Living life meaningfully in all the stages of life is perhaps the quest of many. People crave for significance and desperately want to leave an impact – something worthwhile for which you will be remembered. Being the best student, being the best mom or dad, being professional and growing in your career, being a grandparent…
In the early 1990’s, Frank C Nahser, Inc., an advertising company based in Chicago, did a 450 page study entitled “What’s Really Going On?” – the study was designed to provide business with a new method of determining what’s really going on in the face of information overload. Recognising the need for and value of…
One of my worst recollections of corporate life was the amount of meetings I had to attend – not because they were not necessary or unimportant, but because they were either not focused and boring, or because a few people dominated what was supposed to be a discussion and deliberation. Non-participation in processes (including meetings)…
The Year 2000 Problem (or Y2K) was a crisis for both digital (computer-related) and non-digital documentation and data storage situations which resulted from the practice of abbreviating a four-digit year to two digits. This practice became problematic with logical errors possibly arising upon roll-over from x99 to x00, causing date-related processes to operate incorrectly for…
Brand reputation and corresponding trust are critical for the ongoing growth and sustainable development of a company. Ram Charan, author of What the CEO wants you to know, noted: “Without customer’s trust, the rest doesn’t matter”. In fact, Hank Paulson, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, emphasised the need for growing trust in his statement: “Our…
In the Arthurian legends, Sir Perceval, one of King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table, was raised by a mother who taught him the importance of asking questions. The instruction was proved invaluable during his youth when he escaped from a group of knights by asking questions rather than giving answers. By the time he…
When pressed for time, particularly when you are rushing somewhere in your car to make an appointment, clarity of thought sometimes goes out the window. You encounter an orange light and do what most people do – you speed up. Orange lights have become the international symbol for “go faster”! They seem to have lost…
Many years ago, I noticed a cartoon in a magazine relating to a family – what each family member thought of when one suggested that the family should get a dog. The mother had a picture of a little Chihuahua sitting on a cushion. In the dad’s mind, he saw a Great Dane walking as…
The A-Team was an American action-adventure television series, running from 1983 to 1987, about a fictional group of ex-United States Army Special Forces personnel who work as “soldiers of fortune”, while on the run from the Army after being branded as war criminals for a “crime they didn’t commit”. The A-Team was portrayed as acting…
David Thomas was born in 1932 to an unmarried mother that he never got to know – he was given up for adoption at 6 week’s old to Rex and Auleva Thomas. Auleva died when Dave was just 5 years old and he moved with his father (a distant man) around the United States of…
I love drawing and painting, especially out in nature. Sitting down with a canvas or sheet of water-colour paper, choosing an optimal vantage point to capture the scene or parts of the scene that I want to paint, setting up the materials and relaxing in the environment that nature so generously offers – the thrill…
Augustine “Og” Mandino was born in 1923, was once the editor of his high school newspaper and planned to attend the University of Missouri’s journalism school. Unfortunately, before he was able to enrol and enter college, his mother died of a heart attack. As a result of this loss and ensuing circumstances, he decided to…
