Season's greetings.

Merry Xmas everyone, and a Happy New Year!

Drifting through the wind...

"There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it."

George Bernard Shaw

Customary patterns of behaviour.

We were taught to believe that everyone's equal. That you're not better than anyone else.

Of course, that's a lie.

Some ARE better than others. And there are those that recognize what makes them better and learn to exploit it to succeed.

So long and good night!

Somehow, we'll get by just fine.

Watch my face as I pretend to feel no pain.

Will we ever understand it all...?

Will I ever cross your mind?

‎"Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking
When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by
If you smile with your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
...You'll find that life is still worthwhile."

The least I can do is care.

"Se calhar, o que a vida nos pode dar é um conhecimento dela que chega sempre tarde demais."

António Lobo Antunes

We can go through life pretending we don't care, pretending we don't feel the things that keep getting thrown at us. It's a comfortable proposition, no doubt, but sooner or later, something will break through and hit us.

We can wish for things that will never be and wonder how it all could be different. Truth is, though, those things will never be and nothing will ever be different.

The sooner you realize this and accept that very few people will ever deserve your respect, the sooner you'll be ok with yourself and the world around you, the sooner you'll enjoy life. Make sure you remember to laugh at yourself often. Our own miseries are probably the best reason we have to laugh. It puts perspective where we would otherwise have none.

With all that said, enjoy. We all struggle, but it's not worth it. There's always someone worth your time. To those who have been there for me, the very least I can do is care.

Just let the world we know disappear.

"Há um tempo em que é preciso abandonar as roupas usadas, que já têm a forma do nosso corpo, e esquecer os nossos caminhos, os que nos levam sempre aos mesmos lugares. É o tempo da travessia. E, se não ousarmos fazê-la, teremos ficado, para sempre, à margem de nós mesmos."

Fernando Pessoa

Lessons to be learned.

"Virtue is not knowing, but doing."

Japanese Proverb

Loose ends.

Most of the time, it's simply too difficult, too scary. It's only once you've stopped, that you realize how difficult it is to start again. So you force yourself not to want it, but it's always there. And until you finish it, it will always be.

Closure does not exist.

These bright lights have always blinded me.

"Pouca sinceridade é uma coisa perigosa... muita sinceridade é absolutamente fatal."

Oscar Wilde

You'll begin to wonder why you came.

As time goes by, a certain feeling of inevitability sets in. All of a sudden, words might not be needed anymore, it all feels like a waste of time, effort. Either that or words I thought I'd never speak come to mind. Truth is, I never wanted any of this. But there are things you simply can't control, can't predict. Sometimes, we're reminded how badly we should never say "never".

I really don't know if anything will make it any better, be it words or anything else. Maybe time and distance... but they're the two things I really don't want. But they seem ever more inevitable as days go by.

Either way, it's really out of my hands, as sad and helpless as that makes me feel.

"And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life..."

The problem with problems.

People can be extremely well educated with many years of experience, they may be successful managers who have accomplished great things, but frequently their ability to solve a problem is severely limited. That sounds like a paradox, but every time I talk to executives I’m struck by how true it is. People cannot define the problem they are trying to solve.

So that is what has been occupying my mind: how we structure and solve problems.

Every decision involves problem solving. In some cases we employ professionals who do that job -- they’re called project managers and administrators and so on. They are certainly a part of that process, but what happens when you have to anticipate an issue or when you don’t have an established process or routine to deal with it? You have to define the issue before you can pick a routine to address it.

In principle, it is a simple exercise: Define a problem, identify options, pick the best, and communicate the finding. Since the Renaissance, science has progressed using this formula. Management consultancies advocate a similar approach in their work. Yet, often managerial conversations resemble more expressions of dogma (“I believe…”) or contestants sparring on a TV general knowledge contest (“sales in the Northeast in July are double those of the entire West in December”) than informed argument.

If you look at engineering or architecture the ability of people to explain the problem they’re working on, and ask questions so they can get feedback is very high without their need to resort to either dogma or trivia. They are helped by reference to blueprints which are a highly codified way of communicating. Our equivalent in management is jargon. Like blueprints, jargon was invented to make our exchanges efficient (we all know what is meant by a “functional organisation”.) But the analogy to the blueprint ends when jargon becomes meaningless. It is also a sure way of eradicating any arguments left standing from the onslaught of dogma or trivia.

Law is often used to illustrate informed argument. Medicine is another good example. Every time doctors deal with a case, they have to define it. Before you do anything for a patient you have to define what you think the problem is and then coordinate a large array of resources to address that. You form hypotheses all the time, you take feedback, you reassess your hypotheses as you go along, you use different resources as a result and so on.

I suspect that the reason that our problem-solving ability in management is so limited is because our models of problem-solving are devoid of people while actual problem-solving isn’t. As useful as a decision tree might be as an analytical abstraction, the issue is how do you actually define a problem with the help of others around you? Who should these people be? What kind of input should you be asking from them? Which part of that input should you disregard? Which part of that input should you take into account?

People are prone to action. By the time someone can start even articulating a question they already have an answer for it. You need to ask: what is the problem you’re trying to solve and what are the possible ways that you can go about doing it?

This is an extract from Yiorgos Mylonadis’ article in the Summer 2010 issue of Business Strategy Review. Link

Nothing to lose, everything to get.

Sure, life may slip one on you from time to time, something you weren't expecting, that caught you offguard. How you lift yourself up and keep moving forward is what's really important, though. Deep down, you lost nothing and you still have a whole lot to look forward to, probably more than you'll ever expect.

Here's to a good week! Have fun! *

Lost your balance on a tight rope, lost your mind trying to get it back.

Great last few days. But, deep down, the things left unsaid don't really make it easy on me and eventually, come back to haunt me. I don't know what's going to happen and I wish I did...

Wasn't it beautiful when you believed in everything and everybody believed in you?