The PPP #72
The 3 Basic Tenets of Business, Book of the Week, Mike Friday's Funnies, and "The Dead"
Happy Phriday
Yes, you laughed when you got it.
Quotes I am Considering
"In real life you don't become a poet by being in a college." Werner Herzog
Thank You
Thank you so much for reading The PPP. If you are not ready to become a paid subscriber, you can simply make a one-time donation here at Buy Me A Coffee. Nothing does more for me than when someone tells me how much they like my writing. I appreciate all of you who follow this page.
Sammie’s Journal: The Basic 3 Tenets for Business
General rules of business can be found in any business book. General rules range from finance to people management, from customer services to how to run a meeting, from product development to everything in between. These rules are, well, general. More valid in one instance than in another.
But there are a basic set of rules, higher order, immutable tenets that will always be true no matter the business or the business situation.
If you are not growing you are dying.
Nothing happens until somebody sells something. Somebody better be selling something every day. If you are standing still, the competition is gaining on you. Andy Grove was right, "Only the paranoid survives." So, move forward. New products, new services, new processes, new pricing. New employees, if you must but move forward.
Learning is growing. If your business is not learning, if you are not learning, you are dying.
It's all about people.
· Hire people smarter than you.
· Give them the tools they need.
· Give them commander's intent.
· Get out of their way.
Lean and understand what emotional quotient (EQ) is. Read a Daniel Goleman book. Working With Emotional Intelligence is a good one. Here is a quote from him: "But once you are in that field, emotional intelligence emerges as a much stronger predictor of who will be most successful, because it is how we handle ourselves in our relationships that determines how well we do once we are in a given job."
Everything is a system,
The results you are getting are the perfect result of that system. If you are getting shitty results you have a shitty system. You don’t get better results by pushing the same system harder. You change the system.
Peter Senge wrote a good book on this, a damn fine book, a true book, The Fifth Discipline. You should read it. Peter Senge says, “Business and human endeavors are systems…we tend to focus on snapshots of isolated parts of the system. And wonder why our deepest problems never get solved.”
Then you should learn the tools to evaluate and understand systems. Tools like Lean Thinking, Six Sigma, kaizen, just to name a three. It wouldn’t kill you to read one of Juran’s books, either. (Don’t know who Juran is? Google him.)
Coda
And everything else is lower down on the pyramid.
A general tenet of life being true for more than just business is this: The little things over time make the biggest differences. So, show up every day. You may not be at your all-time best but you can be at your best for that day. It surprises me how many times I see someone give up the day. You can do better than that.
Mike Friday’s Funnies: Voices
I told my psychiatrist that I've been hearing voices. He told me that I don't have a psychiatrist. A doctor answers his phone and hears the familiar voice of a colleague on the other end of the line. "We need a fourth for poker," said the friend. "I'll be right over," whispered the doctor. As he was putting on his coat, his wife asked, "Is it serious?" "Oh yes, very serious," said the doctor gravely. "There are three doctors there already." As my daughter was walking out the door to go on her first date, in my best grumpy old tough guy dad voice, I growled, "I want her home before midnight." The boy she was going with stopped dead in his tracks, turned slowly around and with wide eyes replied: "But you already own her home!" A guy decides to go ice fishing. He goes out on the ice and begins cutting a hole to drop his line through. Suddenly a loud, booming voice speaks from far above: "THERE ARE NO FISH UNDER THE ICE." Somewhat spooked, he moves to another spot and tries again. Once again, the deep voice from above: "THERE ARE NO FISH UNDER THE ICE!" Now the guy is thoroughly frightened. He looks up timidly and asks, "Is that you, Lord??" The voice replies, "NO! THIS IS THE RINK MANAGER!" Have you ever dated someone with a high-pitched voice? They're nothing but treble. A guy goes to confession, complaining of hearing voices. "Father, everyday I hear a voice telling me how bad I am, and chastising me for all the things I've done wrong in my life. Am I possessed?" "No", says the priest, "You're just married". Two mischievous brothers, aged 8 and 10, are known for causing all sorts of trouble in their town. Their mother, hoping to discipline them, asks a preacher to speak to them. The preacher agrees, but he asks to see the boys individually. The preacher, a huge man with a booming voice, sits the younger boy down and asks sternly, "Do you know where God is, son?" The boy's mouth drops open, he doesn’t respond but sits there wide-eyed with his mouth hanging open. So the preacher repeats the question in an even sterner tone, "Where is God?!" The boy lowers his gaze but does not answer. The preacher raises his voice further, shakes his finger in the boy's face, and bellows, "Where is God?!" The boy screams and runs directly home and dives into his closet, slamming the door behind him. When his older brother finds him in the closet, he asks, "What happened?" “Why are you shaking?” Gasping for breath, the younger brother replies, "We are in BIG trouble this time! GOD is missing, and they think we did it! Paul says to his buddy: You know why I like girls with raspy voices? I assume they are pretty much done yelling for the day.
Book of the Week: James by Percival Everett
This is a retailing of the Huckleberry Finn story from Jim’s point of view. Huckleberry Finn is one of my favorite books, so I approached this version with caution. Turns out, I loved it.
Everett is a great writer. Straight forward and clever. And his character, James, has a few surprise. Everett weaves James’ superpowers into the story to reveal new perspectives on Twain’s original drama and the overall human condition.
Yes this is a story about social injustice. But it is also an adventure story and it kept me turning the pages one Sunday afternoon.
Here is what Goodreads says about it.
When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.
Friday Twain is Leaving the Station
"I wrote 'Tom Sawyer' and 'Huck Finn' for adults exclusively, and it always distressed me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed access to them. The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean." Mark Twain
I started young with Twain and that is all you need to know about Sammie.
Throat Punch Poetry: The Dead
By S. Lewis
The voices I heard from behind me sounded old, like black and white photo, old. But not yet the shaky-voice of the infirm. Female voices. The plane began to speed down the runway. The takeoff noise rose and so did their voices. They talked of cancer, acid reflux, arthritis, and medications. They listed the names of the dead. They talked of the prayers they offered up for each of the dead. And they admitted to praying for death to relieve the suffering. They discussed the research they had done over the years and what they liked to do now, if they had the time. They compared the books they have read and of the authors they liked and talked of others they did not understand but had read anyway. "When I die, here are my wishes. Depending on what illness I have had and how bad I look when I die, I don't want an open casket. I want my favorite hymns sung. I want my favorite Bible verses read. I want a joyful service. You know what I want." The plane banked over a black prairie. The red lights at the top of the the windmills blinked. A cluster of golden lights appeared on the other side of the plane. Off in the distance parallel strings of red, yellow, green, and blue lights moved closer. The plane slowed in the sky. Landed. When we departed, I fought the urge to look back at their faces and so I didn't.
Moment of Zen
