records become today’s standards.
5. You can be achieving and anticipating, but if your guild shifts, you can’t allow yourself to be made obsolete. CICS systems programmers who missed the memo about Client Server computing. Blacksmiths have to shift to be car mechanics.
6. You are only assured of the last check you cashed. Your “burn rate” must not exceed your “earn rate”. Personally, my AT&T golden handshake became a decade later my seed money for my own business. Ruthlessly, you must have a cash reserve appropriate for how long it will take you to shift from “burning” to “earning”.

So, imho, it really doesn’t matter if your in your own biz, or not. Regardless if you know it or not, you are.

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http://www.safecastle.blogspot.com

Refuge

Find peace of mind in quiet observation and prudent, methodical readiness planning. Through preparedness, the resilient core of our nation enhances our national collective strength and security. We encourage such resolve and endurance within the “Refuge.”

Friday, July 13, 2007
How to Survive (Almost) Anything

***Begin Quote***

For example, in May 1989, Lynn Hill, the winner of more than 30 international rock-climbing titles, was preparing to climb what she called a “relatively easy” route in Buoux, France. She threaded her rope through her harness, but then, instead of tying her knot, she stopped to put on her shoes. While she was tying them, she talked with another climber, then returned to climb the rock face. “The thought occurred to me that there was something I needed to do before climbing,” she later recalled, but, “I dismissed this thought.” She climbed the wall, and when she leaned back to rappel to the ground, she fell 72 feet (22 meters), her life narrowly saved by tree branches. In her case, more training would not have helped. In fact, experience contributed to her accident. She had created a very efficient model for tying her rope to her harness. She could do it without thinking. So the act of tying her shoes may have been similar enough to tying her rope that it allowed her to reach the unconscious conclusion that her rope was tied, even while leaving a slight residue of doubt.

***End Quote***

PPPPPP!

SOP?

The reason to have an Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) is to prevent blunders. I had an Engineering Professor (Brother Austin Barry) who used to rant: “A mistake is putting mustard on your hamburger; an error comes about in any measurement; a blunder is when you make a dumb mistake.”

How true!

An SOP allows one to repeat the same steps in sequence so as to prevent blunders. Mistakes and Errors will happen. How your SOP allows you to catch them before those things kill or maim you is the key point.

Productivity is ensured when you have and use SOPs.

imho

(I think Brother Barry would agree saying “finally you listened four decades later”!)

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http://www.survivalblog.com/2007/07/survival_planningmore_than_jus.html

Survival Planning–More Than Just Gear and a “To Do” List, by Ray

***Begin Quote***

Decision making is critical in determining what actions to take to move you closer to a particular sub-objective or your ultimate goal. All decisions are based on the probability of a favorable outcome, but that probability is rarely, if ever, 100%. Even a slam-dunk, no-brainer decision has some slight chance of failure. The validity of a choice can be measured as those choices with the highest probability of a positive outcome, but even those have a tangible risk of turning out badly, and thus not being ultimately “correct.” Poker players call it getting “cracked”, when a strong, high probability hand is still beaten by the luck of the draw. A decision maker should understand that no decision is guaranteed to produce a positive result. Setting the expectation for yourself that even well thought-out decisions will be 100% successful is the road to disappointment and frustration. This is because decisions have variable dimensions, most of which are beyond the average person’s ability to control or even be fully aware of. The validity of a given choice is a function of the available data, context, and time. A valid decision is the best one you can make, right now, with the available information. Five minutes (heck, 30 seconds) from now a different choice may be better. But realize you will never have perfect, complete, and timely data, and that’s assuming that no one else is actively interacting with the situation, changing it and invalidating your information, or actively generating/feeding disinformation in some form. You will bring some level of bias to you we interpret the given dataset, as do your information sources; this works against our being able to form the proper context for a decision. And all factors are in flux, changing constantly; and implementing a choice once made takes some measure of time, making the clock an enemy. A good decision making process has to exist in the here and now, and be forward looking. You must avoid self recrimination and the tendency to doubt after something bad has happened; past choices are in the past, and useful only for how they inform future decisions. Focus on your goal, and how you get from your present location/situation (the here and now) to there (your future goal.)

***End Quote***

Take wisdom where ever you find it.

I urge you to use the waterline standard. Above the water line, fail quickly. Below the waterline, take your time and make the best decision possible.

Now we have an additional meme here: A “good” decision is the best one you can make, right now, with the available information.

# # # # #

FROM MLPF

http://jayderagon.com/blog/?p=94

The Attention Factor
Author: Jay Deragon
07 28th, 2007

***Begin Quote***

My response…”Without your commitment to spend the time planning and thinking about hundreds of related issues and interactions what your asking for it is impossible. His response was I can give you no more than an hour a day and he said the other executive on the phone could also give about an hour a day. They simply don’t get it! They suffer from The Attention Factor and what I will label as “Continuous Partial Attention” or CPA.

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I see a ton of this these days. Recently I gave a presentation where of the 18 people “listening”, only 3 were paying attention. Some didn’t even pretend to be attentive. I’m used to dealing with people who are day dreaming when I talk to them. Guess I’m boring them. So when I see the eyes glaze over, I stop. What does one do with today’s executives? Nothing imho. Don’t waste your time. I guess that’s why at work, people seem to want my opinion. When someone comes and says gave I talk to you, I say “sure, one sec”, and I close the laptop and give them my undivided attention. It’s a matter of respect. Sigh, so I didn’t get it in my recent presentation, but that’s OK, they are “senior leadership”. What were they leading, surely not me.

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http://www.clairewolfe.com/wolfesblog/00002632.html

07/26/2007 Entry: “Quote from “Crazy Time” (definition of sanity)”

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Sanity was being firm with clients and telling them there was self-esteem in standing on an assembly line all day putting a gidget in a gadget; and it was putting the damn gidget in the damn gadget and asking someone else to confirm that it was all right to do that.

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No checking the checkers!

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