Mud on your Nose

Google Images

Reading Peanuts reminds me of my first flappy-eared friend. He was phenomenally smart and perpetually hungry. We'd cleverly drop a biscuit into one of the dozen flower pots when he was sleeping or looking elsewhere and then shout 'FETCH!!' with a straight face.

He'd get up in a jiffy, his eyes popping out, and run over to the pots, sniffing hard. Every pot was sniffed from all directions, sending some hibernating lizards scooting all over the place in the process (the only thing I didn't like about our game). Our flappy-eared friend meanwhile would intensely focus on finding the biscuit and inevitably find it soon. He'd munch on it or rather gobble it down and look up to see if we would say 'Fetch' again. We'd giggle and guffaw. He probably imagined it was because we were proud he had found the biscuit. Little did the fella know it was because of all the wet mud smeared on his nose. (Evil us)

PS: Obviously, our game left us soon with half-broken flower pots much to the dismay of the elders of the house.

Peanuts by Charles Schultz - Google Images

The 'Real' Success

The man is a success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much; 

who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of children; 

who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; 

who leaves the world better than he found it, 

whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; 

who never lacked appreciation of earth's beauty or failed to express it; 

who looked for the best in others and gave the best he had.

- Robert Louis Stevenson

Quote

The real genius of organizations is the informal, impromptu, often inspired ways that real people solve real problems in ways that formal processes can’t anticipate. When you’re competing on knowledge, the name of the game is improvisation, not rote standardization — John Seeley Brown


 Hat Tip to @Oscarberg 

Coincidence

Revisited one of my previous posts on Happiness and believe (and I thought so immediately after reading the paper as well) that Dan Pink's extremely popular talk on Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose (being presented as the foundation for performance, motivation and success) seems to have an uncanny resemblance to this research study. Wait, I'm not suggesting anything.....just saying that it is an interesting coincidence! :-)  


But the one notable difference is that while Men who participated in the research said (mostly) Autonomy along with Mastery and Purpose were important, Women said (mostly) Meaningful Relationships were more important than Autonomy (with Mastery and Purpose being constant). Hmm. 

Spirituality

Throughout the journey from birth to death, many people choose to question life, strive for improvement, seek out knowledge, and search for the divine. Simply put, this is the essence of spirituality. - Daily Om


- Thought I'd put this up here because a lot of people have misconceptions regarding what spirituality means. Some people laugh when spirituality and religion are separated because they believe there is no difference between the two. Spirituality encompasses all religions and creates a cumulative list of values (as opposed to rituals) to pursue. 

Leadership

Found this in an internal blog. Sharing it here. Credit to - Wayne Hays 


Extract:

Research conducted by Zenger & Folkman and published in their book "The Extraordinary Leader" revealed some interesting results. They found that leaders who were perceived as having at least one strength were rated significantly higher in their overall leadership effectiveness.  Leaders with no strengths but no clear weaknesses were rated lower than leaders with weaknesses but a few clear strengths.

Why were leaders with no weaknesses but no clear strengths perceived to be less effective?  The authors suggest they lack a redeeming quality, skill, or ability.  They may not be ineffective at anything, but they are also not terribly effective at anything.  A focus on building strengths will help improve overall effectiveness and as most of us have heard, individual development plans should include optimizing strengths.

That leads to the natural next question, "how do I develop an existing strength?"  Peterson & Hicks (Development First, Strategies for Self-Development) offer some suggestions.

• Seek experience in new, complex situations.  Force yourself to face challenges that push your limits.
• Spend time with experts.  Benchmark yourself against others you feel are experts in the area.  Watch what they do and continue to push your own performance.
• Cross-train.  Pursue learning in related areas and search for synergies, connections, and parallel ideas.
• Share the wealth by teaching others.  Others will benefit from your expertise and teaching requires that you deepen or stay sharp in your expertise.

***************

Needless to say, three of these points are things that KMers and KM tools attempt to enable! ;-)

Stories We tell Ourselves

If your life largely depends on the stories ( ranging from inspiring, positive, optimistic, full-of-hope, plainly factual, ruthlessly logical, pessimistic, uncertain, negative, full-of-hatred, unforgiving, imaginary to what not) you tell yourself, why is it that everyone can't tell themselves only stories that will make them happy & succeed? 


Potential culprits - Conditioning & upbringing, history,  genetic flaws, influence & type of company,  a specific kind of intelligence - rationalism? - that cannot ignore what seems practical/true, self-sabotage, unusual priorities and ------?