20 extra minutes

You call a company to demand a service. They´re open from 9am to 5 pm. It´s 5.02 pm and already nobody answers the phone. Result: you think ¨these lazy people drop the pen at 5.00 and they don´t care. I´m sure they´re still around and don´t pick up cause I´m 2 minutes late...¨ The ¨go the extra mile for our customers¨ attitude is nowhere to be seen.

If I were responsible for customer service, I´d pay the receptionist or whomever it is that answers the phone in the first place 10 minutes of overtime before and after business hours to be there and make sure those ¨borderline¨ calls are properly attended. I believe it exemplifies the customer-centric attitude it is talked about so much (¨we´re not just here from 9 to , we´re here for you¨). Plus, those ¨borderline¨ calls are usually very important.

What do you think?

Predecir el tiempo

Dicen los expertos que nunca vamos a poder predecir el tiempo con exactitud (teoría del caos, etc.). Lo interesante de todo esto es cómo interacciones en apariencia insignificantes pueden tener una influencia determinante en el ¨macro¨. El ejemplo de cómo el batir de alas de una mariposa puede influir en las corrientes de aire de la otra parte del mundo es clásico. Hoy me enteré de otro.

Resulta que el plancton, ese microorganismo de 1 milímetro de ancho que vive en el agua, ayuda a regular la temperatura de la Tierra. ¿Cómo? Este es el proceso:

La Tierra se calienta
El océano se calienta
Los migroorganismos se ¨excitan¨ y se aparean
Al aparearse liberan DMS (di-metil sulfitos)
El DMS se evapora y provoca condensación
Las nubes blancas tapan parte de los rayos de Sol
La temperatura de la Tierra baja.

En hechos como este se fundamenta la ¨Hipótesis de Gaia¨, de Lovelock, que afirma que la biomasa regula las condiciones las condiciones del planeta para hacer la vida más hospitalaria a las especies que aquí habitan (mos) (pena que algunasa especies nos empeñemos en hacer lo contrario).

Por eso, entre otras cosas ¨hay una parte de la realidad que se nos escapa¨. En este caso lo que nos permite predecir el tiempo.

Prueba a hacer una analogía con:
- Tierra = empresa,
- Plancton = interacciones entre empleados, mercado etc. (lo de aparearse no va ;-)

y luego mira si tiene sentido la cultura de ¨command and control management¨...mejor dejar que el Gaia se ocupe.

Promote slavery

hmm.....Why is it that we want to climb the corporate ladder?

1. Self-realization through ¨inspiring¨ people to execute tactical plans. Hhmmm...nope, they come from high up and they´ve metamorphosed from strategic plans that you´d never want to know how were conceived. Besides, you don´t agree with most of them. Deep inside you think they´re unimplementable.

2. Self-realization through ¨acquiring more responsibility¨ and being able to manage a unit/division/etc. Hhmmm....nope, this involves too many counter creative administrative tasks even robots would go on strike to avoid.

3. Self-realization through ¨being exposed to different roles so I can acquire new skills¨. Hhmmmm.....yeah, whatever.

4. Self-realization through driving a company car, using a corporate credit card and cell phone.
We´re getting there.

5. Got anything better? Please.

How about not climbing the corporate ladder?

Infatuation

Infatuation:
1. an object of extravagant short-lived passion
2. foolish and usually extravagant passion or love or admiration
Synonim: Puppy love.


Here´s to: ¨It´s not you....it´s me¨.

I was thinking about it today and it made me laugh. Got any comments / thoughts / rants you want to share?

The truth II

Following the track of coincidence I arrived at this post and wanted to share it. The entire blog is worthy of reading (I know someone in Venezuela who will love to discover it) but this particular one...

¨This little willingness to know 'What Is' is enough. It does the rest for us. It knows it's own way into our conscious awareness and asks only that we give it welcome. In fact, by trying to add more we take away the little that is asked. We don't need to learn or practice anything or change at all, just come with empty hands and see. It is totally trustworthy.
We are perfect exactly as we are. So no more looking for answers and let's come see for ourselves instead.¨

It´s funny how the attitudes that work in life work also in business but we turn our backs on them. When was the last time you attended a meeting/sales presentation/contract negotiation where everyone brought this attitude?

• willingness to know versus fear of not knowing
  
• open mind and common goal versus (hidden) agendas
• trust versus suspicion

...and we still wonder why we can´t get things done and aren´t happy at work.

I go out at night...II

Almost forgot:

I go out at night...

The truth

Happy Easter...better yet, wish you an Easter of revelation and better understanding of YOUR own truth. A friend of mine was meditating on the idea of ¨the truth shall make you free¨ and he arrived at this conclusion: ¨you will know your truth, and YOUR truth will make you free¨.

That I wish you.

Someone already paid the price so that we wouldn´t have to live with fear (of failure, of change...of the future), with guilt or in the past.


