The Juggler, the Clown and the Magician

One balmy summer night after finishing their acts and after the crowds had winnowed away; a juggler, a clown and a magician were relaxing outside the big circus tent. For a while they just sat there, not saying a word looking at the stars and the crescent moon not halfway up the sky. Each lost in his own thoughts pondering what to add to their craft, for each was renowned in their separate domains.

The juggler could toss more balls at one time than any other juggler of his day, and the clown made people chuckle and double-over with laughter almost at will, and the magician would leave his audiences amazed and dazzled by his wondrous tricks. And being the best was important to each of them as they had studied, trained and perfected their routines so that not only the audiences would admire their skills but that their peers and fellow entertainers looked at them with respect and admiration.

So it was not really surprising when during this time of reflection the juggler noted that there must be a particular ability that each possessed that endowed them with the ability to be the preeminent member of their craft. “What do you suppose is special about each of us so I am the greatest juggler, you are the funniest clown, and you are the most amazing magician?”

“We all work hard every day honing our skills, we watch our competitors and learn from their successes and failures, and we invest prudently in our costumes and apparatus to create the atmosphere desired and expected by our audiences. But so does our competition and yet we are the top of our fields, what more is there?”

No one answered directly; each sat back a little more in their chairs and shifted their heads and gaze up a little into thought and contemplation. A minute or two passed and then the clown responded. “I believe we are each blessed. We have the unique talents required to excel in our fields and no others are as blessed. I am blessed with the ability to know what makes people laugh. We are clearly special individuals and are destined to be the best.”

The juggler nodded in agreement adding “And we each have focused on our abilities and talents. We see what is important and concentrate our attention to those things that are the most valuable, exciting and new. We stay out-front and do not lose sight of the next opportunity to advance our skills. We do not rest on our laurels.”

Nodding in agreement with each other the juggler and the clown turned to the magician and asked, “Don’t you agree?”

The magician looked from one to the other and said, “Well to be honest, I don’t know; but my talent has taught me that my success come in part or perhaps totally from the art of deception.  So I try diligently to avoid falling into the trap of deceiving myself or being deceived by others.  We are all the best, at least today. We each strive and endeavor each and every day to remain the best, and put both effort and funds into our respective businesses.”

“But in the end it may all be much more simple and basic than our destinies. It may all just come down to timing. As a juggler you must time each ball, each hand movement and every trajectory to a sufficient precision to allow the process to continue its smooth operation. Miss a beat and the pattern dissolves into chaos and balls spinning out of control.

Your clowning is no less a matter of timing. Fall to early or to late, glance or gesture in the wrong direction or with the wrong speed and the silliness and humor evaporate. Pause to long in your story or rush to swiftly thorough the joke and where before there was mirth there is now just silence. The timing of your performance is no less important than the content, yet it may be the only difference between what you do and what another doesn’t.

In my own craft, timing is essential. The suddenness of the reveal, the quickness of a movement and the simultaneousness of two actions can all make the magic and illusion work. It’s the perfection of the timing that imbues the mystery to the act.

In all our endeavors and performances, if we don’t execute it with the correct timing then it all falls apart. Our knowledge, our proficiency and our desires are important to our stature but if we don’t understand that the simple act of performing what is required at the right time is essential to our success then we may be surprised when the tricks don’t work as expected.

Do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done; this is perhaps the key to our success.  It’s all in the timing.”

