Content You Can Use #7
In this series, I’ll share stories, examples, analogies, and quotes I’ve collected over the past several years in the hopes that you can use them to make your next message compelling and sticky.
Three compelling excerpts from Pieces of the Action by Vannevar Bush:
There are two primary ways in which to lose a battle or a campaign, assuming nearly equal antagonists as far as equipment, morale, and sizes of forces are concerned. One is to have confused lines of authority. The other is to have a top commander with poor judgment.
In an industry that has become closely standardized, where nearly all competing companies are comfortably making profits, minor improvements can readily be introduced, but major improvements are up against a stone wall.
There is a vast difference between understanding a problem in terms of equations and diagrams and understanding it in terms of copper and iron. A physicist can work out the stresses and geometry of a harness, but the farm boy understands the horse. I have known men (I have had them work for me) who were rather helpless on the mathematical analysis of circuits but who could go to a complex relay assemblage that was misbehaving and put their finger right on the fault. So I think the fundamentals of almost any subject, the simplest part, the core, can be taught to youngsters who are just beginning to learn and can be taught to them easily. If this is done, the student who really has an interest will carry through to quite an extraordinary extent on his own. I do not think it is worthwhile in trying to do this to take the matter into subtleties which will not really come into the youngster's experience for many years. For a principle once learned is soon forgotten unless it gets exercised.
An Analogy You Can Use: The Dead Sea Effect
The Dead Sea is a landlocked saltwater lake in the Middle East that sits far below sea level. Because it has no outflow and high evaporation rates, its salt content is ten times higher than most oceans. It’s called the “Dead Sea” because its extreme salinity can’t support aquatic life.
The “Dead Sea effect” is a term coined by IT expert Bruce F. Webster to describe the phenomenon in organizations where low-performing or less motivated employees stay longer (salt) while high-performing and more motivated employees leave (evaporating water) to pursue new challenges and better opportunities. This leads to a situation where the organization’s talent pool gradually diminishes in quality, like the Dead Sea.
Is there anything in your life or work like the Dead Sea?
A lesson from Warren Buffet
Warren Buffet once said: “How do you beat Bobby Fischer? You play him at anything but chess.”
Bobby Fischer was an American chess grandmaster and the eleventh World Chess Champion.
Are you putting your energy where you have an edge, or are you trying to beat Bobby Fischer?
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Thanks for reading!
Jenny