Small Ideas – Page 2 – Lorne Mitchell's Thursday Thoughts

07/01/201508/01/2015

Measurement Madness

I met up recently with an old friend. She has decided to give up work in March. The hospital she has worked in for many years as a family therapist was transferred from the private sector to the public sector last year. She is giving up because the (UK) National Health Service (or NHS) that has now taken over the hospital has made the unit a “national asset” and patients are being referred to it from across the country. She can no longer practice as she used to because the patients are disconnected from the families that should support them when they leave hospital care. Costs have also gone up because of the additional remote support that need to be given to both patients and their supporting families. In addition, she finds the extra “meetings about meetings” and paperwork completely stifling.

It reminded of a similar problem that is embedded within the UK prison system. It has been proven that offenders are much more likely not to reoffend once they leave prison if they get family support during their term inside. Yet most prisoners are deliberately sent to another part of the country to do their time. Families (often poorer than most) cannot afford regular visits. So the likelihood of prisoners reoffending when leaving prison goes up.

In each of these cases, I suppose the patient or the prisoner could be seen as the “customer”. Yet these two state-run systems have been designed without the customer’s requirements (or real needs) in mind. They have been designed at the expense of other measures (such as top-down political targets, reduction in costs etc.)

The current business fads of rationalisation, outsourcing, off-shoring, cost-cutting and factory call-centres seem to have driven traditional sane local business practices and have allowed madness to prevail.

I can’t prove it, but I believe that local, common-sense sanity has to create more flexible, cost effective public services over the prevalent national (or international) managing-by-abstract-measures madness. But that is a very difficult case to prove when big egos, big technology, big politics and big finance have each, in their own way, presented measurement madness as the new religion.

Maybe measurement is, itself, the root cause of the problem. Maybe we should be suggesting a new way to educate the cohorts of ignorant managers and measurers.
Taiichi Ohno would have thought so. One of his great quotes fits well here:

“People who can’t understand numbers are useless.

The gemba (or real place) where numbers are not visible is also bad.

However, people who only look at the numbers are the worst of all.”

27/06/201427/06/2014

Blowing the Fibre

Today, the Parish of Goudhurst and Kilndown in rural Kent (which is where we live) came one step closer to achieving what most others in the UK have access to…..

It wasn’t fresh water. That has been flowing freely from boreholes and the local reservoir at Bewl Water for quite a while.

It wasn’t gas. Goudhurst used to have gas – but the Gas Works blew up in the 1948 – a few weeks before all gas works were nationalized. Coincidence or dodgy insurance claims, no one quite knows.

It wasn’t electricity. That has been delivered to all of the Parish since about 2006 when the folk in Bedgebury Forest came onto the Grid.

It wasn’t being connected to the mains sewage. Our house still has a septic tank at the bottom of the garden.

What it was that we came one step closer to getting half of the Parish – perhaps more – onto Superfast Broadband.

The next stage of the scheme is due to go live next week – in time for the end of June go-live for four of the cabinets in the village to be fibred-up to Superfast Broadband. And the spectacle today was watching the fibre being blown down the plastic ducts that have been laid under all the key roads in the village.

The event went off without an audience – large or small. Simply two engineers diligently waiting whilst the meter showed how far the end of the fibre had been blown. The fibre wrapped over the right arm to give it control as it entered the plastic duct pipe.

Looking forward to the fibre being lit next week. Come on, light my fibre – or something like that!

02/05/201404/01/2020

At the end of the break: Remember – and this is very important ……

It is over six months since my last post. Much has happened in my life – as I presume it has to those who are reading this. I had not intended to have such a long break. I had not intended to have a break at all. The end of the last break was, in fact, the start of the longest break in my writing this blog. However, this is the end of that particular break. I am renewed with energy after the long break.

During the break, I have been doing a lot of research on various projects. I have also gone back to studying. Studying some of the great thinkers that have created ideas and concepts that have helped shift consciousness. And so it was, I came across the concept of “The Three Principles” by Syd Banks.

Here are some thoughts from Syd Banks on Wisdom:

No one can give away wisdom.
A teacher can only lead you to it
via words, hoping you will have
the courage to look within yourself
and find it inside your own
consciousness…

Beyond the word.