The First Rule of Decisions

The CEO arrived for yet another meeting with his cadre of executives to review corporate strategy and provide the leadership and direction on issues that have risen to the officer level. After all, the company needs strong guidance and decision-making to keep it on track to maintain its competitive focus, increase its market-share, please investors, and satisfy customers. It’s difficult and challenging to lead a corporation successfully year after year. Every decision could be the one that either topples the first domino starting the chain-reaction driving the company toward disaster or that exposes the CEO and his leadership team as unprepared to recognize or handle the events, conditions, and needs of the business.
The CEO would review the strategy that they were following and seek comments on current results, issues and risks. His leadership team would provide updates on their respective areas of responsibilities; each would present the recent successes and progress that they have made, they would describe any failures and the actions taken to resolve or mitigate them, and they would raise issues that required the CEO and leadership team to make a decision. Once discussed either a decision would be made or an action item to obtain additional information, analysis and recommendations would be requested. Ultimately, a corporate policy would be set to deal with the issue and with the decision the company would be tasked to make it happen.
The CEO then contemplates his efforts to make the company more successful. He acknowledges that he has pulled the right levers and will reap the rewards.
And thus the company is run day after day, month after month, and year after year. Even as CEOs and officers come and go, the company proceeds forward for better or worse. The CEO exerts his vision and leadership through his decisions and their resulting strategies. With such power the CEO shapes the company and its future. And that power is visible and felt throughout the company. Different departments and units are directed to work on certain activities and to drop or defer others. Company budgets get set to support the work and to provide a confirmation of the decisions and directions given by the CEO and this team.
The CEO looks over the company books (or has his Finance office report it out to him). He holds the costs down, invests company funds wisely, and hopefully watches his profits grow. Difficult as his job is, he is always aware that he must make these decisions for the company to prosper.
Sometimes the CEO establishes a policy and direction that causes contention within the company. Managers and workers are told to work on the new areas that the business wants to get into and succeed in, and they are told to keep the current business operations working but to avoid or not invest in those areas. With such direction, the Finance officer supports the CEO by ensuring that department budgets are held or reduced in existing operations so that funds can be freed up to invest in the new. This is nothing unusual; businesses do this all the time. The CEO’s decision thus also shapes how the decisions below him are likewise made. The CEO understands that the difficulty of his decision will require others below him to also make difficult choices.
Occasionally a department or manager will question the decision or will request some relief from the consequences that the CEO’s and derivative decisions produce on their organization. Throughout the layers between the manager or department and the CEO and officers, the issue will churn and produce tensions and difficulties. There will be times when the issue is resolved below the CEO by adhering to the original decision/policy. Sometimes the question will be accepted as a business necessity and the strict adherence to the corporate direction will be waived as unavoidable, but only until a path toward the designated goal can be achieved; and the CEO will not need to be engaged in resolution. Sometimes the CEO will have to be consulted and his consul will be required to resolve the question; but as always he well decide do this or do that. It’s simply another decision in the long chain of decisions that he must confront.
But what happens when the CEO’s decision is enforced on the issue that surfaced? The CEO, officers and various managers across the company see to it that the policies that they have set for the company are being used to drive the company in the right direction. Impacted organizations are challenged to react to and deal with the various problems that result. If the CEO says: Do not spend any more funds on that, then no more funds will be spent.
The world of course does not concern itself with what the CEO’s decision is. The CEO can decide what he wants, but he cannot make the results successful. The results will be what they will be. The consequences of the ‘laws of physics’ that apply to businesses will not be influenced by decree, dictate or decision. The CEO can decide that the company will not take a particular direction or do a particular thing. So the CEO can say that no funding will be provided to undertake a particular action and no budget will be set aside for it.
But when the business encounters a need that would be and could only have been addressed by funding the issue that the CEO decided was not consistent with his decision and his vision, the laws of physics will always win. The CEO cannot prevent the consequences of his decision, he is forced to accept and react to them. The CEO, his officers and everyone in the company are required to remember that you cannot decide how things turn out, but only how you are planning and forecasting how things will turn out. The first law of decision-making is to recognize that you cannot change those things that you do not control. You can choice to do something but it need not be doable or successful; and you can decide to not do something and it need not be avoidable.
Decisions are the dice you roll, but not the laws of physics that determine how they will land.

The Man and his Garage

A man, who put great valued on his car, parked it in his specially built garage.

Each night he drove in, got out and checked his car for any problems. He would also look about and think how much space he had in the garage that he didn’t use.

He wanted to buy a second car, another model that he prized as greatly as the one he already owned.

He was concerned however that he couldn’t afford to buy the new car and to have to build another garage or modify his current garage to keep it in.

It occurred to him that that unused space in his garage was maybe wide enough and that there ought to be sufficient space for both cars. So he measured the dimensions of his garage and he checked the width of both his current car and of the new one that he had his heart set on owning. Now that unused space would not be wasted.

