Unleash the Monkey Army

The first flush of the new year is out of the way and many resolutions have already been cast aside, dismissed like a credit card bill pending a better set of circumstances in which to respond to the call. Now is probably a good time to visit the perennial January question - goals. Picture from Reuters.com Now, we "know" that the setting of goals is a good thing. I mean, those of us who have the double-edged blessing of working for pretty-much any sized organisation will have had it drummed into us that that it is vitally important. It also stands to reason that achievement is more likely when the objective is set. But what doesn't often get mentioned is that this is not merely a matter of temporal inevitability like night follows day; rather, it is a likely but no guaranteed sequence like Summer following Spring in the UK (you know it should happen but quite often it seems to go from Spring to Autumn/Winter with barely a pause for breath in between). Go...

Life is so much easier when it is going well and to plan, running smoothly. It's only when you face defeat or you start to feel that burning itch of dis-satisfaction (as opposed to the other burning itch which requires cream and antibiotics... although I suppose that presents its own challenges to your world view!) that you need to start thinking about things. And for many of us, that's precisely when the trouble starts! When we have been motoring along, satisfied or at least reasonably so, we will have been heading in what felt like the right direction. We will feel comfortable with the signs of progress or finding signs of progress in the absence of signs of retrogression! And then it happens, that interruption, the intervention that drops the anchor on what we have been trying to achieve. There may have been one or two things which have slowed us down before but we have explained those away. And now here it is, the unavoidable thorn in the paw. We have a choice in our resp...

For a while now I've been struck by how people will judge others by standards much higher than those they demand of themselves. It has risen its head recently. There are few occasions in life that you will get something for nothing. even a string-free, no-obligation gift will cost you in opportunity. So why then do some people insist on demanding that people change to suit them with a steadfast, dogmatic refusal to make the slightest accommodation? I should probably qualify this. Just turning up is not enough, there is still action that needs taking. You will get nothing for just being there. And as you're there you may as well take some action to preserve or progress your position. not prepared to do anything? Don't want to change? Fine. That's your prerogative. And I mean that with no value statement at all. It is absolutely your prerogative not to change but please do not whinge when the world does not oblige. Think about it - what do you want, what are you getting, ...