The wisdom humanity seeks lies
within the consciousness of all
human beings, trapped and held
prisoner by their own person
minds.

Wisdom is not found in the world
of form, nor in remote corners of
the globe. Wisdom lies within our
own consciousness.

Only you have the golden key to
your soul and the wisdom that
lies within.

Syd was born in Edinburgh in 1931 where he grew up in a working class family in Edinburgh’s Old Town. He left school at 15 without formal qualification and in due course trained as a welder. In 1957, aged 26 he emigrated to the West coast of Canada and his association with Salt Spring Island, later to become his permanent home, began. He worked as a welder, married and had 2 children and experienced many of life’s normal challenges.

In 1973 he attended an encounter weekend with his wife. Unimpressed by the encouragement to experience and express anger he went for a walk with another delegate. Syd described to his companion the insecurity he often felt. The companion retorted, ‘You’re not insecure Syd, you just think you are.’

This throwaway remark sparked a remarkable insight in Syd, enabling him to grasp at a profound level that his emotional experience was always created by his own thinking, rather than by external circumstances. Over the next few days he experienced what has been described as an enlightenment experience which completely changed his personality.

Of course some people around him thought he had had a sort of breakdown. But his clarity and inner certainty prevailed, along with his awareness that he could help others. Some of the people he shared his insights with experienced very profound improvements in mental or physical health. Even those whose initial problems were less serious, experienced an exponential improvement in wellbeing. Just by listening to Syd talk in an apparently unstructured way they got in touch with their own innate health and wisdom.
In his thinly disguised novels that he wrote as a series called “The Enlightened Gardener”., an unlettered British groundskeeper named Andy serves as Banks’s fictional stand-in — teaching a group of amazed American psychologists about the true nature of the universe. For Banks, space, matter and time were an illusion, a dream. The only three things that are real are what he calls Mind (“the source of all intelligence”), Consciousness(“which allows us to be aware”) and Thought (“which guide us through the world as free-thinking agents”).

As word of Syd’s work spread people came to the island to experience for themselves the wellbeing he was able to point them to. In time these included psychologists and social workers who began working with their clients and achieving similar extraordinary results. Work began in communities such as Modello and Coliseum Gardens, both in the USA, where incomparable turnarounds were achieved. In the decades that followed what became know as the 3Principles, was utilised in schools, prisons, therapy, relationship counselling and business. In each arena the outcomes far exceeded any other approach.

Syd died on 25th May 2009. His official website is here: http://www.sydneybanks.org

[To read more of Syd’s life and work the books of his colleague, Elsie Spittle are recommended. Perfect Misfortune by Allan Flood is an account of how one man tapped into the power behind the principles in living with MS. Jack Pransky has written a number of books on the success of this approach with both communities and individuals. All authors can be found on Amazon.]

Text of Syd’s story was from: http://www.threeprinciplesscotland.org.uk/sydney-banks/ – which has now stopped working.

(Until 2 or 3 years ago there was almost nothing known of this approach in Syd’s native Scotland. Three Principles Scotland is committed to changing that and bringing the benefits of Syd’s work home to his home country.)

Initial quote from Syd reproduced in: Neill, Michael (2013-05-06). The Inside-Out Revolution: The Only Thing You Need to Know to Change Your Life Forever (p. 23). Hay House UK Ltd. Kindle Edition.

Photo and more videos at: http://thethreeprinciples.blogspot.co.uk

05/09/201305/09/2013

The End of the Break

As we come to the end of the summer break, for most of us, school, university or work starts afresh. I say, for most because, like with all generalisations, there are always those who break the rule. An increasing number of friends seem to be moving into “retirement” or “semi-retirement” – breaking the pattern of a life-time by taking more time off. Two of my children are starting University – a break from the long years of study at school to the less structured, more fun time at Uni.

And the little word “break” got me thinking. It seems to have so many meanings. It runs to many definitions in the dictionary – both as a verb and as a noun. It can be:

destructive (as in – “break a glass”)
illegal (as in “breaking the speed limit”)
liberating (as in “break out of old patterns”)
exciting (as in “breaking news”)
disappointing (as in “break my heart”)
the point of profit (as in “break-even”)
time to eat (as in “breakfast”)
very confusing for someone not fluent in English (as in “break a leg”)

For such a little word, it has so many different subtle meanings and so many different ways to combine itself with other words to mean so many different things!

