Archive for July, 2010
the crystal merchant
image by michael seljos, flickr artist
two years ago when i was laid off, a good friend of mine visited and gave me a book to read. Â that book was paulo coelho’s the alchemist. Â it’s a great tale about a shepherd who gives up the life he knows in search of a lost treasure.
at that time in my life, it was a story that i needed to hear. Â now, two years later, i find myself re-reading it to remember the book’s lessons, and hopefully to learn a few new ones along the way. Â while it’s easy to be wrapped up in the story of the main character and his journey, the secondary characters hold lessons just as important, like the lessons learned from the crystal merchant.
in the alchemist, santiago takes up a job with a merchant, cleaning the crystal in his shop.  with his help, the merchant — who had run his shop in the same exact spot for 30 years — begins to earn more business.  it’s when santiago begins to propose some changes to the shop to help increase business even more that we gain a better understanding of the merchant.
competition vs. collaboration — how far can you jump?
image by unclebumpy, flickr artist
i recently came across a post on wired.com’s science section about american bullfrogs and their leaping ability.  in short: when in the wild, bullfrogs have a certain expectation of maximum leaping distance which scientists have previously measured at 4.3 meters. however, at a county fair in california’s calaveras county their bullfrogs have been known to leap over 7 meters when involved in their frog jumping competitions.  that’s quite an improvement!
in business, it seems everyone is focused on collaboration; on finding synergies and maximizing productivity. Â but what if we increasingly looked not towards collaboration on our teams, but towards competition? Â how would the game change then?
on work-life balance: the college football paradigm
image by wfyurasko, flickr artist
recently, i had a conversation with my career manager at work (that’s kind of like a mentor to non-booz allen people). Â we talked about a few different topics, one of them was “work-life balance.”
the question of “how’s your work-life balance?” is always met by me with the same answer: “i don’t really have one.”  it’s not because i’m not afforded the support of my teammates or my leadership.  booz allen actually doesn’t like when we work too hard, too much.  our firm recognizes that happy workers are better workers, and they don’t want their best and brightest minds getting burned out.  but for me, i just really enjoy what i do.  i’ve got some great teammates — fantastic ones even.  i’ve got a whole digital collection of coworkers from twitter, yammer, and other online realms whom i love interacting with every day.  why would i want to take time away from that?  but at the same time, i am also a bit fearful of taking vacations or leaving work early when i’ve met my billable hours for the month.  the reason why is because of the college football paradigm.