And praise the Lord; both cars would fit inside his garage. So the extra space that he had, he could use for the second car.

He exuberantly went out and bought the sought after prize.

He drove it home, pulled into his garage, and as he opened the door to get out realized that there was no room to open the door left. While the two cars fit into the garage, there was no room left for anything else, including the room needed to open the car door.

He lowered his head, pulled the new car out and went straight to bed. He realized now that the extra room he had was in fact not empty unused space, just used differently.

                See the whole problem or you may not solve the whole problem.

The Honorable Man

A youth decided that the people he most admired and who had achieved the greatest respect among his friends, colleagues and acquaintances were all considered persons of honor. The youth determined that he would become someone of honor. He was desirous of receiving the respect and regard that such persons received and thought that this would be well worth his attention to acting as honorable people did.

When he went off to college, he paid strict attention to the honor code that was established at the school. Whenever he noticed someone doing something that even appeared to violate the honor code, he would point out the misstep and note that it was ill-advised for persons to engage in such behaviors thus risking the loss of their personal honor. His attention on adherence to the code became a often commented upon aspect of his nature. It did not endear him to many of his contemporaries, but he was generally accepted nonetheless.

When the young man went out into the world to make his living and his mark, he found that it was less clear how to demonstrate his dedication to being an honorable person. He concluded that he would need to make sure that people understood that he was acting according to a code of honor that he considered imperative for anyone who expected to be considered honorable. As the years passed, he would often comment that his “code of honor required him to” do one thing or another.

Things were not easy for the man, it was often difficult to assess the situation and decide what the honorable thing to do was. But he worked his way through the problem each time and always arrived at the ‘honorable’ thing to do. There were times when others thought that he was too self-righteous, or too lacking in compassion, or too absolutely fixed on his rigid code without any consideration for other perspectives.

When he died, he found he could observe his friends and neighbors at his funeral. He was shocked to find that no one noted or commented upon him being a man of honor, and esteemed for living an honorable life. Instead, people spoke about how he was too concerned for how things looked or would appear to others. That he always concentrated on making sure that everything he did had the appearance of being honorable. But he was never able to accept the judgment of others as being equal to his own and perhaps honorable in their own right, or he did not show sympathy toward others when they did not live up to his standards or even their own, and he was just obsessed with this ‘honor code’ thing and couldn’t deal with life on its own terms. How could then not regard him as a respected honorable man?

A voice explained: “Honor is not gained from how you act, but from why you act. If you do what is right for society, help you friends and neighbors, are compassionate to those in need, and show respect to those who do likewise then you will be honored.”

                Honor is achieved by your actions, not by how you ‘act’.

The Perpetual Problem

When Sam’s great-grandfather was a teen like Sam, he would be sent off every Sunday morning to get a loaf of bread from the local bakery for the family’s supper. He would jump into the family car and speed off to town. Occasionally, he would have to stop and fill up on gas so that his father would not run out on his way to work the next day. Sam’s great-grandfather thus became familiar with the cost of gas from that youthful age. When he was older there was war that made heavy demands on gas supplies and the cost of gas surged. To prevent the havoc that price-gouging and speculation would have on their nation, the government began gas rationing. The cost of gas was still relatively high, but it did not become unaffordable. After the war, Sam’s grandfather was born and the availability of gas, and thus its price, returned to more reasonable levels along with the government’s removal of rationing. He was sure the country would deal with this in the future.

When Sam’s grandfather was a teenager he was also sent to the bakery every Sunday for a loaf of fresh bread. And like his father before him, he learned a little about the cost of gas each week. Sometimes at Sunday supper, he would mention that the price of gas had gone up a little and his father (great-granddad) would regal everyone with the stories about how little gas cost when he was a boy and how much it cost when it was rationed during the war. When granddad was older, and a man in his own right, there was a sudden constriction in the oil supply that produced an economic crisis that shot gas prices through the roof. It was during this high priced gas period that Sam’s father was born. The entire nation roiled over their vulnerability and dependence on resources that rested in the control of others whose interests were, well, their own. The government once again stepped in and put in a pathetic rationing kind of process, but the price was still high. The shortage passed after damaging the economy, people’s lives and the nation’s self-image. And granddad remembered his father’s supper table stories and thought how ironic that in his life the same plague would befall him. The government lifted the rationing system. Granddad noticed that the price of gas was still a little higher than previously and there were the occasional bumps up in price throughout his life. A solution to prevent this from happening again must be within our grasp.

