VISITOR COUNT

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Lessons From Olympic Athletes - Winning In Everyday Life

Winning Management

During the Olympics millions watched athletes challenge themselves and each other. What does this have to do with management? Two things. First, a manager's role is to lead people to aspire to be better, and to make anything appear possible. Perhaps we can gain insight into this process by learning from these athletes. Second, managers themselves can aspire to "winning management", using some of the techniques of athletes to increase their personal management effectiveness. Let's take a look at four general techniques that managers can use to enhance their ability to deal with challenging situations. Visioning Results Swimmer Mark Tewksbury indicated that part of his preparation included imagining standing on the gold medal podium and hearing "Oh Canada". This type of visioning, repeated over and over, becomes a central motivating force for overcoming obstacles, because it focusses you on the reward. It makes the reward seem attainable, real and concrete provided that you visualize yourself in the picture, and that you paint a picture that engages all your senses. What does it feel like? What are you hearing? What do you see? Some examples. The manager who needs to do a stressful presentation, imagines that at the end, the audience is standing and applauding (the reward or result). She imagines the sense of accomplishment, the sight of those people smiling. Or consider a manager who has to conduct a difficult performance review. He prepares by thinking about a
successful outcome, shaking hands with the employee, as the employee smiles and thanks him for the help.

Rehearsal
If you prepare for an event by actually carrying out the behaviors, it is called practice. If you mentally run through the behaviors, it is called rehearsal. You are practicing in the mind. Fortunately, practicing in the mind can be done anywhere and can be as effective as
"real" doing. However, mental rehearsal, as with results visioning, must be undertaken in detail, each step, action or word being imagined. The more vivid the picture painted, the better the results. Also, it is most effective if you imagine obstacles, things that might go wrong, and
imagine dealing successfully deal with them. Examples? The presentation rehearsal, where you run through in your head, what you will say, how you will say it, what you will look like
while you are saying it, and what you will do if the overhead projector doesn't work. Or a meeting with an irate client, where you prepare by anticipating his behaviour, and rehearsing your own responses.

Skills Building
All the visioning and rehearsal in the world can't help you if you didn't know what you were doing in the first place. You need to build your skills and aspire to continuous development, if you are going to improve. You need to learn. Read what you can. Talk to other managers
about how they do things. Take training opportunities. Ask subordinates. Network. And above all, reflect upon what you see and hear and learn. Even if it's in the shower or driving to work. Sneak it in.

Focus
One thing that stands out with olympic athletes is their ability to focus on their task and tune out other things. Imagine if you had to chair a staff meeting with 70,000 observers and 20 million T.V. watchers. When faced with difficult tasks, you need to ensure that other things are not intruding on your thoughts. Part of this is mental discipline which is not easy for some to learn. Part is learning how to manage your environment. If you are faced with a challenge, make sure that you are not interrupted in your preparation for the challenge. Focussing can be learned through mental disciplines such as meditation, or physical disciplines such as T'ai Chi or certain martial arts. Learning relaxation techniques will also help your focusing abilities.

Summary
It may seem that these techniques should be particularly relevant for ess experienced managers, but, they are even more important for those who have more experience. That is because there is a tendency, after awhile, to stop developing and stop learning. When this happens a once successful manager may become an inept one. By consciously applying
these techniques, you will begin to approach your peak performance levels at any task, and enhance your long term managerial effectiveness.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Signature - Reveals your character

1 .) SINGLE UNDERLINE BELOW THE SIGN
These persons are very confident and are good personalities. They are a little bit selfish but believe in "Happiness of human life".

2.) TWO DOTS BELOW THE SIGN
These persons are considered to be Romantic, can easily change their fiancees as if they change their clothes. They prefer beauty in other persons & they themselves try to look beautiful. They easily attract others.

3.) SINGLE DOT BELOW THE SIGN
These persons are more inclined towards classical arts, simple & are very cool. If you loose faith with them, then these persons will never look back at you. Hence its always better to be careful with these people.

4.) NO UNDERLINES OR DOTS BELOW THE SIGN
These persons enjoy their life in their own way, never pay attention to others views. These are considered to be good natured but are selfish too.

