Sometimes, I think folks’ mouths run about a hundred yards out in front of their brains. And our conversations are more colorful for it.
I was in a group discussion recently when someone, in pointing out a dilemma, announced that there were “two sides to the knife.”
I guess this now means that the coin cuts both ways.
Especially if the penny has been pinched.
But I digress.
My son — 16 years old and some change — is a bright, hard-working boy who has been fortunate enough to travel to many interesting and sophisticated parts of the world. He is a member of the National Ski Patrol at Killington, trained in both rescue and outdoor emergency care, and gives his every winter weekend to the task of serving and protecting tender-footed suburbanites from Bergen County, New Jersey.
He is a thoughtful, clear-headed young man. But he had better hope the Theory of Natural Selection called in sick the other day.
We had had a significant mid-week snowstorm, and I asked the boy to park his car for the night in a parking area on our lower driveway, so our snowplow guy could easily clear our upper driveway overnight.
When he went out to his car the next morning to go to school, there was approximately 8 inches of snow around his car. Not enough to scare most folks in this neck of the woods; with good snow tires and front-wheel drive, he should be able to just drive away.
Of course, he simply assumed he was stuck. A small error in judgement — which we will excuse. But what came next boggles the mind.
He got in the car, and started the engine. Then, he put it in gear — “D” for drive. He got out of the driver’s seat and went to the back of the car.
And then he pushed.
Twenty minutes later, as I was leaving for work, I found him frantically trying to dig the car out of a snowbank. Or should I say, trying to dig the snowbank out from under the car, as the front wheels were no longer touching the ground.
I nearly lost it — not because of the car or its situation, but from the complete inability to comprehend how any human being could have thought what he did was a good idea. And, (mostly) from the fear that I and mine might have a genetic marker for “boneheadedness” and that the Theory of Natural Selection might come knocking on our door sooner rather than later.
So, happy birthday, Charles. If you don’t mind, I’ll just tell everyone he’s adopted.
It’s been a cost-cutting frenzy in the business world lately, hasn’t it?
As the leader of an organization, you may also be feeling immense pressure to scour your cash flow statements looking for opportunities to cut expenses. Remember, however, there are costs — things you can’t afford — that lurk all around you, but never show up on a spreadsheet:
You really can’t afford them anymore, can you? No less than disappearing revenue or bloated expenses, these things destroy companies. Combined with today’s challenging economic environment, they’re deadly.
The best leaders in the world know that a spreadsheet or an income statement aren’t the only places to find the things his or her organization can’t afford.
He or she is relentlessly examining the organization’s culture and its people, looking for the really, really expensive things.
Ask people to change, and show them how to change. The ones that can’t, or won’t? Well, then show them the door.
This is an informative and thought-provoking video in which Randy Nelson, dean of Pixar University, talks about collaboration in the workplace.
Included in his message, however, are some very interesting insights into how Pixar chooses the people it ultimately hires. What struck me most: when your company is trying to innovate, or do something that hasn’t been done before, resumes are useless for finding the right people.
Whether you’re someone just starting out, or someone in the job market — or simply a leader concerned about your organization’s culture of learning, collaboration and selection, there are a lot of great lessons in this 10-minute clip.
And, of course, it’s all the more credible given Pixar’s track record.
I know it doesn’t seem like much but, to a bookworm like me, flirting with the alchemy of wrenches, grease and electricity and not making a hopeless mess was a pretty big deal. So, I’m going to take a minute and celebrate. Woo-hoo.
It’s not something I do every day — in fact, the last time I did it was, let’s see…hmmm. Never. Yes, never would be the last time I changed the battery in an automobile.
In fact, I’ve never done any car repair of any type at all. Like many Americans, I find it far too complicated. A simple cost-benefit analysis leads one to the conclusion that paying someone whatever price far outweighs the hassle — and the fear — of disassembling and assembling parts of your engine only to find in the end a few extra bolts and washers left over on the garage floor.
When I was growing up, this was the kind of thing my father — and I suspect many other men — did all the time. He built our garage with the help of a friend, constructed about 40 percent of our in-ground pool, repainted at least one of our cars, and generally built, fixed, and altered things as needed. He always knew the right tool to use, too.
He did these things, I think, because he could, but also out of a sense of frugality.
Frugality existed as a core value of many, if not all, previous generations of Americans, and rarely, if at all, in the current one. I would have to admit that I place convenience and comfort far ahead of frugality in my daily life.
One result is — for me, I now realize — an unnerving lack of skills necessary to thrive or survive in a period of enforced frugality — in other words, a severe or prolonged economic meltdown in which I was personally affected.
I cannot repair my own car, and I cannot fix a roof on a house, nor a leak in a basement. I cannot — heaven forbid it comes to this, ever — grow or kill sufficient quantities of food to feed my entire family (let alone my voracious sixteen-year old son).
I imagine I could learn. I imagine necessity, hunger and pain would be effective, swift teachers. But, it would be nice to be able to do these things for yourself because you can — and because you never know when you might have to.
But I’m getting there. I can change the battery in a car.
