Scifres.com

“Thought is the seed of action.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

When you’re curious, you find lots of interesting things to do.

- Walt Disney

A public Library suddenly announced that each member could borrow up to ten books and not return them for up to six months. Why?

“A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes.”

– Mohandas Gandhi

A Helicopter was hovering 200 feet above the sea when the pilot suddenly turned off the engine. The rotor stopped but the helicopter did not crash. Why not?

I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained.

- Walt Disney

“Experience, as a desire for experience, does not come off. We must not study ourselves while having an experience.”

- Friedrich Nietzsche

“If we had no winter,
the spring would not be so pleasant:
if we did not sometimes taste of adversity,
prosperity would not be so welcome.”

- Anne Bradstreet

“The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts.”

- Marcus Aurelius

Here are a some additional plug-ins I think we should be considering for the future blog of rv.net.

• Subscribe to Comments -Subscribe to Comments 2.1 is a plugin that allows commenters on your blog to check a box before commenting and get e-mail notification of further comments. It is one of the most popular WordPress plugins out there for the simple reason that it helps foster a community around your blog by encouraging commenters to come back and stay engaged in the dialog
• Popularity Contest – This plugin will help you see which of your posts are most popular. Views, comments, etc. are tracked and given configurable point values to determine popularity.
• Word Press Mobile Edition - A PDA friendly interface for your blog.
• Landing Sites - When visitors is referred to your site from a search engine, they are definitely looking for something specific – often they just roughly check the page they land on and then closes the window if what they are looking for isn’t there. Why not help them by showing them related posts to their search on your blog? This plugin/guide lets you do that, works with a long list of search engines!
• Encourage Subscriptions –

Anybody want to step up to chase these down?

Everybody needs their own personal mission statement. Fortunately there are resources available on the internet to assist us in creating one without having to actually think about it. Mission Statement Generator by Dilbert

Sample mission examples:

Our challenge is to seamlessly provide access to emerging opportunities while maintaining the highest standards

or

We interactively leverage other’s parallel paradigms and assertively maintain high-payoff benefits to stay competitive in tomorrow’s world

or

It is our business to professionally enhance prospective products and services so that we may quickly create timely deliverables to exceed customer expectations

or

It is our mission to interactively create high standards in intellectual capital as well as to competently disseminate virtual deliverables

It’s addictive, seriously, go create your own. Enjoy, David

“There are no evil thoughts except one:
the refusal to think.”

- Ayn Rand

“People Who Feel Good About Themselves, Produce Good Work”

I guess almost two years ago, I was helping Murray clear his office after he retired. Of the many books he had collected over the last 30 years that we either trashed or packed away never to be seen again were two books: Marketing Warfare and The One Minute Manager. He handed me the books and said, “You know, I think you would get a great deal of value out of these.” I finally managed to get around to reading both – and thanks Murray.

The One Minute Manager is a very interesting perspective on how to manage people effectively. The book is slightly over 100 pages and wastes little time getting to the point (I wish more books did this!). Driven predominately by the following mantra, “People Who Feel Good About Themselves, Produce Good Work”, the book suggests a simple yet thoughtful structure for managers to follow when developing their subordinates. It goes something like this:

• Set Clear Goals – They must be succinct and meaningful. They should be the 20% of your job duties that produce 80% of the value. Review the goals and insists the managers review their goals for a minute or two often.
• Be Sure to Praise People – Catch People doing something right – Tell people up front you are going to let them know how they are doing in no uncertain terms. Do it immediately upon noticing. Tell them how you feel about it. Encourage them to do more of the same.
• Be Sure to Reprimand – Tell people what the did wrong when they do it. Do it immediately and be specific. Tell them how you feel about what they did wrong. And, make sure they understand you are reprimanding the behavior not them as people. Remind them how much you value them and when it is over – it is over.

While they use the term “one minute management”, it is really only used to get you to understand managing people doesn’t have to take a ton of time or be complicated. People are basically simple, they need to know what is expected of them and how they are doing. That is the gist of it.

The other excellent thing I gleaned from the book was an alternative perspective on hiring people. I love the book “Good to Great” and take seriously all of the concepts it discusses, but at times some of those concepts can be taken too far. Anything taken to excess can reach a point of diminishing return. Very few people are inherently of the caliber Jim Collins suggests you should aspire to hire, and most who are, were previously developed in some way. Being Great can be developed from within in most people, hiring greatness is an expensive art form. The answer I think is to be fluid and do both. Hire greatness into critical roles on your bus when you can and develop those you have to eventually fill those roles. This book has great guidelines for the latter.

“Goals Begin With Behaviors, Consequences Maintain Behaviors.”

Let me know if you want to read this one and I’ll get it to you once Chuck has finished it.

“Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving.”

- Dale Carnegie