One of the more interesting medical events I have experienced was related to a heart issue. An abnormal EKG lead to a CAT scan (with nuclear contrast) which lead to an Angioplasty and that lead to stents to repair blockage. All is well. The process was amazing and quick.
After this procedure, while traveling from south Texas to north Texas on Highway 281 in Falfurrias, I passed through the Border Patrol Station where the agents screen occupants and content of every vehicle. The non-commercial vehicles stop at a designated area where the agents look in and outside the vehicle while dogs do their sniffing job. I had rolled my window down so I could look the agent in the eyes to make sure he knew that I was not showing signs of stress or nervousness, and assure him that I, my vehicle and contents were perfectly legal. They normally ask your citizenship status, and when you confirm that you are a US citizen, they bid you a good day as they await the next vehicle. Although I had been through this check-point many times, this time was different. The agent had a small device attached to his belt that set off an alarm signaling the presence of radiation coming from MY vehicle! That alarm launched a deeper search, which was satisfied after I shared my recent medical experience. The alarm worked and the agent addressed the concern to make sure that nothing more sinister was in play.
How many times in business do we hear the silent alarms going off and ignore them the way we all ignore car alarms. The alarms may indicate a small matter that we simply work around and adjust our behavior to develop a way of doing business, without addressing the cause of the alarm. The alarm may be as as simple as someone who is chronically late for regularly scheduled meetings. They alarm-triggering people stroll into the meeting late, as they always do and the silent alarms sounds deep inside and yet it is ignored by they in charge. Likely the others, who are always on time, do not ignore their internal alarms and a quiet rage or lack of trust grows that causes a damaging level of disenchantment. They ask: "Why are the alarms ignored"?
When we fail to address the cause of the small silent alarms we desensitize ourselves and soon enough we are spending all of our time avoiding the causes, inevitiablly resulting in a colossal and very expensive waste of valuable time. Don't ignore the alarms. Take action, quickly to address and remedy the cause because they just might turn into a "nuclear-like-event" and cause massive damage to the business and the cause, that could have been prevented with quick and decisive action.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Another Definition of Insanity
The definition of insanity is: To do the same thing over and over again and expect different results.
Another way to look at insanity is to define it as: To do a bunch of brand new things, that someone else controls, over and over again and expect different and dynamic results.
Randomly throwing new, untested and quite often expensive resources at a problem is not in the best interest of any business. This behavior suggests that the leadership is operating from a position of panic rather that reasoned and logical, tried and true processes. "New and shiny toys" ( which is the way many infantile digital products are often labeled) do not have enough traction to warrant unbridled pursuit and still we find companies going all-in to make them fix a problem that may not have been clearly identified. Fact is, the problem they are trying to solve may not be a problem at all, rather a course change in perceptions. Additionally these same companies will bring several players to the table that heretofore did not even know that each other existed. These so called solution provides can spend other people's money at breathtaking speeds, they don't play well together and they all want to be in charge, even if they never overtly state their dominating desire. What you end up with is a lot of people going in several different directions, at the same time and sooner or later, when progress does not occur, they start placing blame by pointing fingers at everyone else, especially the people that hired them. That is when things really start to heat up. People in the primary business that hired these companies, begin to question not just the new stuff but everything else, that they believed were mission critical, and rightly so. They begin to wonder who, if anyone is really on top of things.
The pain of change is the price of progress. However the pain of reckless change, for the sake of appearing to be leading edge, can not only be extremely painful it can be deadly. It is insane to do the same things and expect different results but it is downright dumb to do a bunch of new untested things and expect better different and dynamic results.
Another way to look at insanity is to define it as: To do a bunch of brand new things, that someone else controls, over and over again and expect different and dynamic results.
Randomly throwing new, untested and quite often expensive resources at a problem is not in the best interest of any business. This behavior suggests that the leadership is operating from a position of panic rather that reasoned and logical, tried and true processes. "New and shiny toys" ( which is the way many infantile digital products are often labeled) do not have enough traction to warrant unbridled pursuit and still we find companies going all-in to make them fix a problem that may not have been clearly identified. Fact is, the problem they are trying to solve may not be a problem at all, rather a course change in perceptions. Additionally these same companies will bring several players to the table that heretofore did not even know that each other existed. These so called solution provides can spend other people's money at breathtaking speeds, they don't play well together and they all want to be in charge, even if they never overtly state their dominating desire. What you end up with is a lot of people going in several different directions, at the same time and sooner or later, when progress does not occur, they start placing blame by pointing fingers at everyone else, especially the people that hired them. That is when things really start to heat up. People in the primary business that hired these companies, begin to question not just the new stuff but everything else, that they believed were mission critical, and rightly so. They begin to wonder who, if anyone is really on top of things.
The pain of change is the price of progress. However the pain of reckless change, for the sake of appearing to be leading edge, can not only be extremely painful it can be deadly. It is insane to do the same things and expect different results but it is downright dumb to do a bunch of new untested things and expect better different and dynamic results.
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