Sam’s father formally established the family tradition of being sent to the bakery on Sundays when he got his driver’s license. Like his father and grandfather before him, Sam’s father noticed the price of gas even though he only had to use his father’s credit card and could have been blatantly unaware had he not been an observant lad. And like his father, Sam’s dad heard tales of both his father and grandfather that illustrated the unreliability and unpredictability of both gas and its cost. While a young man, Sam’s father was sure that the nation and the world economy had finally gotten their management of the oil supply under good regulation. It thus came as a rather rude surprise to his father when the price of gas rose without a war, without a production constriction, without any discernable problem except that there was high demand and a booming economy. So even in the good times, the nation and Sam’s dad found themselves in yet another gas price pinch. While this explosive rise in gas prices hurt Dad’s bank account, it was a major windfall for the oil and gas industry. Never had the companies seen higher profits. The government didn’t actually do much of anything except letting the economic rod beat back demand a little.

Once again, gas prices relented somewhat from their peak and Sam’s dad was reminded of all the stories he had heard at the Sunday meals. The nation got use to yet another level of slightly higher gas and things moved on. Sam was born, and in due course he stepped into his family tradition’s responsibility. He had heard all the gas stories, even the stories of the gas stories. His father often told him that the country needed to get its act together and free itself from this outside influence. Sam during his bread trips noted the cost of gas as his forefathers had, and he understood the problems that the cost of gas had caused in his family. He considered it likely that with the present high price of gas that there was little chance that things could get much worse than they already were. Besides the government was working on ways to eliminate the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, on oil itself, and on a global economy that could change the oil market for unforeseeable reasons.

Imagine his shock when the price of gas begin to inch up, then spurt and start receiving the experts prognostications of new record highs undreamt of in living memory. Sam couldn’t believe his misfortune that he should suffer the same tribulation that had plagued his family and his country for generations. He hoped that like before the price of gas would eventually pull-back to more affordable levels, even though he knew it would never be as low as before. He sure hoped that the government would finally get on with really addressing the nation’s energy needs, and find a way off the perpetual roller-coaster problem of not being able to meet your own needs. With the recent birth of his son, Sam didn’t want his son to inherit along with the family task of getting the Sunday bread, the national Achilles’ heel of an oil addiction that no one could afford. Surely there was enough time yet to come to grips with that problem.

Recognizing is only the first step in dealing with a problem. Once seen it must be confronted.

How Congress Stopped The Bleeding

Uncle Sam stumbled into the halls of Congress with blood gushing from his arm. Both Republican and Democratic members quickly pointed out that they had a plan to save Uncle Sam. They rushed to media and proclaimed that the American people had sent them to Congress because they knew what needed to be done to save America; and now they were prepared to lead the way by stopping the outpouring of blood that Uncle Sam could not continue to lose and live. But in order for Congress to help Uncle Sam they agreed that they would have to pass a bill authorizing the procedure. This presented a small problem since there was disagreement among the members on the method to be used. Democrats insisted that they use a bandage to wrap Uncle Sam’s arm. This was the currently endorsed procedure that the Department of Health recommended and the one they had been using for years. The Republicans objected indicating that this method had not produced the desired results to date, and data showed that the bleeding continued in most cases. The Democrats said that only occurred if the bandage was not big enough and you just needed to use more bandage. Republicans retorted that that was always the Democratic solution: just use more bandages.

 Some of the Republicans, who were new to Congress had another plan, they demanded that to stop the bleeding you had to stop Uncle Sam’s heart. There was a ring of truth to their assertion that if you stopped the heart that would then surely stop the bleeding. However, some other Republicans warned that there might be consequences to that procedure which could come back to bite them in the ass during the next elections.  These other Republicans proposed that Uncle Sam could be saved if they agreed to give him a premium payment that they would direct to a company that he selected as a health care provider, who could then stop his bleeding.