5.) RANDOM SIGN, NO SIMILARITY BETWEEN NAME & SIGN
These persons try to be very smart, hide each & every matter, never say anything in straight forward manner, never pay attention to the other person of what he is talking of.

6.) RANDOM SIGN, SIMILARITY BETWEEN NAME & SIGN
These persons are considered to be intelligent but never think. These people change their ideas & views as fast as the wind changes its direction of flow. They never think whether that particular thing is right or wrong. You can win them just by flattering them.

7.) SIGN IN PRINTED LETTERS
These persons are very kind to us, have a good heart, selfless, are ready to sacrifice their life for the sake of their near & dear. But these seems to think a lot and may get angry very soon.

8.) WRITING COMPLETE NAME AS THEIR SIGN
These persons are very kind hearted, can adjust themselves to any environment & to the person they are talking. These persons are very firm on their views & posses a lot of will power

Don't alter your signatures accordingly to the respective attributes.
Rely on the signature on your id card for genuine assessment


Anyway, mine looks like this :)

Six Sigma Management

The 1980s and 1990s mark the development of several quality tools, and these evolutionary quality techniques help companies deal with their customers' expectations as well as the changing standards of the business environment.

The competitive business environment has created a high degree of complexity, which caused a paradigm shift in quality and customer satisfaction. As a result, many companies, like Allied Signals, Motorola and GE, tapped into a quality tool of some sort to help them stay ahead of the curve in meeting both internal and external customers' expectations. The tools range from total quality management (TQM) and
continuous quality improvement (CQI), to the evolutionary tool known as six sigma.

In scanning and assessing the business environment in which a company operated, most companies realized that they would not be able to achieve competitive superiority if they did not become quality conscious. So, the need to adopt a "tool" and chart their business strategy in that direction became paramount for their core competence, and such deployment ever since has become exponentially more compelling as the business environment gets more sophisticated.

Basically, a tool to help better the company's position in the market environment was seen as a prerequisite to having a competitive advantage. In addition, it helps command a lasting and sustaining growth, which in the long run helps any companies win a unique image in the industry environment.

The six sigma concept
As companies' operations became more complex and the environment grew more competitive in the mid 1980s, quality and customer satisfaction became the criteria for judging whether an organization was efficient in delivering what it set out to deliver. The ability to deal with the non-homogeneous customer became paramount to sustainable growth and competitive advantage.

Many techniques, like total quality management (TQM) and continuous quality improvement (CQI) were the basic requirements for gaining a unique image and a competitive advantage. What was not central to these techniques, however, was the ability to measure quality issues and the root cause of product defects faced by the organization at the process stage. For the most part, quality issues such as defects did not come to light until the product was out or at the end of production, thus
leading to exorbitant costs.

These techniques' lack of quantitative measurement and a database approach caused organizations to be ill advised with respect to product defects. Although the techniques TQM and CQI enabled companies to measure their operations with some degree of awareness as to where the system had failed, they could not generate explicit data so that one could pinpoint at the early stage where in the processes the failure had
occurred.

The inherent limitations in these techniques prompted companies, like Motorola, to design a new technique known as "six sigma" in the form of a technical document to help minimize the defects that they were experiencing in their core competence. The emergence of this concept completely shifted Motorola's view and approach to process
evaluation.

Six sigma is a technique that shows how far away from the mean or average a process measurement deviates. Each time the deviation is minimized or eliminated, it is translated as "opportunity" and the reverse is known as a "defect". The evolution of the six sigma phenomenon and the ability that it gave organizations in identifying quality challenges has provided both tangible and intangible benefits. Some define the tangible benefit as the ability to reduce the number of defects from their processes. The intangible benefits have often been referred to as business initiatives that could create competitive superiority, like GE's accomplishments.

Conceptual approach
Conceptually speaking, the way to improve the process with six sigma is by applying the following four elements: define, identify, analyze, and continuous evaluation:

1. The process needs to be defined, and the requirements for that process must be spelled out.
2. The factors to be measured need to be identified as the process is implemented because they must be entrenched into the concept if maximum quality results are to be
achieved.
3. Careful analysis of the process must be put forth with sound process pathways to address the process defaults in order to attain the degree of quality or the minimum defects in the process.
4. The activities to be analyzed must be identified explicitly with the end in mind; and nurtured to prevent the process from going back to the old status quo.

