Kai, flat-coat retriever/chow mix; and Rustle, miniature poodle

I used to struggle with my dogs’ daily walk. They got over-excited, and it was tough to calm them down enough to get leashes on them. Once we got out the door, they tugged me all over the place. Fortunately, I was watching The Dog Whisperer already. I insisted on calm, submissive behavior before putting on the leashes. I stopped walking until the tugging stopped. I walked them at the same time, over the same course, every day. I established consistency, and the dogs accepted it quickly. At the same time, they taught me which dog wanted to walk on which side, and which dog needed a pinch collar, a choke chain, or a harness. My dogs are individuals, and they had individual needs.

Many of us have heard something like, “Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds,” and think that to be smart we have to avoid consistency. The actual quote, from Ralph Waldo Emerson, is, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” I added the italics.

In business, we should suspect consistency. Bernie Madoff’s returns were far too consistent, and several people and monitoring groups sounded alarms before his Ponzi scheme collapsed. Senior managers in any business suspect that consistency indicates a failure to identify new opportunities or advantages. That’s definitely a foolish consistency. If you see it, your people are resting on their laurels, or manipulating the data. Dig into it!

What if you’re a leader, though? A leader must be consistent, within human limits. That does not mean you should treat everyone the same way. That discourages innovation and creativity. Rather, each person on your team must know that you are fair and objective. Your behavior toward each person must not surprise that person. I’ve led teams where some people needed weekly feedback, and others needed daily. I consistently gave each person what he (or she) needed. As a leader, you can’t take your bad day out on your people.

Business practices should be agile and alert. Leading people requires consistency.

Kai - flat-coat retriever/chow mix

Rustle - miniature poodle

When I managed the customer service team at Wizards of the Coast, we had a customer service rep who annoyed me. He was never on the same page as the rest of the team. A team member pointed out to me that I tended to disseminate information needed by the entire team via e-mail, and the annoying guy had trouble retaining information that he read. On the other hand, anything he heard he retained. I needed to change how I delivered my messages.

Years later, walking my dogs, I noticed that Kai responded almost instantly to touch. Whether I used my hand, my foot, or the leash (and watch Dog Whisperer on NGEO for how to correct a dog with a foot tap – not a kick!) to correct Kai, I re-set his focus and changed his behavior. Rustle, on the other hand, is built differently. If I attached a leash to his collar, he could just back out of the collar. So he wears a harness. As any dog-lover can tell you, the harness distributes contact with the leash over a wide area of the dog’s body. It makes the leash much less effective in correction. Also, Rustle is tiny. He weighs less than a tenth of what I do. I’m not correcting him with my foot. When I reach to touch him with my hand, the leash goes slack, and he assumes that means he can move forward, which is usually what I don’t want. On the other hand, he accepts voice correction very well.

To be a good pack leader, I had to learn what correction was effective with which dog. Similarly, as a leader, you should consider whether your direct report is being deliberately dense or recalcitrant, or if he (or she) needs to get your message in a different way. I’m not advocating kicking people! Just don’t assume that because you told the team something in e-mail, or in a meeting, everyone got your message.

Now get out there and lead!

Friends of Tibet

Slide 1: Stop the cultural genocide in Tibet
Slide 2: 1949
Slide 3: …when the whole world was sleeping…
Slide 4: …and busy fighting battles across the globe…
Slide 5: …Tibet… a peaceful, spiritual country…
Slide 6: …and one of the few nations in the world with a long…
Slide 7: …history of continued independence…
Slide 8: …was overtaken by Chinese military invasion.
Slide 9: China’s unprovoked act of aggression on Tibet resulted…
Slide 10: …in the death of more than 10 lakh Tibetans…
Slide 11: …and the complete destruction of more than…
Slide 12: …6,000 ancient libraries and Buddhist universities.
Slide 13: In 1959 HH the XIV Dalai Lama, the spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet…
Slide 14: …was forced to seek political asylum in India with more than 80,000 ordinary Tibetans.
Slide 15: Since then Tibet has never been the same and lives of all Tibetans has changed entirely.
Slide 16: Faced with brutal oppression and treated as second-class citizens in their own country…
Slide 17: …around 3,000 Tibetans escape their homeland across the Himalayas each year.
Slide 18: China’s discrimination and suppression of religion and human rights still continues.
Slide 19: A high proportion of political prisoners in Tibet today are nuns and monks.
Slide 20: Tibetan language is being replaced with Chinese in all schools in occupied Tibet.
Slide 21: Party officials still conduct “Patriotic Re-Education” in monasteries throughout Tibet.
Slide 22: In 1996 China banned Dalai Lama’s photographs, films and his speeches.
Slide 23: China continues to transfer landless and jobless Chinese to Tibet to outnumber Tibetans…
Slide 24: …and continues the dumping of chemical and nuclear waste destroying the fragile ecology.
Slide 25: Most of China’s nuclear missiles and nuclear labs are based on the Tibetan plateau.
Slide 26: Under China Tibet is being colonised like Afganistan, Iraq, Chechnia and Palestine!
Slide 27: Meanwhile the struggle for independence continues inside Tibet and in exile.
Slide 28: It is no longer just a question of helping an oppressed people. Today the question of…
Slide 29: Get Involved!
Slide 31: PresentatIon by www.desIgnandpeople.org

Hoy instale la última versión de Google Earth, la 4.2, que permite ver tanto la tierra como el CIELO. Que bien!!!, uno se puede sentir con los ojos del principito. Probe la herramienta y es mágico el poder navegar entre constelaciones, estrellas, y todo el espacio que esta por debajo de nuestra cabeza (puesto que estamos en el Sur).

Esta chevere, descarguenlo aqui

La documentación pueden verla aqui

Para el blog de Google Earth, darla a: http://gearthblog.com/

La página de descarga es muy concisa y plantea, al puro estilo Google, “Con cerca de un millón de estrellas y doscientos millones de galaxias, Google Earth Sky te permite explorar los cielos como nunca antes.”

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Swarm Theory.doc