Yet, with all of this, I always see the start of September as the opportunity to break from the past and focus on the future. For some reason, even more so than with Christmas or Easter. Perhaps we are all subconsciously programmed by the school year – whether as students, former students or parents. Yet there are those who will always break the mould and find other beginnings and endings in their year and not agree with me.

Great word “break”.

03/08/201308/08/2013

Sign Language, Stopping Distances and the Laws of Physics

Last month, one quiet Sunday evening, I was driving into Tunbridge Wells. My normal route had roadworks, so I had to carry a bit further on – and passed one of those small yellow boxes in a 30mph speed limit zone. I was doing 38 mph. I got flashed by the camera and a week later, got a notice from the Police to say I had been done for speeding.

I was given two options by the Kent Police. Pay a fine of £60 and get three points on my licence. Or pay £85 and go on a speed awareness course. I had heard positive things about the latter – and so decided to go for the course as it would keep my licence clean.

And so it was, last Friday afternoon, I sat for four and a half hours in a small hotel conference room listening to two lecturers about the highway code, reaction times and the laws of physics.

Having filled-out a brief questionnaire at the start on what I thought the meaning of various road-signs were, it became apparent that I probably thought I knew a lot more than I actually did! I worked out that I hadn’t actually been tested on the highway code since taking my driving test in 1978! A sobering thought.

The turning point came for me when I was told that 38mph is the speed at which, if you are a pedestrian and you are hit by an oncoming car, you will almost certainly die. Until then, I though it was a bit daft being done for speeding for so little over the speed limit. After that point, it made me sober-up. Added to that, it became clear that the speed limit is just that – a speed limit – not a “got away with it again” sign. Just because half the population or more see it is the latter, the course was designed to get you into thinking sensibly.

We saw several very effective videos and learnt about reaction times and stopping distances. Reaction times are when, as a driver, you are in control and have choices. Stopping distance is the bit where you have decided to stop your pile of metal careering into something – and, here, the laws of physics and the speed you are traveling is the main defining factor as to whether or not you will succeed in stopping in your desired distance.

The stopping distances are in the highway code (a copy of which we were given for our £85) – see diagram below:

These are distances a car travels, over the time it takes for you to bring the vehicle to a full stop. These distances are for a well maintained car, with good brakes and tyres, an alert driver, and a dry road, in daylight. We were told that if you are going at 70 mph down a motorway in good conditions the combined thinking distance plus stopping distance is about 96 metres or 24 car lengths.

What was not on the diagram was the fact that if you are going 80 mph down a motorway in similar conditions, you will still be going 38mph after 24 car lengths. Spooky how that 38mph keeps coming up! Oh, and if you are going 100mph down the motorway (who hasn’t, at some stage, gone for a “burn”even if just to see what it feels like?) – then you will still be going at 70mph after 24 car lengths!

So, at the end of this speed awareness course, I came away quite humbled. On my way home from the course, I felt like a learner driver again. A lot more aware of traffic signs – and – oh, yes – those lamp-posts which mean that you are in a 30mph zone – even if there are no signs. I never knew that – or if I did learn it once, I had forgotten the fact.

So, if you get the chance to pay a fine and get 3 points on your licence – or go for a slightly more expensive Speed Awareness Course, then I’d definitely go for the latter. You will learn a lot – and hopefully become a safer driver. Most importantly, I really did learn that you’re never too old to learn!

25/07/201314/10/2019

The Hidden Author of Every Thought

—

Sometimes you read something that really moves you. It reaches places in your mind that you’ve never been to before. It makes you re-think assumptions about how the world works in deeply profound ways.

So it was when I read this poem from Adyashanti’s book “Emptiness Dancing” and understood a little more about who is the hidden author of every thought!

SILENCE

—

The waves of mind

demand so much of Silence.

But She does not talk back

does not give answers nor arguments.

She is the hidden author of every thought

every feeling

every moment.

Silence.

She speaks only one word.

And that word is this very existence.

No name you give Her

touches Her

captures Her.

