Useless information

Funny but relatively useless information

1. A rat can last longer without water than a camel.
2. Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks or it will digest itself.
3. The dot over the letter "i" is called a tittle.
4. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.
5. A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate.
6. A duck's quack doesn't echo. No one knows why. (except in Salford, Manchester. The University of Salford conducted an experiment proving this much quoted internet fact to be a fallacy. So there you go, never believe anything you read on t'internet http://www.acoustics.salford.ac.uk/acoustics_info/duck/
7. A 2 X 4 is really 1-1/2 by 3-1/2.
8. During the chariot scene in "Ben Hur", a small red car can be seen in the distance.
9. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.
10. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants.
11. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.
12. The number of possible ways of playing the first four moves per side in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000.
13. There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with orange, purple, and silver.
14. The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan". There was never a recorded Wendy before.
15. The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin in World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
16. If one places a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death.
17. Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to s-l-o-w film down so you could see his moves.
18. The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA".
19. The original name for butterfly was flutterby.
20. The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
21. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.
22. Roses may be red, but violets are indeed violet.
23. By raising your legs slowly and laying on your back, you cannot sink into quicksand.
24. Celery has negative calories. It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with.
25. Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest.
26. Chewing gum while peeling onions will help reduce the number of tears.
27. Sherlock Holmes NEVER said "Elementary, my dear Watson".
28. An old law in Bellingham, Washington, made it illegal for a woman to take more than 3 steps backwards while dancing.
29. The glue on Israeli postage is certified kosher.
30. The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries.
31. Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a spacesuit damages them. Not to mention the other drawback to passing gas in such a confined space....
32. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave
33. The Guinness World Record for holding the most Guinness World Records is set by Ashrita Furman , who has broken over 303 official Guinness World records
34. The first British Cyclist to ride 25 miles in under one hour was Ralph Dougherty (1939). Ralph Dougherty was also the first cyclist to be disciplined for failing to wear black socks (which at the time were compulsory because in early time trials, cyclists had to look 'inconspicuous' because initially cycle races were banned in Britain) - Cycling Facts
35. The annual coal carrying world championships is held every year in Gawthorpe, Yorkshire. The ideal weight of the winner is said to be 10st 7lb and the most successful entrants are window cleaners, builders and farmers Yorkshire Facts

Elephants are Best Eaten One Bite at a Time

As far as vices go my compulsive, obsessive fascination with the Civil War is probably one of the least harmful ones on which to waste an unjustifiable amount of time, money and energy.  One observation I made from all of the rooting around old archives and tromping around old battlefields is that, had the people of the north known what they were getting into, it never would have happened.  At the outset, the War was not defined as one aimed at freeing the slaves.  Instead it was a patriotic endeavor with the goal of preserving the union.  And the expectation was that it would be relatively bloodless, lasting a few months or so.  Men joined the army to get in on the glorious adventure, much more so than to sacrifice their lives for a great moral cause.

Had anyone known that the War would last four years and that over 600,000 Americans would be dead before it ended; or had Lincoln defined it up front as he did at Gettysburg in 1863 as an ordeal necessary to put teeth into "the proposition that all men are created equal", few would have signed up for it.  The magnitude of the investment in lives and treasure was enormous, and the benefits of putting an end to slavery and defining United States as a single entity were far too intangible to justify such a price.  The War grew piece-meal, ramping up one battle and one event at a time until the purpose became clear, success became feasible, and the cost seemed worthwhile.

I have come to be convinced the lean journey is similar.  Those of us who are lean purists and lean idealists, especially those of us who have been to the mountaintop and seen the other side - just how comprehensive the successful lean transformation must be - are perhaps too quick to criticize those organizations that initially see lean as the simple deployment of a few lean tools.

In Toyota Kata, Mike Rother compares the lean journey to a long flight of stairs, with problems lying on each step.  From the bottom of the staircase it is impossible to see all of the problems or even how may steps there are.  But as the problems are solved at each step, we rise and can see a little bit further up the staircase and we learn what the next problem is to address.