Democrats refused to go along with this suggestion, and the various groups continued to argue with each other about how to help Uncle Sam, who was now looking much worse.

Some Democratic and Republican leaders agreed to get together to find a compromise that all sides could accept. During these discussions, someone indicated that if the bandages were used as a tourniquet then they could stop the bleeding that way, and it would not require them to stop Uncle Sam’s heart. Congress agreed and swiftly went into action. The bandages were retrieved from the emergency kit, and they wrapped them around Uncle Sam’s neck. They began to twist the tourniquet tighter and tighter. Uncle Sam’s bleeding slowed and then stopped.

Congress cheered and everyone ran off to proclaim to the media that they had stopped Uncle Sam’s bleeding, and that without their leadership thing would have going very badly for Uncle Sam.

                Bring your problems to Congress at your own risk

The Stone Cutters and The Pharaoh

The head of the stone cutters’ guild came to the Pharaoh and complained that his guild could not keep up with the Pharaoh’s demand for stone. After listening to the man explain that the burden of cutting stone was increasing every day and his workers felt it unfair to expect them to work so hard, the Pharaoh thought about the guild’s complaints.

The Pharaoh asked him whether his people had agreed to do this work if the Pharaoh agreed to give them food for the rest of their life, and to let them retire after 30 years of work. “Yes, we did.” said the stone cutter. And, “Didn’t your people also agree to provide the stones, if your Pharaoh protected them from bandits and conquering armies from other lands?” “Yes. Yes, we did,” said the cutter.  “And have I not let you educate your children as you desire?” asked the Pharaoh. “Yes, you have kept every promise; but we did not understand that the cutting effort would increase with every ring added to the base of your great shrine,” pleaded the guild master; “It taxes us beyond our endurance.” The Pharaoh thought for a moment to consider what course of action to take.

“Go back to the people, and tell them to select a handful of men to come and meet with me to resolve this problem. Send your best and brightest, who will be capable of serving you well. And these men will be honored for their duty to the people and to my kingdom.” instructed the Pharaoh.

 The head cutter returned and told the guild members what the Pharaoh had commanded. “Who shall we send?” asked the master. Some of the cutters wanted to send men who prayed diligently and would follow the faith, other wanted men who promised to reduce the work at any price, there were even some who wanted to insure that their food allotment was increased, and a few promised their friends that they would get the easiest jobs if the friends sent them. Finally, the ten men were chosen and there was at least one from each interested group.

The master cutter and the ten men returned to the Pharaoh, presented themselves and asked the Pharaoh what they should do.  The Pharaoh said, “Go meet together, and return to me with a plan that you can live with.” The men went to the great hall and debated, argued, fought, and demanded conditions that served their own private needs or positions. No agreement could be reached. Meanwhile, the cutters who had remained to do the work, had to not only do their own work but that for the ten men sent to the Pharaoh as their representatives. The people’s protests grew louder and louder, and they threatened to stop their work. The Pharaoh, seeing a disaster forming and his pyramid unfinished, called the people’s representatives to attend him. “Give me your proposal by tomorrow that will keep your people at work, or you forfeit your lives!” demanded the Pharaoh.

The men protested, “The problem is too complex! We cannot see a way that we can all agree to.” The Pharaoh dismissed them, but sent a note to the head cutter that read: “Tell your men to consider one side of the pyramid. It is only one fourth of the problem that the whole pyramid is. Perhaps, if your people only had to work to build three sides then the problem would be solved.

When this idea was presented to the men, they saw that they could eliminate 25% of the work. The accepted this plan, avoided their death, agreed to continue to provide the Pharaoh with stone for three sides of his pyramid; and the Pharaoh would continue to fulfill his promises.

Returning to their fellow stone cutters, the representatives announced that they had achieved the peoples’ demands.

But after a little while, the people, the chosen ten ‘best and brightest’, and the guild master all saw that their work was just a difficult. The pyramid grew larger and larger each day, and the need for stone grew likewise.

The Pharaoh reclined comfortably in his palace contemplating how strange it was that the ‘best and brightest’ of the stone cutters could not see that you must deal with the whole problem to solve it, or you would face the consequences from what you ignored.

                You cannot choose your problems. You can only face them and solve them.