DrContrarian

"The purpose of a company is to create a customer. ... The only profit center is the customer. ...The business has two – and only two – basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results: all the rest are costs." (Peter Drucker:)

In order of importance, these are the four ideas or constructs that I have discovered over time, and that I consider indispensable. If I never study another self-help book or management text again, I will be able to fashion a solution to the most intractable problems form these four sources: · The Word of God Don’t worry, I am not a religious nut, and the insights and content contained in this book are not particularly concerned with the Bible. As a book it is well-known enough, so there isn’t anything I can add to make it more understandable. I won’t seek to justify its philosophies or accuracy. For what it is worth, I simply cannot accept that I am nothing more than a glorified fish walking on my hind legs. ‘Tis crude, but it is really as simple as that. · Chaos Theory More and more books are beginning to appear on this topic, and the only reason why it is not yet widely embraced by the public is because the language and constructs are often somewhat obtuse ...

I promised upfront not to blog unless there was something to say - so I had a quiet week. Until I read http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/04/the_big_dip_ten.html - Guy Kawasaki's blog. I have contrarian views - most of the time, but usually agree with Guy on almost everything. Until now. In my view, the essential question (when do you quit?) is a very important one. It is hard to distinguish the difference between focus & discipline, and being smart enough to adapt and change or innovate. The difference between success and failure are tallied in the decisions you have made. Only with hindsight do you know if a decision was right or wrong - and that is why so many people believe in 'luck'. Sometimes 'sticking to a decision' gets the right outcome - much like a broken clock is 100% right at least twice a day. Sometimes you have to 'desert a sinking ship' or 'stop throwing good money after bad'. In this case, the question has been answered by a stat...

For reasons that are best left unexplained, I was watching The Biggest Loser on TV ( reality show about weight loss) tonight. The series is nearing the end with only 4 contestants remaining. All the talk is about how important the next elimination is and one contestants articulates what a pressure situation it is. It simply amazes me how people 'create' pressure simply because of irrational thinking processes. And it is not only average Joes on reality TV. You have the tennis player that is talking about the semi-finals, the crunch match, the most important day because if (s)he can win that match - (s)he will be in the finals. And the media, the managers the sponsors all get into the act, so you can't just say it is a dumb sports person. [As aside, my other little pet hate is commentators who always bemoan the fact that some team always makes a mistake on the last ball; e.g.: the 'the winger never gets the ball because the team seems to be dropping the ball on the last...

I should just clarify: I do not believe that lying is the way to go. I don't practice or advocate lying. I am referring to things like: Thanks, what a lovely meal... when it was pretty average Getting up for someone older (on the bus) but doing it with a little bit of resentment towards someone younger than you who did not get up - but not causing a scene Blessing a sneeze - but not meaning it These are simple social graces that infills the yawning gaps in the ugliness of beauty- without which we cannot function; because truth is just too ugly.

I have been an ardent follower of the dogma of truth. In my younger days I even hurt people close to me , and justified my behaviour because it was the 'truth'. Sadly I have not completely shaken the habit. And I say so not because I want to be admired for a very attractive weakness (like the interviewee who identifies his weakness as 'failing to strike a world/life balance') but I honestly believe that the truth is over-rated. The opposite of Truth is not willful deceit, but simply untruth; so I am not advocating deceit as the preferred communication platform. But untruths are highly misunderstood and under-appreciated. One variety - the white lie - is commonly used and understood, but we usually don't even contemplate the extent to which we rely on deceit. Jim Carrey's move (Liar Liar) was reasonably funny, but I doubt that it led to the serious introspection or philosophical debate of the value of Truth that this particular phenomenon deserves. In a world of ...

A rhetorical question today: Do you also wonder (sometimes) if we are truly able to make our own life (successes and failures) or whether it has been pre-determined by God? The age-old debate of predeterminism: God must know everything - or else He is not omniscient. If God knows everything, then my decision is already made. Is life worth living if my success or failure is not as a result of my labour and initiative and creativity? The answer lies in what the image to the right represents. It is an image of Pollock's paintings ("Convergence: Number 10, 1952" at The Albright-Knox Gallery). It is a fractal image. Just Google 'fractal pattern') and you will see tens of thousands examples. Fractal image is an image of chaos. It illustrates one of the tenets chaos theory very clearly: At the level of the whole it appears chaotic; random swirls and lines. Look closer and you will see fine repeating patterns. And Life is like that: For the individual in his or her own ...