Great Doubt

The other week my lecturer wrote three words up on the board;

Great

Small

No

He followed these three words with three more;

Great Doubt

Small Doubt

No Doubt

And then borrowing from Buddhism he wrote;

Great Doubt, Great Enlightenment

Small Doubt, Small Enlightenment

No doubt, No Enlightenment

If you have no doubt, if you know that you have the answer, there is little chance you will see any other answer but your own. The filters in your mind are turned up to high blocking out any answers but your own. And you believe this to be good because you have "no doubt".

You may have no doubt, but you also have no enlightenment, you are blind to the many alternatives being expressed in the world.

Lately I have been feeling much more "doubt" in my mind than I did several years ago and it is wonderful. My mind is opening up to so many more possibilities. I can feel my filters coming down. More and more I am able to look beyond my own worldview and it is amazing what you see. You can see what people are trying to tell you if only you are open to hearing.

A long way for me to go yet but I am enjoying having great doubt.

A thought has just popped in, how do you think that would look on your resume? "Excellent at great doubt". Hmmm maybe not but "Excellent at seeing a broad range of possibilities" does sound good.

give it a try,

Rob

Mackenzie Falls

The number of hits on my blog has gone through the roof lately. The searches are looking for "mckinsey falls" or "mckinseyfalls.com" and my listing comes up first on google, hence the hits.

Obviously these people are not looking for my blog but I am thinking at least any traffic could lead to good traffic.

After a few attempts I think I have discovered what they are looking for "Mackenzie Falls" a Disney Channel show for teenagers. I doubt any of the searchers will find my blog interesting but if you do please leave me a comment.

For the site you are looking for click here.

Cheers,

Rob

One more book...

Robert Coram wrote the acclaimed biography of Colonel John Boyd, Fighter Pilot, well worth a read if you have ever heard of OODA loops. Boyd died of Prostate Cancer in1997 and now Coram is fighting against the same foe.

Coram writes a compelling account of his fight on his web site. It concludes;

“In the meantime I am keeping my eyes upon the barricade.
And I am writing as fast as I can.”

Faced with a very uncertain future he wants to make sure that he writes at least one more book.

I am not sure, but I think Boyd would have approved.

The GFC is a myth, or it seems so to some.

I have been asking friends about what impact has the Global Financial Crisis, GFC, had on budgeting within their companies for the next financial year. Amazingly the responses I have been getting are that their companies are continuing to build growth into their plans as if there is no GFC. To them it appears to be a myth.

Now I will admit that my sample size is no where near a global representation but there does seem to be this head in the sand attitude. Or there is at least at the top line revenue level. I suspect that there is double budgeting going on. On one hand we all can't get off this growth kick we have been on so we are forecasting revenue growth. On the other hand it is batten down the hatches on cost control. The disconnect between revenue and cost will create some interesting dynamics going forward.

Is this happening at your company?

Is anyone out there planning how to ride out the GFC and come out stronger into whatever the new world brings?

Just some idol curiosity,

Cheers,

Rob

More on my train ticket saga, they weren't as clever as I thought...

If you want to read from the start of this story then please go to the original post by clicking here. You probably won't understand what I am talking about if you haven't read it, sorry.

Two weeks ago, back again at my favourite airport train line, I arrived to find that not only was the ticket machine displaying "Exact Change Only", but this time the clever people were not as clever as I thought in my last post and had put the train fare up to $20.20. Luckily I had the extra 20 cents as well as my usual twenty dollar note and could catch the train coming in four minutes instead of joining the long queue at the ticket booth.

Returning this week I find they have installed specific ticket machines that are connected for credit card or ATM transactions, but only tickets to the City not anywhere else on the train network.

I wonder if the extra 20 cents was to;

• pay for the Credit Card machines
• because the ticket machines kept running out of change
• because they had outsourced their operation,
• because they were trying to save money,

possibly 20 cents a customer?

Meanwhile I had my $20:20 cents ready and was on my way.

Riveting stuff I know :-),

Rob

CEOs need to understand their employee's time horizon

Much has been written about getting "buy-in" from the employees when senior executives want to create change. Yet often the new CEO falls into the trap of "telling" the employees the new direction for the organization. As opposed to working with their employees; listening, talking, brainstorming in order to form a joint view of the new way forward.

An understandable reason for this is that the new CEO is under time pressure to get things done. Wall Street wants results as soon as possible. Taking the time upfront to formulate a collective view is either seen as taking too long or the result of the CEO not being a decision maker or both.

But here is the rub. The time horizon of the new CEO is one to five years. They need tangible results within twelve to eighteen months and their overall tenure is likely to be around five years. The time horizon for the employees is actually longer than this, they see themselves working for the same organization for at least five, ten, fifteen years or more. So when the new CEO starts 'telling" them about the new direction they either agree with what the CEO is saying and get on board or if they disagree they simply decide to "wait this one out" and see what the next CEO brings.

I wonder how many CEOs out there have the majority of their employees "waiting this one out" while they are puzzled because real change isn't taking place?

Regards,

Rob

A Global Village of 100 People looks like...

Ken Wilber in his book, "A Theory of Everything" (2001) uses the work of Dr. Phillip Harter of Standford University School of Medicine to show this interesting example.

"If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of only 100 people, it would look something like this:

57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 North and South Americans
8 Africans
30 White, 70 Non-white
6 people would possess 59% of the world's wealth, and all 6 would be from the United States
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer malnutrition
1 would have a college education
1 would own a computer

Not sure if this would vary much for 2009 but as we enter this new year it is an interesting view of our world. I feel a growing global awareness that we do all live on the one planet and that maybe we should get along a bit better than we do today. Both with each other and with our world.

Happy New Year, and to paraphrase Lennon, "let's make it a good one"

Cheers,

Rob