It's been awhile...soft-skills are everything.

Being a Stranger in a Strange Land is nothing new. It was a great work of Science Fiction by Robert A. Heinlein back in 1962. Strangers in a Strange Land is also an excellent commentary on the modern age by Charles J. Chaput, OFM Cap the former Archbishop of Philadelphia. Although one is a work of fiction, both books do an excellent job explaining the modern world. Fiction has become reality.

Forty-Seven years ago, I wrote a book entitled Elephant Shit, the Road to Right Reason. It was a humorous book about life. “Chicken Shit” occurs when someone ask you how your new car is doing. Bullshit occurs when someone ask you who will win the next Super Bowl. Then there is Elephant Shit. This is heavy stuff. Here, someone ask you: “What is the meaning of life?”  If you really want to feel like a Stranger in a Strange Land, try answering that question. What is the meaning of life? Here is a better question: What is the meaning of your life? This is a deeply personal question. This is an important question. Mostly, this is a difficult question. Somehow, a guess is not good enough in a world where good enough is good enough.

Do you ever feel like a Stranger in a Strange Land? Some people feel this way most of their lives while others feel this way occasionally. Still others feel this way at times of peak experience when changes dominate their lives, both good and bad. I am not talking here about feeling out-of-touch with reality. Rather, I mean that you feel out-of-place with current social trends.  Being a Stranger in a Strange Land is nothing new. It was a great work of Science Fiction by Robert A. Heinlein back in 1962. Strangers in a Strange Land is also an excellent commentary on the modern age by Charles J. Chaput, OFM Cap the former Archbishop of Philadelphia. Although one is a work of fiction, both books do an excellent job explaining the modern world. Fiction has become reality.

There are a lot of barriers to the use of technology at work and home. Complexity, Cost, and Convenience are the “3Cs” of friendly technology whether at home or on the job in the workplace.  If we wish to increase convenience, we need to decrease complexity and cost. This means that you can have less capability for less complexity and money. Technology always carries quality and anti-quality tradeoffs. You can always gain more capability if you are willing to gain more complexity at more costs. The formula is simple: More for more or less for less.

If you want to Achieve Exceptional Performance, learn to unify your insights with the personal power of your Intelligent Flexibility to deliver something exceptional. In this way, you will have mastered the art and skill of Insightful Flexibility.  Some people enjoy plenty of flexibility but the lack insights to leverage their flexibility. Too bad. Other people enjoy the flash of great insights more often than most, but they remain inflexible. So sad.

A preference for “Substance over Form” makes sense unless you have no substance to offer and pursue form because bitter emotions like disappointment are more important than results such as success.  There are so many Critical Success Factors identified by the organization that to list them all would ensure failure because the time lost thinking about them would be so great and the productivity so poor that failure would be the result.

If you do not know what the problem is, how can you know that you have a problem at all? If there is a problem and you do not know that something is wrong, you have a bigger problem. At the very least, you need to discover why you do not know that a problem exists. Both problems require a solution, an Authentic Solution. A single problem can rapidly become multiple problems when people realize that they are not even sure about the cause, nature, and substance of the immediate problem.

There are unbelievably creative solutions that cost a lot. There are also “good enough” solutions that cost much less but actually solvethe problem good enough to meet requirements. What makes sense to you? This is an easy one: What’s in your wallet? Companies spend more money on problem-solving than on the Cost of Operations. This itself is a problem. One of the problems, of course, is that many problems repeat themselves. Organizations face these one day at a time. They never quite resolve these pesky problems that become so expensive, year after year.

Professionalism flows from attitude. Not everything great and wonderful is about money. Actually, money flows from things that are great and wonderful and even poor and terrible. I would not consider a lousy manager as a professional nor a lousy ballerina as a professional. I would expect something more. What about you?