When we tell the organization right from the get-go that the flight of stairs is endless, and that to climb it a complete overhaul of how everyone thinks, and replacing every system in place will be necessary, all for benefits that are not easy to explain - largely because no one can really understand the benefits when they try to do so through the dysfunctional accounting and metrics lens we are looking to replace - we are met with resistance and skepticism, if not outright rejection.

An article in the Albany Times Union sings the praises of the lean commitment made by the governor and the state of Iowa, and urges the state of New York to do the same.  It would be easy to scoff at the lean approach in Iowa:  "Iowa has an Internal Office of Lean Enterprise that has completed 142 lean events ... a law was signed requiring all executive agencies to undertake lean events."  We know that no one can become lean simply by leaving the culture, systems and basic organization intact and simply running a bunch of lean events, then sending the participants back to the same old organization that created all of the problems the kaizen events aimed at fixing.  This 'Kaizen Kowboy' approach to lean never accomplishes much.

Better to withhold judgment, however.  What matters is that all of those events enable the folks in Iowa to climb another step, and see the next batch of problems.  They still can't see the obstacles to excellence or the necessary solutions in their entirety, but they should now be seeing a little more than they could before.  What matters is not whether they see and begin gorging on the whole elephant, but whether they see and commit to the need for taking the next bite.  So long as they keep climbing the stairs one step at a time, they will be fine.
The problem with companies like GM and Delphi was not that they started off with a similar tools-based view of lean, but that they used those tools to climb and see deeper problems - then ignored them - rationalized their way out of addressing hem - opted to never climb higher than the tools took them.  In fact, just about every organization begins with tools.  There is no shame in that.  The key is whether they use those tools to climb, or quit when they encounter the next obstacle.

By Bill Waddell 

WKUK Bad Employee

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: Book Review

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari tells the extraordinary story of Julian Mantle, a lawyer forced to confront the spiritual crisis of his out-of-balance life. This inspirational tale provides a step by step approach to living with greater courage, balance, abundance and joy. Julian Mantle whose life drastically changed after a major heart attack found life changing odyssey when he tried discovering the ancient culture in the Himalayas. He discovered powerful, wise and practical lessons. These odessies brought in a drastic change in his life. He not only looked divine and wise than before but his physical appearance also changed drastically. He now looked a better human being. There was a glow in his face, his skin looked fairer than ever and his body trimmed the extra fats that he had gained in his professional life. Once he discovers the ancient culture and thoughts from the sages he returns back to his country land. He meets his fellow being John who use to help him during his professional life. John is doing well in his professional career but he too is not happy about the way he's spending his life doing nothing graceful. At this time Julian comes back and meets John. There’s a long conversation between Julian and John. And Julian imparts all his knowledge to John teaching him how to develop joyful thoughts, follow our life's mission and calling, cultivate self-discipline and act courageously, Value time as our most important commodity, Nourish our relationships, and live fully one day at a time. This book is a wonderfully crafted fable giving us Julian's wisdom in a nutshell and the basic mantra to lead a happy and wonderful life.

How to Commit to a Goal

Psychological experiments demonstrate the power of a simple technique for committing to goals.

Here's a brief story about why we all sometimes get distracted from the most important goals in our lives. Perhaps you recognise it?

You are thinking about changing your job because your boss is a pain and you're stagnating. As the weeks pass you think about how good it would feel to work for an organisation that really valued you. You think this might be a good goal to commit to but...

Work is busy at the moment, the money is OK and your home-life is also packed. And don't even mention the economy. When do you have time to update your CV and start exploring the options?

Apart from anything else you've been thinking about learning a musical instrument. With the lessons and hours of practice there wouldn't be any time for interviews.

A few months pass. You forget about changing your job and start to fantasise about learning the piano. Wouldn't it be wonderful after a hard day's work to immerse yourself in music?

