Winston Churchill said, “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
Categories: Corporate Culture | Management Skills
0 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 1:50 PM
Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader, presumably designed to kindle a passion for the written word, may have arrived in the nick of time. A recent survey by the National Endowment for the Arts concluded that young adults devote less than seven minutes a day to “voluntary reading.” Mark Twain said that the man who doesn’t read has no advantage over the man who cannot read. Take it from a dyslexic who always burned to learn more about the world: the ability to read is a precious skill, and I think it’s a shame that our society teaches children to dislike reading.
Categories: Education
0 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 9:16 AM
Andrei Codrescu’s marvelous novel Wakefield features a protagonist who travels the country as a de-motivational speaker, hired to depress workers so they will be less creative and just get their jobs done. It’s a hilarious conceit, but if your business depends on healthy, innovative, engaged workers, forget the outside speakers and consider paying coworkers to take longer and more frequent vacations.
Categories: Corporate Culture | Creativity
0 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 11:24 AM
A colleague recently took a late night flight across the country. He sat between a little old lady who barely spoke English and that little old lady’s little old mother, who spoke no English at all. The lady paid for a two-dollar headset with a ten-dollar bill. The flight attendant said she would return with change. Much later, the lady wished to purchase two five-dollar meals from another attendant, and held out a twenty-dollar bill. For a ten-dollar purchase, there was no change for a twenty-dollar bill. The flight attendant seemed paralyzed after the lady explained another attendant already owed her eight dollars. The headset attendant, who was nearby selling beverages, confirmed this, telling the traveler that if she had two dollars she could have the meals. The increasingly confused lady again held out her twenty-dollar bill. The flight attendants froze.
Categories: Corporate Culture | Customer Service
0 comments - Posted by Paul Orfalea at 11:56 AM