These elements are critical in building a sustainable quality standard with the six-sigma quality concept.

"For six sigma to work well, implementation must be with the impetus of the top management."

Quantitative approach
The quantitative factor is to build the parameters in the methodology in order to quantify the process for a sound quality infrastructure. This factor is more concerned with the scientific approach of six sigma. At this juncture, several steps may be required to achieve the positive financial outcomes as achieved by many companies that adopt the six-sigma approach.

The data gathered are used to identify the patterns in defects. Once this process is completed, anything that can be measured gets measured in order to determine the level of defects by identifying where the defects fall under the bell-shape curve to compute the sigma level.

The scientific aspect has made the six-sigma concept a successful tool for organizations whose core competencies are products which require a measurable yardstick to determine defect level. Customers, and companies, view it as a technique that should be embedded in the day-to-day operation.

Formulation of the six sigma strategy
For six sigma to work well, implementation must be with the impetus of the top management. Top management should be dedicatedly involved from the onset of the program. They should understand clearly the requirements for its success. It must also be part of the vision of the organization with resources and human capital dedicated for its ensured success.

As the program begins to roll out, two important factors must be in the fore:

1. Top management must be willing to change when the technique suggests that such a change is required and the importance of it in the business structure must be underscored in order to deal effectively with employees' resistance. The organization leaders must be willing to be flexible in their change. Management must be able to manage flexibly from being coercive to coaching as demand arises.
2. Every key employee in the organization must be a participant in the process through various means, i.e. educational training and application. Those who complete the training should be encouraged not to shelf the concept, but put it to work on a project in their daily operation with three key elements in mind: the external customer, the internal customer, and the process. There are many positive results when its approach is set as such with a pyramidal commitment. The more flexible styles that management exhibit, the more the organization can deal with the quality issues through this technique and improve the delivery of its core competence.

Competitive advantage

The significant competitive advantage that can be obtained from implementing six sigma is by way of the three basic resources: customer, process, and employee. The strengths, weaknesses, and the opportunities of these resources, as stimulated by the six sigma concept in some way or another, tend to enrich organization culture and view on quality and improve its position and strength in the market in which it operates. It also enables the organization to create strength discovery, weaknesses
acknowledgement and advantages on opportunities.

Blending the six sigma concept into the organization's culture could result in unique acknowledgement of some of the tangible factors that could give the organization competitive edge and superiority. It will also enable the organization to be cognizant of some of the intangible factors that are intrinsic, thus creating unique value to the organization that is irreplaceable by others.

Six sigma alone as a concept does not guarantee success; rather, it is the way firms adopt it and channel it into the organizational culture that helps achieve successful results.

Secrets of Inspirational Leadership

Adapted From gbsgroup post

Great leaders inspire their people in a way that fosters creativity, innovation, and high performance. In today's demanding business environment, such inspiration is not a luxury, but a necessity. Leaders that practice this kind of philosophy develop highly resilient, high-performance teams that can operate in any situation.
But what are these principles of performance that result in success?
What are the secrets of the greatest leaders that are coming to the forefront in the new millennium?

The 8 Secrets of Inspirational Leadership

The 8 Secrets comprise our philosophy for creating the energy and spirit that sustain high performance teams. These secrets instill personal and group confidence, thus help to create an environment where champions are inevitable. This leadership philosophy builds upon two basic rules of human nature, includes five primary elements that address human nature in the context of high performance teamwork, and is tied together by a singular type of energy. The 8 Secrets are:

Secret 1: Everyone wants to be a part of something bigger than oneself.

Secret 2: Everyone wants to feel valued.

Secret 3: To build a team, you must DEFINE THE PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVE
� Leaders must clearly articulate the specific objectives of the team, including the expected timeframe for achieving the objectives.
� Leaders must create objectives that are both challenging and achievable.

Secret 4: To inspire followers, you must ENNOBLE THE EFFORT
� Leaders must help individuals to feel part of something bigger than oneself.
� Leaders must highlight the intrinsic value of the team in its historical and organizational framework.

