Some of the most capable people I know are quietly running on information that never shows up in a business case. Not intuition in the vague, decorative sense. Something closer to data they can’t fully explain and have learned not to ignore. I think dismissing that, in ourselves or in the people we work with, […]
Have you ever thought about flow? I know, it sounds woo-woo, doesn’t it? But bear with me. Some old writings on Taoism crossed my desk recently. Specifically, something I hadn’t read in decades, and I read the same passage three times. In Chinese, Wu Wei is written 無為. The first character means “without” or “absence.” […]
Last week, I argued that efficiency is a manufacturing concept we swallowed whole and have been choking on ever since. This week, the harder question. If that’s the wrong metric, what do we replace it with? I want to start with a word. Ripening. Not growing. Not scaling. Not optimizing. Ripening. The kind of […]
Provocative question, I know. But I recently did this exercise and was genuinely blown away. I want to walk you through it. First, full credit where it’s due. This isn’t my work. It belongs to a brilliant fellow named Ant Blair. You can find him at antblair.com. He’s currently updating his website and programs, so […]
Do you remember being six years old?Someone told you that you’d done something amazing, and the feeling was electric. Pure. Instantaneous. You stood a little taller. Smiled a little wider. Felt, for one shining moment, like you could do anything. Here’s what nobody tells you: that feeling never goes away. More than twenty, forty, sixty […]
Last weekend, I found myself at the customer service desk of our local hardware store, returning what should have been a simple kitchen tool: a mandolin slicer. For the uninitiated, a mandolin is traditionally a straightforward yet notoriously dangerous kitchen gadget designed to help you slice and dice everything from potatoes to your fingertips equally […]
And it’s STILL January, and STILL, nearly every person and every business is feeling a cash flow squeeze. And just for kicks, I am STILL serving up my favourite business process—continuous improvement—with a generous side order of “Just DO It.” So, what is continuous improvement again? Sometimes, it is referred to as continual improvement. Truly, […]
For the last two months, I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time feeling like a convoluted pretzel as I’ve dealt with the red tape of both the police and the RCMP. My brother had a few hunting rifles in his possession when he passed, and for a host of reasons, getting those rifles into the […]
Have you noticed how so many of us are travelling now that the restrictions have been lifted? To be fair, I haven’t heard one person say that that travel part – the airplane part — is fabulous. Always, the best parts are getting away, taking in new sites and then experiencing the new parts. Long […]
Which is more appealing to you? Efficiency or Effectiveness? Efficiency is the ability to accomplish something with the least amount of wasted time, money, and effort or competency in performance. Effectiveness is the degree to which something successfully produces the desired result. The words effective and efficient both mean “capable of producing a result,” but […]