Unfortunately everyday life intervenes again and you do little more than search online for the price of electric pianos. Then you wonder if what your life needs is...and so on.

After six months you come back full circle to changing your job, still without having made a real start towards any of these goals.

Written like this, with six months compressed into a few paragraphs, it's obvious the problem is a lack of goal commitment; although in reality, with everyday life to cope with, the pattern can be more difficult to spot.

One major reason we don't achieve our life's goals is a lack of commitment. This article describes psychology experiments that suggest how we can encourage ourselves to commit to beneficial goals that could change our lives.

Reality check

Here, in a series of experiments by Gabriele Oettingen and colleagues, fantasy is involved again, but this time combined with a sobering dose of reality (Oettingen et al., 2001).

The researchers divided 136 participants into three groups and gave them each a different way of thinking about how they wanted to solve a problem, in this case it was an interpersonal one.

1. Indulge: imagine a positive vision of the problem solved.
2. Dwell: think about the negative aspects of the current situation.
3. Contrast: first imagine a positive vision of the problem solved then think about the negative aspects of reality. With both in mind, participants were asked to carry out a 'reality check', comparing their fantasy with reality.

Crucially, participants were also asked about their expectations of success in reaching their goal.

The researchers found that the contrast technique was the most effective in encouraging people to make plans of action and in taking responsibility but only when expectations of success were high. When expectations of solving their interpersonal problem were low, those in the mental contrast condition made fewer plans and took less responsibility.

The contrast condition appeared to be forcing people to decide whether their goal was really achievable or not. Then, if they expected to succeed, they committed to the goal; if not, they let it go.

Using this technique, the same thing happens to emotions as well as thoughts. In a second experiment the mental contrasting had the effect of committing people emotionally to the goal if they thought they could succeed, or letting the goal go if they didn't. Both those who indulged or dwelled made no such emotional investment.

A third experiment found that people in a mental contrast condition were more energised and took action sooner than those who only entertained positive or negative fantasies on their own. Once again people didn't commit themselves to goals they didn't expect to achieve.

Why mental contrasting is hard
Carrying out a kind of reality check sounds like a straightforward technique, but from other research we know that it's easy to get wrong.

The positive fantasies about the future must come first, followed by the negative aspects of reality. Then it's also vital that we think carefully about the difference between fantasy and reality. A study has found that if people don't contrast fantasy with reality then the technique doesn't work (Oettingen & Gollwitzer, 2001).

There's a good reason why we need to rub our noses in the difference between fantasy and reality. It's because we hate to have inconsistencies pointed out to us and will attempt all kinds of mental contortions to avoid them. Psychologists call this cognitive dissonance: our mind's discomfort with thoughts and actions which are incompatible with each other.

Our natural reaction is to avoid bringing fantasy and reality together because it's uncomfortable. Suddenly it becomes obvious what needs to be done and these realisations can be depressing—we might have a lot of work to do. Worse, we might have to face the fact that our goal is unworkable.

Another reason the technique is difficult is that people dislike moving from happy to depressing thoughts. We want to keep thinking about happy things. Or if we're thinking negative thoughts, it's difficult to change to positive.

Hearts and minds
When done right, the strength of this technique is it forces us to decide. People have a natural tendency to avoid decisions, preferring to stay in a fantasy land where the chance of failure is zero.

Mental contrasting makes us ask ourselves if this is really a goal we want to pursue. If not we should forget about it and move on to something else. If we expect to succeed then it forces us to commit our hearts and minds to it, making us act now with energy and focus.

And if we imagine failing then we should anticipate regret. A vague goal you don't care about is a goal to which you're not committed. Deciding to do one thing, rather than another is always a kind of risk, both cognitive and emotional. The time we expend pursing one goal is time that can't be spent pursuing others.