Secret 5: High performance teams are possible if leaders EMPOWER INDIVIDUALS
WITHIN TEAM SYNERGY
� Leaders should take the time to make each team member special.
� Leaders need to provide the framework for individual accomplishment to support team objectives.

Secret 6: Leaders and teams must make time to CELEBRATE THE JOURNEY
� Win every day.
� Leaders and followers must create an awareness of the rewards that occur along the journey.

Secret 7: EMPHASIZE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
� Challenge each team member to make a personal commitment to be the best they can be.
� Develop the value of the team's objectives within individual team members.

Secret 8: Sustained team high performance is tied together by POSITIVE ENGAGED ENERGY

Things you never knew your cell phone could do

This was posted on my Groups By Manish-Go-Vegan. Highly appreciate your inputs Manish and want to spread this around !!

There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies. Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency tool for survival. Check out the things that you can do with it: -

1
EMERGENCY
* The Emergency Number worldwide for **Mobile** is 112 .* If you find yourself out of coverage area of your mobile network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number 112 can be dialed even if the keypad is locked. **Try it out.**



2
Have you locked your keys in the car? Does you car have remote keys?

This may come in handy someday. Good reason to own a cell phone: If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their cell phone from your cell phone. Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your
keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other "remote" for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk).

3
Hidden Battery power

Imagine your cell battery is very low, you are expecting an important call and you don't have a charger. Nokia instrument comes with a reserve battery. To activate, press the keys *3370# Your cell will restart with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery. This reserve will get charged when you charge your cell next time. AND

4

How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone?

To check your Mobile phone's serial number, key in the following digits on your phone: * # 0 6 # A 15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. when your phone get stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless. You probably won't get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can't use/sell it either. If everybody does this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones.

Monday, September 18, 2006

Cost cutting is not a growth strategy !

(Adapted from gbs)
Even the staunchest budget "hawk" understands that you can't cost-cut your way to growth.

One wouldn't think that cost control was ever an issue for the Beatles, especially when they were recording the Sgt. Pepper album at the height of their fame. But, in fact, the subject of costs and budgets apparently arose frequently, whenever John or Paul wanted to do something a little bit crazy.

As Geoff Emerick, the group's recording engineer, recounts in his recent memoir, Here, There and Everywhere, the matter of expense nearly squashed John Lennon's request to hire a 90-piece orchestra to fill a 24-bar gap in one of his songs, "A Day in the Life." John thought it would be really cool to have London's finest classical musicians show up and simply play every note on their instruments, from the highest to the lowest, each at his or her own pace, without a conductor.

George Martin, the Beatles' producer, was no doubt horrified by the thought of asking these classically-trained musicians -- many of whom were his personal friends -- to do such a thing, purely from an artistic perspective. However, his pushback was not artistic but economic; he simply told John that EMI, the Beatles' record company, wouldn't pay for a full orchestra to play just 24 bars.

It didn't matter that the Beatles were the most profitable property on EMI's roster -- or even in the world -- at the time. From the record company's point-of-view, Sgt. Pepper would sell just as many copies with or without hiring a full orchestra for the sake of 24 bars on one song.

John was flummoxed, but Ringo Starr provided a solution: Why not bring in half an orchestra and have them play twice? So, that's what they did. The rest, as they say, is psychedelic history.

"The cost-of-goods conversation is always a challenge," says Donna J. Sturgess, VP of innovation at GlaxoSmithKline, in the July/August issue of The HUB Magazine. "There's always someone who will say that you could sell just as much without spending the extra money." Donna found herself up against such challenges as she and her team developed Aquafresh Extreme Clean, a new entry in the ostensibly mundane toothpaste
category.

Donna knew that success depended on creating a different kind of toothpaste -- one that would provide a decidedly different experience versus Colgate and Crest, the category's leaders. As the third-place player, Aquafresh was in a bind. If the brand didn't start to sell better, it was in danger of losing its place on retailer's shelves altogether.

The difference started with the toothpaste itself. Finding a flavor that wasn't mint and a formula that created more foaming action may not have cost anything extra (or at least was not necessarily the kind of expense that would come under immediate scrutiny). Engaging engineers to design a cap that closes with a "click" (instead of the usual flip-top or screw-cap), however, started to push things.