No understanding

can embrace Her.

Mind throws itself at Silence

demanding to be let in.

But no mind can enter into

Her radiant darkness

Her pure and smiling

nothingness.

The mind hurls itself

into sacred questions.

But Silence remains

unmoved by the tantrums.

She asks only for nothing.

Nothing.

But you won’t give it to Her

because it is the last coin

in your pocket.

And you would rather

give Her your demands than

your sacred and empty hands.

Everything leaps out in the celebration of mystery,

but only nothing enters the sacred source,

the silent substance.

Only nothing gets touched and becomes sacred,

realizes its own divinity,

realizes what it is

without the aid of a single thought.

Silence is my secret.

Not hidden.

—

More profound thoughts in Adyashanti’s book – Emptiness Dancing

04/04/2013

Spring Forward, Fall Back

Last weekend, for many of us, the clocks went forward and we lost an hours sleep. Many in the West celebrated Easter – either by going to Church or gorging themselves on chocolate. Perhaps both. March ended and April began.

Today remained bitterly cold – and although some of our smaller daffodils are out, the larger ones are still tight in their spring green wraps. We seem to have been locked in a strange weather pattern in the UK for a year now – with March being the coldest on record for 40 years. Many forget that this time last year we had 18 months of drought. Whoever did the rain-dance this time last year sure did a good one!

In China and other countries in the East, it was a holiday – the Qingming Festival. This festival has various translations including: Pure Brightness Festival; Clear Bright Festival; Ancestors Day or Tomb Sweeping Day. Traditionally celebrated on the 15th day after the Spring Equinox, it is a time for people to go outside and enjoy the greenery of springtime and to tend to the graves of their departed ancestors.

The festival’s origin is credited to the Tang Emporer Xuanzong in 732. Wealthy citizens in China were reportedly holding too many extravagant and ostentatiously expensive ceremonies in honor of their ancestors. Emperor Xuanzong, seeking to curb this practice, declared that respects could be formally paid at ancestors’ graves only on Qingming. The observance of Qingming found a firm place in Chinese culture and has continued to root itself in many other parts of Asia. Any excuse for a holiday!

The idea that we come out of the winter and into pure, clear brightness – and spring-clean the tombs of our ancestors does not really have an equivalent in the West. The Christian Church displaced many of these more pagan traditions for celebrating Spring by defining it as the most important festival of the Christian calendar: Easter. The chocolate companies partly displaced this with Easter Eggs and everything chocolate. We don’t really have an equivalent celebration or holiday to go and sorting out our ancestors’ graves on one particular day of the year. I suppose the closest we get is the idea of a “Spring Clean”.

Whatever your belief system, though, Spring is a magic time of the year (if is ever going to be allowed to break free from the cold clutches of winter this year). It is a time of hope. A time of renewed energy. A time for cleaning those parts of your life that need cleansing. A time for being positive and leaning forward.

Spring is sprung and the green shoots are surely going to break through soon! Happy Qingming Festival – and may your ancestors’ graves be much cleaner today than they were yesterday!

Source: Wikipedia, http://www.chinatouradvisors.com (picture) and my Garden

28/02/201304/10/2019

The Story of the Greatest Lumberjack in the Land

I had to introduce a workshop last week with a bunch of folk who were trying to take on the “big guys”. I opened the workshop with a story which, for me, gives great hope to the small guys who are toiling away to take on the big guys.

Some say the big guys have gotten the world into the mess that it is currently in. So here’s a story to cheer those up who are ploughing their furrow as a “small guy”!

There is an old Celtic legend, a story of two lumberjacks.

Both men were skilled woodsmen although the first, called Angus, was much bigger, welding a powerful axe. He was so strong that he didn’t have to be as accurate for he still produced due to his sheer size. He was known far and wide for his ability to produce great quantities of raw material. Many hired him just because he was bigger. After all, his customers reasoned, everyone knows that bigger is always better!

In spite of his size, the fame of the second woodsman’s (who was called Hamish) was spreading for his skill was in his accuracy. There was very little waste in his efforts so his customers ended up with a better product for their money. Soon the word spread that Hamish’s work was even better than his larger competitor, Angus.

