Tuesday, July 26, 2005

The coffee line

I love famous last lines, one in particular is “Elementary my dear… elementary!”. Each time Sherlock Holmes says that to Dr. Watson I wonder how simple he makes it appear. But you know what human beings are simple people, things are just complicated because we hesitate and defer simplifying things down.

Just this week I was in the cafeteria for a cup of my morning coffee. Obviously I picked the shortest line, but who knew Murphy was at work. Isn’t he always! The shortest line soon became the slowest one. Or may be that was why it was the shortest line? Who knows, it is always a chicken and egg problem when it comes to answering that thing. I quickly moved to the next line, and then to a new counter that opened up. While I paid for my coffee it came back to me. “Elementary my dear… elementary!”.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could run and manage our business like that?

Lou Gerstner wrote Elephants can Dance too! and Bill Gates talks about Business at the speed of thought. Both made very interesting reading, so can’t this experience lead to just that. With a high intellect, clear goal, concise and articulate communication, calculated risks, high capacity, strong capability and collaboration, I am confident we certainly could.