Wednesday, September 13, 2006

The astronauts lost another bolt. These guys get spun around in huge contraptions to make sure you don't throw up under pressure. They go through psychological examinations to make sure they won't freak out and either open the door and kill the crew or spend the entire time in space making fart sounds with their armpits. The never get training on how to hold things with gloves on? That is the kind of oversight that happens when you are so worried about the big picture. I see that all the time in business. You train salespeople with incredible skills to close deals with sophisticated buyers, but you never trained them how to accurately enter their order into a computer. You train managers incredible project management skills, but you never teach them that it might be nice to ask their employee how their weekend was. You train interviewers in how to ask very technical questions to see if the person is qualified for a job, but you never train them to see if they would fit in with the culture of the team they are joining.

John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach, would spend the first few hours of his first practice each year teaching his players how to put on their socks, that way they would never get blisters, they would have the support they needed. Even the talented need to be reminded of the little things.

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