Last week I talked about the benefits of thinking before talking, and it's a message being conveyed a lot in the current 'measure twice, cut once' economy.

Is heavy, upfront thinking necessary for everything you do? Absolutely not! So how do you know when it's a good idea, and when it's actually an impediment to progress?

You Learn from Experience. Now the fast-track method of doing this is learning from the experience of others. The sustainable method is implementing a simple 'review' process into your life.

How often do you pause to consider what's going well, and what you might do differently in the future?

Do your friggin' research
The lesson for this start-up? If at first you don't succeed, listen to your advisers. If your business has "zero chance of every being profitable", wouldn't you like to know that sooner?

Pink Box Testing
But what if research is impractical? Here's a trick to immediately tell when people - in this case recruitment companies - are only telling you what you want to hear.

Van Halen wants no Brown M&Ms
Did you know that rock n roll band Van Halen used to contract venues to remove all the brown M&Ms from their dressing room? Do you know the very good, and interesting, reason why?

Leading Change
So you want to be a change leader, in your business or industry? There are some simple steps that can be done - upfront and along the way.

Intranet Joke of the Week

A corporate manager, an engineers, and a software programmer are driving down a steep mountain road when the brakes fail, careening the car out of control, narrowly avoiding disaster several times before it finally runs out of energy and stops.
Shaken, but otherwise unharmed, the three discuss fixing the problem so they can complete their journey.

The manager says "To fix this problem we need to organise a committee, have meetings, and through a process of exchanging ideas we will evolve a solution."
The engineer says "No, that would take too long, and isn't relevant to this type of problem. I have my my trusty penknife here and will take apart the brake system, isolate the problem, and correct it."

And the programmer says "Ha, I think you're both wrong! Proper diagnosis requires a repeatable issue.

"I think we should all push the car back up the hill, and see if it happens again."

Until next week,

Jacob Aldridge and the Shirlaws Team

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