By contrast, if we never fully commit then it's difficult to achieve anything. What the mental contrasting technique forces you to do is choose. Making a choice—a committed choice—is the first step along the journey to realising your goals.

Top 30 Open-ended Questions

Open-ended questions are one of the most important tools for those who sell (as long as you listen).

They help you gather information, qualify sales opportunities, and establish rapport, trust and credibility.

If you consider yourself a professional, own (absolutely know) a repertoire of powerful open-ended questions… questions that are answered by more than a simple yes or no… questions where the prospect/ customer gets directly involved in the sales discussion.

READ MORE


Written by Sam Parker of JustSell.com

Tom Sawyer at Work: The Art of Delegation

Managers can learn a lot about how to successfully delegate work by reading Mark Twain's classic story about Tom Sawyer whitewashing a fence. The story tells how Tom delegates his work to the other boys in town, and how work that is delegated can be completed joyfully and efficiently.

Tom completed his survey of all the whitewashing Aunt Polly had assigned him, and he felt a deep melancholy feeling that made existence but a burden. As the boys in town passed by, Tom thought about paying a boy or two to complete the project, but he did not have enough to buy an afternoon's worth of freedom. Then an inspiration struck Tom as he went back to work, but instead of grumbling he went back to work in a calm and serene manner.

Soon a boy by the name of Ben Rogers came by and told Tom it was a shame he could not go swimming because he had to work. Tom replied, "Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain't. All I know is it suits Tom Sawyer." After a few minutes of watching Tom enjoying his work, Ben asked if he could try a bit of whitewashing. Tom told Ben that perhaps only one boy in a thousand or even in two thousand could paint the fence in the way Aunt Polly wanted it done.

Reluctantly Tom surrendered his brush to Ben in exchange for an apple core. Soon more and more boys came to join Ben in whitewashing the fence. Tom sat back under a shade tree and directed the activity, and it wasn't long before the fence had three coats of whitewash on it. Tom learned an important lesson that day about human behavior without knowing it. In order to get a man to covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain.

As managers, what can we learn from Tom Sawyer?

1. Remember that delegating work is not the same as assigning work. When you delegate work, you are sharing YOUR work. When you assign work, you are not sharing your work but simply handing out tasks that employees are already responsible to complete. The overall goal of delegating work is to free you up for other endeavors, and to teach job skills to your employees.
2. Make the work you want to delegate inviting. No one will want to accept a task or project if you are grumbling about it. Tom would have never been able to interest other boys in whitewashing if he had been complaining and grumbling.
3. Risk delegation when an employee asks to help you with your work. Oh, sure you can pretend to hold back, as Tom did, but do allow the employee to help you in the end.
4. Assign worth to the work delegated to the employee. Tom told Ben that only a rare individual could paint the fence the way Aunt Polly wanted it done. When you either ask an employee to take on part of your work, or when they ask to complete it, assign worth to the work and assign importance to the person who will complete it.
5. Remember to monitor the individual who receives the delegated work. Delegation should be challenging enough to the employee so it stretches him or her to gain new skills. Therefore, the employee may need coaching and encouragement in order to complete the task or project up to your standards.
6. Following your delegation of work, do not sit back under a shade tree as Tom did. If you delegate successfully, you should start to see a multiplying effect. Delegation should free you to be more creative and it should give you time to consider new tasks to complete, which will help the company meet its goals.

Red Marbles, Blue Marbles

Problem: you have two jars, 50 red marbles, 50 blue marbles. you need to place all the marbles into the jars such that when you blindly pick one marble out of one jar, you maximize the chances that it will be red. (when picking, you’ll first randomly pick a jar, and then randomly pick a marble out of that jar) you can arrange the marbles however you like, but each marble must be in a jar.

