Friday Filosophy #2015-35

For our Friday Filosophy #2015-35 I want to give you all a quick peek at what we do in our classrooms.  In nearly every one of our learning classes I ask for definitions of three words: ignorance, stupidity and insanity.

There is a lot of hemming and hawing but ultimately we get to the end.

Ignorance is not knowing what to do.

Stupidity is know what to do and not doing it.

Insanity is continuing to do what you have always done expecting different results.

Pretty straightforward, I think.

How can we know what to do if we don’t read? So today rather than put out quotations to stimulate your thinking I am going to give you some authors that you should be reading.

Patrick Lencioni. This man has been extremely busy with ten or so books to his name. All of them are great reads and very insightful. Try “The Three Signs of a Miserable Job” and “The Five Dysfunctions of team.”

The second author is Clayton Christenden. Two books come to mind with this author; “How Will You Measure Your Life” and “The Innovator’s Dilemma.”

Finally are three individual books; Bold: How To Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World and finally Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think.

Fall is a wonderful season for reading. I hope you take some time and get these books and continue with your personal development.

The time is now.

Friday Filosophy #2015-34

Since I believe in the power of education, professionally and developmentally, Friday Filosophy #2015-34 focuses on the topic of education.  The quotes at the close are my own: what I like to call “Sleeisms.”

 

Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.

Nelson Mandela

 

Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.

John Dewey

 

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.

Martin Luther King Jr.

 

Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom.

George Washington Carver

 

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

Aristotle

 

The only person who is educated is the one who has learning how to learn and change.

Carl Rogers

 

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Aristotle

 

Man is what he reads.

Joseph Brodsky

 

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for lifetime.

Maimonides

 

Education is wasted on the young.

Albert Schweitzer

 

Too many people think that their learning has ended when they leave school. That is in fact when their learning begins.

RJS

 

It is rather strange that education has become like the rest of society. The more money you have, the better the schools to which you can send your children.

RJS

 

Why do we constantly settle in life? We settle in our living conditions, we settle in our jobs, we settle in almost every aspect of our lives. Why don’t we take a different approach? Let’s strive more and settle less.

RJS

 

One of the many observations I have made over my years is that the more people know about a particular subject, the more open they are to learning even more. On the opposite side, the less people know about a particular subject the more stubborn they become that their opinions are right.

RJS

 

The time is now.

Friday Filosophy #2015-33

We continue with a theme of leadership this week in our Friday Filosophy #2015-33.

A good leader can’t get too far ahead of his followers.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

 

Constant dripping hollows out a stone.

Lucretius

 

He who conquers others is strong. He who conquers himself is mighty.

Lao Tzu

 

The time is now.

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Management Musings 2.7 (Reprised) #MondayBlogs

We are in the process of updating the business page for our consulting, and I wanted to give you a reminder. What follows is our statement of where we are as a group and where we are going. I am as excited now, and as motivated today, as I have been at any previous time in my forty five years working in the Industry. I am truly blessed.

Our consulting business is winding down. I am not aggressively soliciting business like I once did, but will be dealing with requests on a one to one basis. As long as there is interest in my skills and experience I will be more than happy to assist.  Our website, rjslee.com, is still live and active, with ongoing updates to our articles and our recommended reading.  With our reading lists, you can find selections from Business Teachers, or Business Management Tools, and many more.  I like to direct avid learners to that resource, as it can provide foundational texts to motivate you in pursuing your goals.

The Learning business is becoming a much more prominent focus for my time. We are excited about our new venture, Learning Without Scars, and using all the current technology to bring our learning products to the market worldwide. We will be offering ten classroom seminars, forty webinars and ten internet based self-study programs in fifteen different languages. We will be moving to having a YouTube channel and developing a series of streamed products for use by everyone in fifteen languages as well. All of this is being done with a new web page as well. We are working with a terrific partner on this project. Brian Shanahan of “shanahandesign” is the gentleman we have selected to do this work. I am extremely pleased to have found Brian as he does wonderful work. Thank you, Brian.

Our Company Insight (M&R) Institute which has been the platform for the traditional Twenty Group business is being replaced with a new and improved technology driven product. I suspect this new model will become the new standard for twenty group operations in the coming years. This new product is being developed in conjunction with Foresight Intelligence. Dale Hanna, the CEO of Foresight Intelligence, and I are putting the finishing touches on what we believe will produce strong value to dealers in assisting them to be all that they can be. The new product offering will be complimentary and confidential. The dealer will be able to sign on to a model and either identify who they are on not, their choice, enter their information into a “FITNESS” model and receive a “FIRST” results response on key management measures for each of the five major departments within a dealer. The FIRST will show each management measure and a traffic light type graphic with a color code to recognize their performance as out Insight standards. These standards have been developed in our consulting business over the past forty five years in working with well over 1,000 different dealers around the world. The dealer then can go and make the necessary changes in their business without anything further. If however, they want assistance with the click of a button they will be directed to the “FAIR” page will is a series of “TIPS.” Each TIP leads to an implementation process. Each one of the TIPS is a tried and true example of the consulting work I have been doing for the past thirty five years. If the dealer wants further assistance we have developed a network of “ACES.” Each ACE is a retired senior executive from a dealership who still has the interest and energy to continue working in the Industry just not on a full time basis. Dale and I are very excited about this new offering, which we are presenting as the Capital Goods Sages.

I hope that you will find this news as exciting as I do in providing you with it and look forward to continuing to be a part of your team in Product Support.

The time is now

Friday Filosophy #2015-32

Last week I ended with some quotes from Charles Handy.   This week, for Friday Filosophy #2015-32 we will be reading quotes from Peter Drucker.

If any of you would like to send me your favorite quotes we will make a compilation of them for a future post. Thanks for your help.

Doing the right thing is more important than doing the thing right.

If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.

There is nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency something that should not be done at all.

What gets measured gets improved.

Results are gained by exploiting opportunities, not by solving problems.

So much of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to work.

People who don’t take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.

Meetings are by definition a concession to a deficient organization. For one either meets or one works. One cannot do both at the same time.

Long range planning does not deal with the future decisions, but with the future of present decisions.

Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things.

 

The time is now.