When Donna insisted that the carton be made of plastic instead of paper (both so that it would stand out in-store while also building more excitement -- and loyalty -- among consumers) she really had to fight for it. She comments: "There's always internal tension over 'why can't you do it cheaper?' This product went through as much rigor as any new product launch with a bit more challenge around some things that you can certainly tell cost more money. But the result is that Extreme Clean, in
some respects, is the growth part of the Aquafresh brand."

Donna's success story would certainly seem to be the exception rather
than a rule in today's marketplace -- where most brands are obsessed with cutting costs and infatuated with measuring each incremental expense against each incremental return on investment. That she prevailed in a corporate environment is especially noteworthy; usually it's independent entrepreneurs who try to break the mold by breaking the bank.

Intelligentsia Coffee, for example, is carving out a niche for itself by
paying coffee growers a premium based on the quality of their crop. The
company's founder actually says he'll pay as much as a 200 percent
premium for beans meeting certain quality standards, on the assumption
that consumers will pay $20 or more a pound at retail for it. EV Rental
Cars has found a profitable niche in renting hybrid cars even though it
means paying full retail prices for the autos it rents. The big
car-rental companies wouldn't dream of doing such a thing because their
business models are premised on buying fleets based on volume discounts.

A few other big-name brands seem to be catching the spare-no-expense bug, however. Atari, for example, is actually turning its excessive ways into part of its marketing strategy. The videogame maker's VP of marketing, Nique Fajors, actually brags about how late he is with the introduction of Test Drive Unlimited, an online racing simulation videogame created for Microsoft's Xbox 360 console. As he told The New
York Times: "From a product quality standpoint, you should know that we have delayed the game four times."

And, of course, time is money. While Nique says Atari would have loved to have launched the new game sooner to get some revenues going, he explains that "the viewpoint is that we will ship it when it's ready and not before, which is what is done for all the truly great products."

Toyota is also paying any cost and bearing any burden to ensure that its customers are happy with its cars. The strategy centers on issuing vehicle recalls early and often -- often before consumers even know there's a problem. On top of the inherent expense involved, Toyota also gives its dealers as much as $3,000 per vehicle to fix problems that occur post-warranty, according to Forbes magazine. The result of such
expense is that "vehicles jump off the lot because consumers swear by their quality."

If there were a crown for spending more to make more, it would probably rest on the head of Gamal Aziz of the MGM Grand Casino. Gamal has created a process he calls "working backward," as reported by Paula Kihla in Business 2.0, which effectively shifts the focus from how much money is being made to how much could be made.

Gamal first "breaks down an operation into constituent parts, then calculates the maximum potential revenue that each business or space could generate in a perfect world -- that is, if every customer spent the most the market could bear and if traffic reached its physical limits." He then "subtracts actual sales from that hypothetical number and calls the difference a loss, even if the venue is making money."

By "working backward" Gamal managed to persuade MGM's board of directors that the $2.1 million in revenues it was realizing on its Gatsby's restaurant was really a $3 million loss on "potential" sales. His remedy was extreme -- he blew up and re-built the ostensibly profitable restaurant, which promptly exceed expectations by generating $6.5 million in sales.

So, the next time a bean-counter tells you that spending extra money won't result in any extra sales, consider telling them that it's not just about sales -- it's about growth. Real growth requires the kind of innovation that gets customers excited, and that kind of innovation often means just putting a crowbar in it.

Heck, even the staunchest budget hawk understands that you can't cost-cut your way to growth.

And if that doesn't work, tell them Ringo sent you.

Death from Overwork - Karoshi

Adapted from
Japan's rise from the devastation of World War II to economic prominence between 1945 and 1975 was not without human cost. People cannot work for ten or twelve hours a day six and seven days a week, year after year, without suffering physically as well as mentally.

But during the first three postwar decades no one paid any special attention to the larger than usual number of men in their 40s and 50s who died of brain and heart ailments, most often from acute cardiac insufficiency and subarachnoid hemorrhage.

It was not until the latter part of the 1980s, when several high-ranking business executives who were still in their prime years suddenly died without any previous sign of illness, that the news media began picking up on what appeared to be a new phenomenon.