Solution
Chance! chance is easy if you know how to do the formula. we know that we have two choices to make. first we’ll pick a jar, and each jar will have a 1/2 chance of being picked. then we’ll pick a marble, and depending how we stack the marbles, we’ll have a (# of red marbles in jar)/(# of total marbles in jar) chance of getting a red one.

for example, say we put all the red marbles into jar A and all the blue ones into jar B. then our chances for picking a red one are:

1/2 chance we pick jar A * 50/50 chance we pick a red marble
1/2 chance we pick jar B * 0/50 chance we pick a red marble

do the math and you get 1/2 chance for a red marble from jar A and a 0/2 chance for a red marble from jar B. add ‘em up and you get the result = 1/2 chance for picking a red marble.

think about it for awhile and see if you can figure out the right combination. we had a 50/50 (guaranteed) chance in picking a red marble from jar A, but we didn’t have to have 50 red marbles in there to guarantee those fantastic odds, did we? we could’ve just left 1 red marble in there and the odds are still 1/1. then we can take all those other marbles and throw them in jar B to help the odds out there.

let’s look at those chances:

1/2 we pick jar A * 1/1 we pick a red marble
1/2 we pick jar B * 49/99 we pick a red marble

do the math and add them up to get 1/2 + 49/198 = 148/198, which is almost 3/4.

we can prove these are the best odds in a somewhat non-formal way as follows. our goal is to maximize the odds of picking a red marble. therefore we can subdivide this goal into maximizing the odds of picking a red marble in jar A and maximizing the odds of picking a red marble in jar B. if we do that, then we will have achieved our goal. it is true that by placing more red marbles into a jar we will increase the chances of picking a red marble. it is also true that by reducing the number of blue marbles in a jar we will increase the odds also. we’ve maximized the odds in jar A since 1/1 is the maximum odds by reducing the number of blue marbles to 0 (the minimum). we’ve also maximized the number of red marbles in jar B. if we added any more red marbles to jar B we would have to take them out of jar A which reduce the odds there to 0 (very bad). if we took any more blue ones out of jar B we would have to put them in jar A which reduce the odds there by 50% (very bad).

it wasn’t really a good proof, but QED anyway :-P

The Business Vision and Company Mission Statement

While a business must continually adapt to its competitive environment, there are certain core ideals that remain relatively steady and provide guidance in the process of strategic decision-making. These unchanging ideals form the business vision and are expressed in the company mission statement.

In their 1996 article entitled Building Your Company's Vision, James Collins and Jerry Porras provided a framework for understanding business vision and articulating it in a mission statement.
 

The mission statement communicates the firm's core ideology and visionary goals, generally consisting of the following three components:

1. Core values to which the firm is committed
2. Core purpose of the firm
3. Visionary goals the firm will pursue to fulfill its mission

The firm's core values and purpose constitute its core ideology and remain relatively constant. They are independent of industry structure and the product life cycle.

The core ideology is not created in a mission statement; rather, the mission statement is simply an expression of what already exists. The specific phrasing of the ideology may change with the times, but the underlying ideology remains constant.

The three components of the business vision can be portrayed as follows:
 

Core Values

 
The core values are a few values (no more than five or so) that are central to the firm. Core values reflect the deeply held values of the organization and are independent of the current industry environment and management fads.

One way to determine whether a value is a core value to ask whether it would continue to be supported if circumstances changed and caused it to be seen as a liability. If the answer is that it would be kept, then it is core value. Another way to determine which values are core is to imagine the firm moving into a totally different industry. The values that would be carried with it into the new industry are the core values of the firm.
Core values will not change even if the industry in which the company operates changes. If the industry changes such that the core values are not appreciated, then the firm should seek new markets where its core values are viewed as an asset.

For example, if innovation is a core value but then 10 years down the road innovation is no longer valued by the current customers, rather than change its values the firm should seek new markets where innovation is advantageous.

The following are a few examples of values that some firms has chosen to be in their core:

• excellent customer service
• pioneering technology
• creativity
• integrity
• social responsibility

Core Purpose

The core purpose is the reason that the firm exists. This core purpose is expressed in a carefully formulated mission statement. Like the core values, the core purpose is relatively unchanging and for many firms endures for decades or even centuries. This purpose sets the firm apart from other firms in its industry and sets the direction in which the firm will proceed.