Upon hearing this, Angus became concerned. He wondered, “How could this be? I am so much bigger that I MUST be better!” He proposed that the two compete with a full day of chopping trees to see who was more productive. The winner would be declared ”The Greatest Lumberjack in all the land.” Hamish agreed and the date for the bout was set.

The townsfolk began talking. They placed their bets. Angus was the favorite to win with a 20 to 1 advantage. After all, bigger is better! The evening before the bout, both men sharpened their blades. Hamish strategized to win the bout. He knew he would never win because of his size. He needed a competitive advantage. Each man went to bed confident that he would be declared the winner.

Morning broke with the entire town showing up to cheer on the lumberjacks. The competition started with a the judge’s shout, “GO!” Angus, strong and broad, leaped into action. He chopped vigorously and continuously, without stopping, knowing that every tree he felled brought him closer to his coveted title.

Hamish, wasting no time, jumped into action as well, attacking his trees with every intention of winning the distinguished title. But unlike his larger competitor, he stopped every forty five minutes to rest and sharpen his blade.

This worried the onlooking townspeople greatly. They murmured among themselves. Surely, he could never win if he didn’t work longer and harder than his competitor. His friends pleaded with him to increase his speed, to work harder – but to no avail. This pattern continued throughout the day when both men heard the judge yell “TIME!”, signaling the end of the match.

Angus stood, winded and exhausted, yet also proud by his pile of trees knowing he had given his best having chopped almost continuously since the start of the match. Surely, he was the winner!

Hamish also stood by his pile of trees – though, unlike his competitor, he was still fresh, ready to continue if necessary. He also stood confident in knowing that he had also given of his best and that his tactics would pay off.

When all the trees were counted, it was announced that Hamish had, indeed, felled more trees than Angus and he was granted title of “The Greatest Lumberjack in all the Land!”. He happily shook the judge’s hand and gripped his newly won axe made of the finest steel in the land. Angus (and most of the townspeople) stood in stunned silence at the announcement – for he was far greater reputation, was far stronger and had a much heavier axe!

But Hamish was not that surprised by the result. For he knew that, in order to win against his larger competitor, his instrument had to be continually sharpened. His axe was smaller and therefore each swing must be more accurate in order to produce the better product. By stopping the sharpen his instrument, he had proven, once and for all, that he was the better man for the job. He also knew that, with regular rests, he would be able to endure his technique far longer.

Frame of story and pictures from: http://www.capstonemedia.com/sharpen-the-saw/

14/02/201315/02/2013

The Story of the Broken Pot (of Honey)

The older I get, the more I believe in coincidences. And one of the strange coincidences that I have recently discovered is that there are a set of stories that are told in slightly different forms all around the world – as if they all had their roots in one story told many thousands of years ago. A fine example is the Story of the Broken Pot:

Once upon a time there lived a woman called Truhana. Not being very rich, she had to go yearly to the market to sell honey, the precious product of her hive.

Along the road she went, carrying the jar of honey upon her head, calculating as she walked the money she would get for the honey. “First”, she thought, “I will sell it, and buy eggs. The eggs I shall set under my fat brown hens, and in time there will be plenty of little chicks. These, in turn, will become chickens, and from the sale of these, lambs could be bought.”

Truhana then began to imagine how she could become richer than her neighbors, and look forward to marrying well her sons and daughters.

Trudging along, in the hot sun, she could see her fine sons and daughters-in-law, and how the people would say that it was remarkable how rich she had become, who was once so poverty-stricken.

Under the influence of these pleasurable thoughts, she began to laugh heartily, and preen herself, when, suddenly, striking the jar with her hand, it fell from her head, and smashed on the ground. The honey became a sticky mess upon the ground.

Seeing this, she was cast down as she had been excited, on seeing all her dreams lost for illusion.

Idres Shah in his book “World Tales” (which is where this story came from) notes:

“The tale is called a number of things like – “The Girl and the Pitcher of Milk”. Professor Max muller remarks how the tale has survived the rise and fall of empires and the change of languages, and the perishing of works of art. He stresses the attraction whereby “this simple children’s tale should have lived on and maintained its place of honor and its undisputed sway in every schoolroom of the East and every nursery of the West.”