This new phenomenon was quickly labeled karoshi (kah-roe-she), or "death from overwork", and once it had a name and its symptoms were broadcast far and wide, it just as quickly became obvious that Japan was experiencing a virtual epidemic.

According to Labor Ministry statistics there had been only twenty-one case of karoshi in 1987, twenty-nine cases in 1988 and thirty cases in 1989. But a liaison council of attorneys established in 1988 to monitor deaths from overwork estimated in 1990 that over 10,000 people were dying each year from karoshi.

At that time, Hiroshi Kawahito, an attorney who was acting as the secretary-general of the Karoshi Bengo Dan Zenkoku Renraku Kaigi (Kah-ros-she Bane-go Dahn Zen-koe-kuu Rane-rah-kuu Kie-ghee), or "National Liaison Council of Lawyers on Death from Overwork," said: "The corporate world is hiding behind promises of improved consumer services while partaking in excessive competition, thus victimizing its employees."

Kawahito added that employers generally do not recognize karoshi as job-related, and that since the Ministry of Labor supports the efforts of industry to maintain a high growth rate it works against the interests of employees. He accused some Labor Ministry officials of being soft on management because they were angling for cushy jobs with major corporations after they retired from government service.

Yoshinori Hasegawa, Vice Director of the Chiba Kensei Hospital and a recognized authority on karoshi, says that most of the victims of death from overwork had been putting in more than one hundred hours of overtime each. He said the victims did not receive any overtime pay for their extra work, but were members of the �lite managerial class who worked themselves to death "out of a samurai-like pride".

Because of peer pressure to keep up with co-workers, out-do competing groups and increase market-share at the expense of competitors, hundreds of thousand of Japanese managers are caught up in a vortex of psychological pressure that forces them to work at a frenzied pace.

After years of such intense over-work, most managers find that they cannot rest even when they do take time off. They are so wound up that not working leaves them disoriented and suffering from serious stress.

Masaaki Noda, professor of foreign studies at Kobe City University, says it is not difficult to understand why so many of Japan's salarymen work so hard because they have shut themselves off from their families and have not place to go but to work.

The continued Japanese economic decline of the past few years has forced changes to long-held beliefs of salarymen on the omnipotence and shelter of the large organization, but not reduced related stress. Increased unemployment and salary decreases has indeed compounded the problem

20 Things I learnt at the movies

1. No matter what my problem is, it's the fault of someone other than myself, and the appropriate response is to find that person and kill him with my bare hands.

2. To be truly attractive, a woman must wear high heels and an outfit so tight you can tell whether she's cold or not from across the room.

3. There are two kinds of women in the world: The type that want to go to bed with you, and the type want to kill you. Both types are physically attractive and under 25 years old.

4. If I rudely argue with my boss in front of my co-workers, not only won't he fire me, but he will gain a profound respect for me.

5. If I can find an important enough mission, it will supercede my obligations to perform household chores, bathe, and call the next day.

6. If I go without bathing, swear a lot, and treat women badly, they will adore me.

7. If a woman tries to clean a bullet wound and I curse in pain, she will fall in love with me.

8. Anyone who isn't a cop, mercenary soldier, and/or private investigator is a homosexual. Or at least a sissy.

9. If I have a prolonged fist-fight with another guy and neither of us dies, we will become best friends.

10. My arch-enemy will bear an uncanny resemblance in age and bearing to my father, and he will make it clear that he has gained a deep respect for me before I kill him with my bare hands.

11. When I shoot people, they will die quickly and cleanly, and I will never be arrested or troubled by their widowed wife and children. When people shoot me, however, I will at most receive a 'flesh wound,' which will be tended to by a beautiful woman.

12. Nuclear weapons will never go off because something will always happen about three seconds before one does to stop it from exploding.

13. If an aged scientist is involved in any way, he will have a beautiful daughter who will gaze at me adoringly.

14. If royalty is involved, it will include a beautiful princess who will gaze at me adoringly.

15. If I have a kid partner, he will be tightly-muscled, clean-cut, and gaze at me adoringly.

16. If I am asked to compete against a world champion at any sport or game of any type, I will win. This will infuriate my opponent, who will then try to kill me.

