Ford Vs Toyota

My dear friend MG wanted to share the following with us:

A Japanese company (TOYOTA) and an American company (FORD Motor) decided to have a canoe race on the Red River . Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.

Their conclusion was the Japanese had eight people rowing and one person steering, while the American team had eight people steering and one person rowing.

Feeling a deeper study was in order, American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.

They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.

Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to four steering supervisors, three area steering superintendents and one assistant superintendent steering manager.

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the one person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the 'Rowing Team Quality First Program' with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes, other equipment, and extra vacation days for practices and bonuses.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses, and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India .

Sadly, the end.

Here's something else to think about: FORD has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US , claiming they can't make money paying American wages.

Toyota has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US . The last quarter's results:

Toyota makes four billion in profits while Ford racked up nine billion in losses.

Ford folks are still scratching their heads.

IF THIS WEREN'T SO TRUE, IT MIGHT BE FUNNY

Embrace the experience.

"Find something you love to do and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.”

                                                      Harvey Mackay, author

In other words, it’s easier to work in something you are passionate about (it wont feel like work at all) than to be stuck in a 9-5 job that you don’t mind and sometimes hate.

Although this option isn’t always available for everyone (social situation, money restrictions, vacancies, etc…), the trick is to have a positive attitude and build up some passion about your current work.

Any trade/office job has its secrets and its benefits. To make it easier on you, dig deeper. Become an expert in what you do even if you didn’t like it at first.

The more you know, the easier your work becomes and the more you’ll end up enjoying it.

People hate their job for many reasons (Too complex / Not interesting / Pays little / etc…) and they won’t make the effort to fully understand it due to lack of interest. By changing your attitude, the job you hate will become easier and more appealing thus less annoying. I’m not saying don’t pursuit your ultimate job, I’m saying don’t spend your days feeling bitter about what you are currently working on. Your ideal job will come sooner or later; the road to it is full of pit stops in few inconvenient places but necessary to tune your skills, sharpen your mind and to gain experience. I worked in not so “normal” places; sometimes I didn’t enjoy it at all for different reasons. I ended up learning how to deal with a moody boss, a frustrated customer and to take charge and run a meeting. At the time, I couldn’t really see all the benefits but i made sure to have a positive attitude.

At the moment, I find myself deeply satisfied with the way Careerbox.net is progressing! I'm just enjoying it and it doesnt feel like work at all!

All in Attitude! Build up a passion about it and embrace the experience.

The Marshmallow "Experiment".

Last Friday a friend of mine told me about the Marshmallow "Experiment". So after few search results online, i would like to share it with you.
 
It is a famous test of the concept of delayed gratification conducted by American social psychologist, Walter Mischel, at Stanford University.
   
In the 1960s a group of four-year-olds were tested by being given a marshmallow and promised another if they could wait 20 minutes before eating the first one.
the researchers would put one marshmallow on the table and leave. This would leave the kids with the marshmellow on the table and no one to influence his decision.
if they wait till the researchers come back, they will get another one!
 
Some children could wait and others could not. Some children were patient, some werent.
 
Flash forward 20 years or so...
 
The researchers then followed the progress of each child into adolescence, and demonstrated that those with the ability to wait were better adjusted and more dependable (determined via surveys of parents and teachers), and scored an average of 210 points higher on the Scholastic Aptitude Test.
 
In other words, more successful!
 
Think about this next time you see an instant gain and the potential for more later on? which one would you go for?
 

The Pastor and the donkey

A nice story sent by MG:
The pastor entered his donkey in a race and it won.
The pastor was so pleased with the donkey that he entered it in the race again, and it won again.
The local paper read: PASTOR’S ASS OUT FRONT
The Bishop was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the pastor not to enter the donkey in another race.
The next day, the local paper headline read: BISHOP SCRATCHES PASTOR’S ASS.

This was too much for the bishop, so he ordered the pastor to get rid of the donkey.
The pastor decided to give it to a nun in a nearby convent. The local paper, hearing of the news, posted the following headline The next day: NUN HAS BEST ASS IN TOWN.
The bishop fainted.
He informed the nun that she would have to get rid of the donkey, so she sold it to a farmer for $10. The next day the paper read: NUN SELLS ASS FOR $10.
This was too much for the bishop, so he ordered the nun to buy back the donkey and lead it to the plains where it could run wild. The next day the headlines read:NUN ANNOUNCES HER ASS IS WILD AND FREE.

The bishop was buried the next day.

The moral of the story is . . . Being concerned about public opinion can bring you much grief and misery . . Even shorten your life. So be yourself and enjoy life.
Stop worrying about everyone else’s ass and you’ll be a lot happier and live longer!

Work / Life balance

It looks that i haven’t blogged for a while now due to many reasons (working on other projects, being on vacation).

Anyway, let’s talk about how to maintain your work and life balance. How to improve your quality of life without affecting your quality of work. I find the following very helpful:

  • Don’t bring your work back home with you: easier said than done, but try to avoid it. Finish what you have to do in the office, go home and relax.You earned it. An exception would be a deadline or an emergency but that’s why it’s called an exception.
  • Seek and do whatever makes you happy: we all have to do different sort of tasks,some of them would bring us more satisfaction than others. Do those more often and minimize the rest. This doesn’t happen overnight, take some time to think about “happy tasks” and try to incorporate them in your routine.
  • Don’t stay inside: make it a point to go outside the office, it always feels good under the sun.
  • Go on holidays: do i need to say more? well maybe this small tip: “Stay away from the computer”. There’s a time and a place for everything. A friend once said to me: ” Work never ends while life does”.
  • Be good in what you do: if you are a guru in your work, the stress becomes something from the past. If you are not an expert, look for training or ask for help and soon enough you’ll become one. I find unqualified people working in vain for extra hours, stressing over tasks and messing up their personal life only to achieve so little. You lose on both ends.

hope my tips helped you , feel free to drop me your thoughts on the subject and hopefully I’ll be posting more often now that I’m back.

Erich von Manstein

The German World War II general Erich von Manstein is said to have categorized his officers into four types. The first type, he said, is lazy and stupid. His advice was to leave them alone because they don’t do any harm. The second type is hard-working and clever. He said that they make great officers because they ensure everything runs smoothly. The third group is composed of hardworking idiots. Von Manstein claims that you must immediately get rid of these, as they force everyone around them to perform pointless tasks. The fourth category are officers who are lazy and clever. These, he says, should be your generals.

When i read this it made me wonder how can we apply Eric’s categories to business organisations.

for that, i thought of asking you guys about your opinions. Which type of officers are you or your boss is?

feel free to drop your comments.

Motivation

In this post i thought i’ll share you some of the things i do to help me overcome the boredom and get myself back into the action.
  • Know yourself: As long as i know what I’m facing i feel it’s all under control. The chances are it’s not the first time and wont be the last but identifying it is the first step.
  • Start simple: Easy steps and doing something small could be my start. I find going for a walk around the park give me enough energy to start something else (yeah like cleaning the house or finish a report).
  • Learn something new: The more i learn the more confident i feel and it doesn’t only apply to Project management.
  • Talk to people: I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by some interesting friends. We share some insights and ideas. One thing leads to another and before you know it am motivated to learn how to implement a new idea to a project or to try their suggestion in a solution am working on.
  • Look ahead: Don’t just see the boring task in front of you, think of the long term benefit. The task in hand is one step closer to your goal. it will show that you can do well on things you don’t like that much and that is a success.
  • Stay positive: It’s all in the attitude.

The most important thing to do is just get started. Once you start keep on going, don’t stop. Build the momentum.

Once you are done, have a break then jump back on.