The core purpose is an idealistic reason for being. While firms exist to earn a profit, the profit motive should not be highlighted in the mission statement since it provides little direction to the firm's employees. What is more important is how the firm will earn its profit since the "how" is what defines the firm.

Initial attempts at stating a core purpose often result in too specific of a statement that focuses on a product or service. To isolate the core purpose, it is useful to ask "why" in response to first-pass, product-oriented mission statements. For example, if a market research firm initially states that its purpose is to provide market research data to its customers, asking "why" leads to the fact that the data is to help customers better understand their markets. Continuing to ask "why" may lead to the revelation that the firm's core purpose is to assist its clients in reaching their objectives by helping them to better understand their markets.

The core purpose and values of the firm are not selected - they are discovered. The stated ideology should not be a goal or aspiration but rather, it should portray the firm as it really is. Any attempt to state a value that is not already held by the firm's employees is likely to not be taken seriously.

Visionary Goals

The visionary goals are the lofty objectives that the firm's management decides to pursue. This vision describes some milestone that the firm will reach in the future and may require a decade or more to achieve. In contrast to the core ideology that the firm discovers, visionary goals are selected.

These visionary goals are longer term and more challenging than strategic or tactical goals. There may be only a 50% chance of realizing the vision, but the firm must believe that it can do so. Collins and Porras describe these lofty objectives as "Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals." These goals should be challenging enough so that people nearly gasp when they learn of them and realize the effort that will be required to reach them.

Most visionary goals fall into one of the following categories:

• Target - quantitative or qualitative goals such as a sales target or Ford's goal to "democratize the automobile."
• Common enemy - centered on overtaking a specific firm such as the 1950's goal of Philip-Morris to displace RJR.
• Role model - to become like another firm in a different industry or market. For example, a cycling accessories firm might strive to become "the Nike of the cycling industry."
• Internal transformation - especially appropriate for very large corporations. For example, GE set the goal of becoming number one or number two in every market it serves.

While visionary goals may require significant stretching to achieve, many visionary companies have succeeded in reaching them. Once such a goal is reached, it needs to be replaced; otherwise, it is unlikely that the organization will continue to be successful. For example, Ford succeeded in placing the automobile within the reach of everyday people, but did not replace this goal with a better one and General Motors overtook Ford in the 1930's.

100 Doors in a Row

Problem: You have 100 doors in a row that are all initially closed. you make 100 passes by the doors starting with the first door every time. the first time through you visit every door and toggle the door (if the door is closed, you open it, if its open, you close it). the second time you only visit every 2nd door (door #2, #4, #6). the third time, every 3rd door (door #3, #6, #9), etc, until you only visit the 100th door.

Question: What state are the doors in after the last pass? Which are open which are closed?

Solution: For example, after the first pass every door is open. on the second pass you only visit the even doors (2,4,6,8…) so now the even doors are closed and the odd ones are opened. the third time through you will close door 3 (opened from the first pass), open door 6 (closed from the second pass), etc..

Question: What state are the doors in after the last pass? Which are open which are closed?

Solution: You can figure out that for any given door, say door #42, you will visit it for every divisor it has. so 42 has 1 & 42, 2 & 21, 3 & 14, 6 & 7. so on pass 1 i will open the door, pass 2 i will close it, pass 3 open, pass 6 close, pass 7 open, pass 14 close, pass 21 open, pass 42 close. for every pair of divisors the door will just end up back in its initial state. so you might think that every door will end up closed? well what about door #9. 9 has the divisors 1 & 9, 3 & 3. but 3 is repeated because 9 is a perfect square, so you will only visit door #9, on pass 1, 3, and 9… leaving it open at the end. only perfect square doors will be open at the end.