One man's comments on everything


Sunday, January 30, 2011

To vote or not to vote : That is the question



A recent short discussion on the facebook forum " No beating about the bush club" about the rights of prisoners to vote made me think a bit. There are two answers to this : Yes allow it and no do not allow it. Both are just opinions. No one is right or wrong. No matter how you debate this there cannot be a right or wrong answer here.

My question about this is where do you draw the line about freedom of an individual. If you take the Americans for example : They are totally irrational with a lot of their ways of doing things. Just because they do not allow Prisoners to vote does not mean the rest of the world must follow ?

IF you argue for instance in favour of their right to vote will you allow this for all prisoners irrespective of why they are in jail ? If not where will you draw the line ? The guy that was caught speeding and could not pay the fine and ended up in jail – should he be allowed to vote ? Now we are getting to the very interesting part of all this : Why is monetary value the only thing that stands between him and his right to vote? So if I do not have money in this instance I am not allowed to vote ? How stupid can we get ?

The next question here is the right of anyone to vote. If I pay tax I have the right to vote. Period.

No argument. If I end up in jail (as in the above example) for a period of say 30 days over the voting period and I am still a taxpayer during that period why is my right to vote taken away from me? Can I now withold my money to the government because I did not have a say in electing them? Funny questions hey?

The purpose of this is just to make you think before you take sides on a matter like this !



Thursday, January 27, 2011

Consistency vs excellence

A lot has been written about loyalty when business comes to mind. I have always contented that if you want loyalty get the most loyal animal on the planet : A dog. Your bank manager is not a dog therefor he will not be loyal to you. Easy British logic, isn’t it ? If one and one is two then one and three is not two. Simple, hey ?


Sorry mister bankers I am picking on you again but you are unfortunately not keeping up with the times. Customer expectations are increasing exponentially. They will not tolerate anything less than Amazing !

Competitors are trying their utmost best to constantly raise customer expectations .

Banks are inwardly focussed and cost cutting is everywhere. Barclays just decided to get rid onf inhouse financial advisors because the bank got fined a huge amount of money for giving the wrong advice. So ? Just get rid of the advisors and cut down on service levels. Good solution !

They are living in a fools paradise. If I was in banking I would now cultivate this move to my advantage.

We often make the mistake of accepting that consistency and excellence are one and the same concept. You can be consistant in your bad service and this has nothing to do with excellence, unless you can claim that you are actually excellent in delivering consistently bad service.

Consistency at least (probably) might meet customer expectations. But it does not leave room for the extra mile or Amazement Why would you want to go the extra mile when your customer is happy with your consistency ? Think again ! The decade of the customer is upon you Mr Business man. Unless you find that special sparkle to lighten up your service you might shortly find that your receptionist might say to you : Sir there is someone out here that says he is a customer, what do we do with him..........?

Sunday, January 16, 2011

A question for Change

Why would you want to change anything.  " If you keep on doing the same things and expect different results = that is the definition of madness !"  The original of this quote is attributed to Albert Enstein.
This implies only one thing that must happen if you expect different results : Change.  South Africans know the meaning of change (If you are not an ostrich with your head in the sand)  It is what life is all about. 
Without going into the necessity of change in more detail let us assume that One (you) (me) (whoever)
have decided to do something that needed change then the rest of this article will apply:


The 3 pillars of change (This is not the change cycle- It is to get the process going to facilitate the change)
1 Clarity of what you want to change  - What is it that you want to change ?  Your lifestyle or the car?
   Get rid of the dog or the smell ? 
2.  The tools you need to effect the change -   You want to buy a new car - cash or finance ?
     Who is going to do what - Arrange a test drive - what car are you looking at.  It is no use phoning the Mercedes Benz dealer if you want to buy a BMW.

3. Probably the most important pillar is the inner conflicts that needs to be addressed

Inner conflicts are controlled by by few very strong emotions and beliefs:
1.  The conspiracy theories, Dogmas call it what you want
There are all sorts of people with all sorts of weird ideas out there:  The internet is the devil
Facebook is bad for you.  In the near future you will have to have matric to be able to vote. The Illuminati will rule the world.  The government wants to keep us in debt.  And THOUSANDS more
There might be some truth in some of them but by far the most can be described by a very nice English
description called BS   Bullsh**.  Get these things out of your life - they influence your capability to change and hence your capability to grow.

2. The conditioning :    Everyone of us have been conditioned to the nth degree in our lives. Everyone of us have thrown off some of those conditionings but most of us are clinging to some of them for dear life.  The result : If you have to change something that is in conflict with that conditioning you can bet your life you will have a problem.  You cannot differ with your pastor - Says who? You cannot swim after eating - Yea great ! ( great BS that is)  You should start drafting a list of these and other conditions that are holding you back in life !

3.   The bad clan :  (Probably part of the conditioning - but yet a bit different - You belief this because some influential people are saying and believing it - and you are afraid to differ )
Here are some of the examples:
"Money and wealth is bad for you"
" Work on Sunday is bad"
" Butter is bad for you"
" Vegetarianism is the only healthy lifestyle- meat is bad"

Next time you hear someone saying that something is bad for you just ask a one word question: Why?
I do, but I never stay to hear the answer because I do belief in BS when I see it.

Here's to happy changing = Change your thinking and change your life.

South Africans managed to stage one of the best World cup soccer tournaments ever in the history of the game.  Yet we are seen as the most crime ridden country in the world. Crime was nowhere in sight during the games - Why ?   Because we (South Africa as whole) decided to change for that period.
So what is holding us back to let go of all our Nonsense and become the greatest nation on earth.?
Only one thing is holding us back : Our inability and unwillingness to CHANGE!

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

The parable of the cauliflower

I think a lot of people can relate to this. You have been trying to get some business up and running and nothing seems to be working.  You put in massive actions and efforts and still nothing happens. People will tell you what you sow you will reap. Yea right ! Of course you have to plant or sow to get fruits or veggies.
It will not just come up if there are no seeds in the ground . Nice Metaphores. It works for some people and somehow it does not do for others.

This happened to us the past year. Every thing we try just does not seem to work. And I mean we were sowing. Putting in effort. Marketing. You name it and we did it.  Ok the economy got the blame. And then some!

A few months ago my son gave me a pallet of cabbage plants. They looked a bit pathetic.  He had it for a while and did not get around to planting it.  So I took it and after about a week I thought I might just put this in the ground.  Initially it looked liked it is not going to make it. Then the rains came and suddenly a lot of leaves grew like mad.  We starting harvesting the leaves and using it in salads and cooking them. It actually tastes quite nice.  But no cabbage - just very nice leaves.

About Sunday last I was as usually walking around admiring the garden and the cabbage leaves. And then
I saw it: One of these"cabbages" had actually produced a cauliflower.  Small but it was there.  And it is growing as if is getting paid!.  None of the others have followed suit.  Just one single cauliflower!

This is the parable :  You cannot keep on sowing and planting and then nothing will happen.  For me this was the answer:  Do not give up - something big will soon happen - and it has started happening !

Keep watching this post !