“In the Eastern versions, it is always a man who is the fantasist and whose hopes come to grief: in the West it is almost always a woman. The man generally imagines that he will marry and have a son, while the woman tends to think of riches and marriage.”

A collection of stories similar to this one was compiled as a set off folktales by Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 1430 entitled “Air Castles” – about daydreams of wealth and fame. The theme is so strong and spans all cultures and societies. Just one of the many coincidental stories that have been recognised across space and time.

And so it was, last week, I was visiting Telefonica’s incubator (which they call an Academy) in London. There are 19 startups (or eggs) being hatched – each into what will hopefully be new chickens. However, given the statistic that over 65% of companies fail in their first two years, I could not but think the question as to which ones might be successful, and which ones not. Which ones would hatch and which ones would be eaten before hatching? Talking to the head guy there, he said that it was surprising that some of the start-ups that showed no hope four months ago are now doing really well – and others that showed great potential have somehow stumbled. Each of the eggs will be moved out from the Academy at the end of March – and I wish them all the best of luck in moving from the egg stage to the chicken stage!

Oh, and just to round off this Thursday Thought, I visited my own beehives on Monday to give them some sugar cake food. All was well – each of the six hives had bees! I just hope they will all survive through February and March. No honey in the pot yet, but I still dream that their stories will make me rich and famous one day!

I am going to be exploring the power coincidence in a lot more detail in the coming months. If you are on Twitter you can read the regular tweets and observations on coincidence and business by following my new Tweet stream @coinmark.

—–

Story from: “World Tales” collected by Idries Shah published by the Octagon Press 1991 – page 27

Picture – Copyright iStockPhoto – I bought it and if you want to use it you should buy it too!

More bee stories at my other blog: www.beelore.com

06/02/201306/02/2013

The Story of the Imprisoned Tinsmith

The ability to seek and identify structures, patterns and designs below the apparent surface of experience is the secret to success in communication, relationships, accelerated learning, languages, and many other things besides.

Someone asked me the other day why I chose to call myself a designer, rather than a consultant and I told them the story of the Tinsmith. The story originally came from an order of the Sufi’s called the Naqshbandi Order. Naqushbandi quite literally means “designer”.

“Once upon a time in a city far far away in a time long gone, a tinsmith was falsely accused of a crime he had not committed. Being poor and without any powerful friends to influence the judge, he was imprisoned.

He was given a wish before being sent to the cells and he asked that he be allowed to receive a rug which should be woven by his wife. In due course, the rug was made and delivered to the prison. Upon receiving the rug, the tinsmith prostrated himself upon the rug, day after day, to say his prayers.

After some time, he said to his jailers: “I am poor and without hope and you are wretchedly paid. But I am a tinsmith. Bring me some tin and tools to work with and I shall make small artifacts which you can sell in the market – and we will both benefit.”

The guards agreed to this and presently they and the tinsmith were both making a profit from which they bought food and comforts for themselves.

Then, one day, when the guards awoke to find that the cell door was open and the tinsmith was gone. Some spoke of magic or perhaps a miracle because no prison in this kingdom had ever been escaped from.

Many years later, a convicted thief confessed to the crime that the tinsmith had been accused of. As a result, the tinsmith was pardoned and two weeks later the tinsmith and his family reappeared in the city. The governor of the province heard of the tinsmith’s return and summoned him to his palace.

The governor asked the tinsmith what magic he had used to make such an impossible escape.

The tinsmith replied “My wife is a weaver. She designs rugs, mats and carpets. She weaves patterns into the wefts and warps of her fabric.”

“By design, she found the man who had made the locks of the cell door and got it from him, by design.”

“She wove the design into the rug at the spot where my head touched in prayer five times a day. I am a metal-worker and this design looked to me like the inside of a lock. But I lacked the materials to make a key, so I made a business proposition to the guards, by design. I then used the materials that the guards provided me to make many small artifacts, including a key that would unlock the cell door.”

So, by design, I escaped.”

“We are all born with a brain”, said the tinsmith. “When we begin to understand the patterns and structures of our thinking, we can start to liberate ourselves from the enslavement of our limitations.”

Story adapted from the book: Sufis: The People of the Path: The Royal Way by Osho – Chapter 5 – Design within Design

Picture from Museum of London