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Showing posts from January, 2007

Battle for social intelligence

How many times have you known that you are doing something wrong but yet pig headed enough not to admit it to yourself? It happens to me all the time. I wonder why it is so hard for us to accept a mistake and make immediate amends. What is it that makes us dig deeper into the hole and then later have to claw ourselves out of it? I for one have found myself in this situation more regularly that I would like to admit. It almost always begins with a righteous stand. I am certain that I am on the righteous side of an argument or stand and I take a very aggressive pose. This is usually followed by sulking and pretending to be the victim. As a child, arguments with my father or mother always began in this fashion. I would invariably end up throwing a tantrum and almost always not get my way. But the sad part of it is that whenever I am done with the outburst almost 99 percent of the time I have felt miserable about doing something like that. What is even scarier is that I have felt bad about

Transferring inefficiencies

Every organization is always in search of making itself ever more efficient. If you are a keen follower of quarterly reports that every organization puts out every four months, there is not one that gets written without the words “improved efficiency” that is embedded in there somewhere. Even governments talk about efficiency in governance and efficiency in services. But is there truly such a thing as eliminating inefficiencies? Do we really rid the world of inefficiencies when a process is improved or do we simply transfer this inefficiency to another part of the system? It all started on Monday morning when I had to report for Jury duty at the courthouse. You can never go for one of these things without at least one person giving you a horror story about the grinding waiting that has to be done for anything to happen. First day went by with no activity. At the end of the wait the judge did come over and tell us that she was unable to get to us because of some delays and will do so th