17. If my opponent has a side-kick or henchman, he will never have a sensible name like 'Rick,' or 'Steve.'

18. Beautiful women will frequently furrow their brows with concern and ask, "When's the last time you got any sleep?" They will never ask when I last bathed or used the toilet, although I apparently never do those things either.

19. The aliens will always be overpowered by the humans in the end though their fighting may result in a lot of casualties and destruction.

20. If everyone in a team dies, it's the last man's job to win the fight against his enemy.

Friday, September 15, 2006

This is me !

Sure, the path to success does involve hard work and a lot of perseverance but it is crucial to get "lazy" on a regular basis. Actually, there are two very good r easons to take on the lazy approach. First of all, it may sound ridiculous but some of the best and most innovative ideas come to us when we are playing or taking time out. The conscious mind is not occupied with a task but the subconscious mind is still working. Because the conscious mind isn't "forcing" an answer, the subconscious mind has the opportunity to go through its vast databanks to search for hidden connections and hard-to-see ways to solve problems. In fact, the harder you try to search for an answer consciously, the harder it may be to find it. The longer you work, the more tired your brain gets and your efficiency suffers greatly. Once you release the pressure by "getting lazy" or playing, your mind has the chance to regenerate and will be happy to help you out. Apparently, Einstein used to come up with brilliant ideas while taking a shower! So, however paradoxical it may sound, get more done by doing less. Go to the beach. Take a hot bath. Make that part of your work routine.
The second advantage to the lazy approach is that it can lead to great innovations. Lazy people don't like hard work and can spend countless hours searching for ways to avoid it. This can drive people around them crazy but these "misfits" are the kinds of people who have brought us great inventions. Thank God for Edison who didn't want to strain his eyes in candlelight, for whoever came up with the calculator idea
because he didn't want to count by hand, and the many others who gave us great innovations because they didn't want to break a sweat!

Monday, September 11, 2006

Murphy's Corollaries at Work

A pat on the back is only a few centimeters from a kick in the pants.

Don't be irreplaceable, if you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.

The more crap you put up with, the more crap you are going to get.

You can go anywhere you want if you look serious and carry a clipboard.

Eat one live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.

Never ask two questions in a business letter. The reply will discuss the one you are least interested in, and say nothing about the other.

When the bosses talk about improving productivity, they are never
talking about themselves.

If at first you don't succeed, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.

There will always be beer cans rolling on the floor of your car when the boss asks for a ride home from the office.

Mother said there would be days like this, but she never said there would be so many.

Keep your boss's boss off your boss's back. This is what I'm doing wrong.

Everything can be filed under "miscellaneous."

Never delay the ending of a meeting or the beginning of a cocktail hour.

To err is human, to forgive is not company policy.

Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing.

Important letters that contain no errors will develop errors in the mail.

The last person that quit or was fired will be the one held responsible for everything that goes wrong - until the next person quits or is fired.

There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but there is always enough time to do it over.

The more pretentious a corporate name, the smaller the organization.
For instance, The Murphy Center for Codification of Human and Organizational Law, contrasted to IBM, GM, AT&T ...).

If you are good, you will be assigned all the work. If you are really good, you will get out of it.

You are always doing something marginal when the boss drops by your desk.

People are always available for work in the past tense.

If it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would get done.

At work, the authority of a person is inversely proportional to the number of pens that person is carrying.

When you don't know what to do, walk fast and look worried.

You will always get the greatest recognition for the job you least like.

No one gets sick on Wednesdays.

When confronted by a difficult problem you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?"

The longer the title, the less important the job.

Machines that have broken down will work perfectly when the repairman arrives.

An "acceptable" level of employment means that the government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job.

Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it makes it worse.

All vacations and holidays create problems, except for one's own.

Success is just a matter of luck, just ask any failure.

There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but there is always enough time to do it over.

If you are good, you will be assigned all the work. If you are really good, you will get out of it.

People are always available for work in the past tense.

If it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would get done.

When you don't know what to do, walk fast and look worried.

An "acceptable" level of employment means that the government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job.

Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it makes it worse.

All vacations and holidays create problems, except for one's own.

Success is just a matter of luck, just ask any failure.