From Mihaly Csikszentmihaly´s book ¨Flow: The psychology of optimal experience¨

Those who seek consolaation in existing churches often pay for their peace of mind with a tacit agreement to ignore a great deal of what is known about the way the world works.

be gud. live laif.

God´s copyright part II

Goodbye DRM. Thanks Enrique for the link.


Or as my good atheist friend Luís would put it: It´s all the Universe´s property.

Paradox

A paradox:

To paraphrase Prof. Srikumar Rao: put a 100% into what you do, desire it with passion and be 100% ready to move on if the outcome is not what you expected; that´s where happiness/success lies.

The more you want something and the more you accept the outcome whatever it turns out to be, the more likely it is that you´ll get it. Not to be confused with not giving a damn and just doing stuff.
In other words, make ¨k=0¨ in your internal resort. The higher ¨k¨, the more work you need to do in order to move from 1 to 2 and the least probable it is you´ll get there.

or

FLOW.

UPDATE: Looking for inspiration? Read Evelyn Rodriguez´s latest post (...or her entire lent series, for that matter):

¨Lots of decaying slices of our life will be sloughing away during these accelerating times of the Springtime. If you haven't noticed this already, you may be trying to hold on to the dead and stagnant. It's your choice, but a fair warning that it could be detrimental to hold on to the wreckage.¨

Make k=0.

Meritocracy

Here´s to insecurity...


...and misalignment between value-added and the definition of success.

Re-engineer

Egolatry

...is the modern-personal religion. Marx wasn´t that far off.
;-)

Found all you were looking for?

Formalism: the doctrine that formal structure rather than content is what should be represented.

The ¨What¨:
Borders trains employees to ask every customer ¨Found all you were looking for?¨ at check out. If the answer is negative, the employee will offer the customer help on the items not found, which will lead to a new sale and increased customer satisfaction.

The ¨How¨:
As I was paying in the San Juan store the other night I heard:
Cashier: ¨Found all you were looking for Today?¨
Customer: No.
Cashier: ¨Ok, it´s $18.94¨.

Wait!! Weren´t you supposed to say something else? Why did you bother to ask in the first place?

Gap: a conspicuous disparity or difference between things.

It´s that gap between what is defined and HOW it is executed that marks the difference from a company to another. It´s usually in the little things.

Nope...

...failed. Whatever.

Shutdown

Tomorrow is Shutdown Day. A ¨day without computers¨, social experiments started by two guys in Canada. While I´m not typically drawn to these ¨let´s all...¨ initiatives, I think it´s a good opportunity to prove myself I can live without miss G5 for a day. We´re face to screen a lot lately.

See you on Sunday.

Change or alignment?

What do you think?

We don´t need to change the world, we just need to align things. Change is too disruptive...the world is what it is, and we human beings are the way we are. Maybe it´s more like: in order to change the world, we need to align it. How?

There´s one I consider critical, and where I believe many companies have an opportunity to close the gap: alignment between the ¨what¨ and the ¨how¨ of things. Two simple questions that reveal many things. Example: Senior management is clear, visualizes the strategy, is fully committed...and it fails. Happens all too often. Somewhere down the line, the ¨how¨ wasn´t clear and it never got implemented correctly. Of course, there are many reasons to the failure in implementation, but the root cause is this gap between what needs to be done and how it needs to be done (which takes us to clarity in communication, etc).

Case in point: advertising. Advertisers have been failing to effectively make their ads reach their targets effectively. Until Google delivered Ad Sense. What did they do? Align the ad you are presenting with the preferences of the person that is viewing it. How? Effectively closing the gap between the what and the how: placing an ad relevant to the search the person just made.

Got alignment?

Back

Back from Spain. Reconnecting with friends you haven´t seen in years and feeling it´s been like a week is awesome (has to do with the alignment thing, for sure).

So...the weddding was on Saturday. The reception took place in Bell Recó (photo) an beautiful palace built in the 1950s. It´s in Argentona, 30 km from Barcelona.
It seems we´re still in good shape for the 5 a.m. ers, laif is gud. :-)

Weekend in Spain

Off to Spain tomorrow. Friday in Madrid, Saturday and Sunday in Barcelona for Javi´s wedding (that´s the official XPLANATION ;-). Good times.

It´s getting together with close friends with whom I lived six years (memorable moments like ¨gatito, gatiiiitooo...¨, Ildefonso, pears, ¨vaya mmmmiiieerrrda de díaaa!!!¨.....). I´ll post a photo or two next week. Null blogging for me until Tuesday.
Meanwhile, enjoy this...pure life. Awesome.


Laif is gud. Enjoy...

Entropía

Es mentira que todo tienda al desorden....solo a la reorganización. Lo que pasa es que nos ponemos incómodos cuando vemos que es una manifestación nueva de la realidad. Pura resistencia al cambio, vamos.
:-P

Eso es lo que me digo cuando veo mi escritorio...