MISTAKES!

Most times i make mistakes and I don’t want to admit my faults. This is just cos i want to be hard-headed, not just cos i want to break rules or feel I’m on top of the world. But most times I just want to question the norm. If I make a mistake it is because I am sick of the old-fashioned way, when I try it several times without success and fail repeatedly, I just give in to the fact that maybe the old-fashioned way is the right way. I gave little thought to what might go wrong. I assumed that the ‘right way’ would be mistake-free. I did not acknowledge mistakes I made to myself, or others. I was not learning from my mistakes. If I want to become a better leader, I would have to stop making the mistake of not asking what mistake I was making.’ We can glean from this thought this Monday morning that it’s not the number of mistakes we make that counts but how often we keep making the same mistakes. We must learn to turn mistakes to our advantage with the following dispositions

1-      Admit your mistakes. Most people don’t, partly because of pride. We feel we have an image to protect or maybe it is an issue of insecurity where our self-worth is solely based on performance or sometimes stubbornness; we flog a dead horse rather than bury it and get a new one. Here is the news flash: ‘People already know about your mistakes’. When you admit them they’re not surprised, they’re relieved. They say, ‘Phew! He knows. Now we can quit pretending!’

2-      Accept your mistakes as the price of progress. Learn to view failure as a healthy, inevitable part of success. Nothing is perfect in life, including you! So get used to it before you overburden yourself with unnecessary expectation.

3-      Make sure you learn from your mistakes. Whenever you try to avoid failure at all costs, you will never learn from it rather you end up repeating the same mistakes over and over. Those who are willing to learn from their failures don’t have to keep repeating them.

We get very little wisdom from success but we can learn from the principle of science where mistakes always precede the discovery of truth. As we end this year preparing for 2013, one mistake we can make is not learning from the mistakes of 2012 and then reinvent the wheel that will hurt our families, career path and business next year. An apt definition of insanity is to keep doing the same things and expecting a different result. Get ready for 2013; no one puts a new wine into an old wine skin

 

A BOTTLE OF BEER DID THE MAGIC

For years the company had struggled to explain quality to It’s, floor workers. They had invested dollars in colorful posters, flew in experts from all across the globe to deliver solid presentations dripping with glossy videos and resplendent pictures. But somehow or the other the message was not resonating. The floor workers were aware of quality; because they had no choice…the posters were everywhere. But beyond that, it was as if quality did not exist. In curt words, the message was NOT connecting.

But then came a man, who changed all that. He did not open a single power point presentation, he had no colorful pictures or posters created with the magical Helvetica font. He just came with a bottle of Beer, to be precise, a bottle of STAR lager beer. He held up the empty bottle and everybody laughed…he explained how each bottle of Star beer had at least 250 quality check points. He informed the floor workers that if a bottle of Star beer could have 250 quality check points then our products, which were more complex than a bottle of star should have even more quality check points. He ended the presentation by making everyone look at the label on the STAR bottle, with the 250 quality checks boldly printed.

The room no longer laughed, it was quiet. For the first time the message of quality had connected.

And the only reason it connected, was because the floor people connected with Beer. That was what they drank almost everyday. By moving away from the glittery slides and focusing on a connecting item, he was able to break into everyone the mentality of quality. And he did it with a cheap empty bottle of beer.

How is your company communicating with its people? Are you drowning them with mindless presentations, spending thousands on expensive campaigns? Or are you finding that connecting item that can resonate with each individual section of your company?

Whatever you are doing, remember your presentation might just be a bottle of beer away from making a connection…

Culled from Ofilispeaks

SAVED FROM DEATH

It’s about 1 week and a few hours since I had a near death experience, sometimes I wonder what the other side would be like and in a few seconds I see how the last moments in a man looks. The screams and the random thoughts in seconds, the pain and agony that follows the impact. It has taken me over a week to actually summon the strength to put down my near death experience on my blog, I have tried several times to do this and once I start I type a few lines and I just give up. The picture just comes flashing back, well this time I have gathered the balls to finish this post.

October 27^th 2012 was just like a regular Saturday when my department has work to do, and on this day we had to travel to Ibadan to relocate some stuffs from the closed branch and these items would be needed in different other locations. We started out fine, my team assembled in the office and then we moved, stopped by a special friend – Suwesedehi to drop some stuffs, (now after the accident  I asked myself if this was my insane way of saying goodbye, as my special friend never asked for anything prior to that time) we dropped off a friend and then started out.

The usual Lagos sun was already scorching, the skies were clear, the windshield of the bus is so clear I could already see us coming back into Lagos after a successful outing. We passed the Sagamu inter-change and continued straight up. We passed a couple of cars and I couldn’t help but notice a young man driving a Mercedes 230 series, I looked at him closely in his dark sun shades, polo shirt with collar popped up, he revved the  engine so high and ensured the car fulfilled its mission, I wondered to myself, which young chap drives this car again? I chuckled and opened the book “Millionaire next door” a book I started reading to ensure good management of my finances. I stopped for a few seconds to digest a line I read when I noticed a truck right in front of us, the driver was driving so fast and it struck me this guy might be crazy, well I dusted that thought off my shoulders as I had a very trusted driver on the wheels.

The cars in front of us tried hard to overtake the truck and after a while they all went through, it got to our turn and then as a routine the driver honked the horn, and flashed to inform the truck that we are set to go ahead, he acknowledged by a show of head from the passenger, we began the overtake and then suddenly the truck driver started closing in on us and then he continued, since we had already started out there was no stopping, we tried and finally passed it suddenly there came a loud bang, the truck hit us from behind and on that speed, our driver lost it, the bus swerved off the road and then hit a sand dune and immediately rolled over, we summersaulted 3 times off the road and then landed on the other lane facing oncoming traffic.

Now as I type im tempted to stop as the picture of the accident torments me, the bus suddenly goes muddy as a result of the wet side of the road. The metal squeaks as it smashes on the hard coal-tar and then lands on the wet sand, the glasses shatter all over, the electrical system goes crazy and the fuel spits out of a torn carrier, I hear screams of my colleagues who were in the rear without seat belts. Once the bus stopped I struggled to get off my now jammed seat belt cos I knew the danger of being in an accident vehicle. I looked up and thanked God for this rare opportunity to still be alive, seeing the wreckage I knew it would have only been God. I still have a reason to be grateful, a reason to want to appreciate the breathe I have, a reason to still know I am alive. I wonder what the story would have been now. Would people have told good tales about me? Would I be remembered for anything good? Would I be a page people would close without hesitation? I have seen near death and I pray against any of such in my life or lives of those around me.

Please lift up your head and appreciate GOD for an awesome miracle.

I am alive.