The Cracked Pot

Author Unknown

(This is not my work, but I felt it was an important message and had to be posted here....)

A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on the end of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots was perfectly made and never leaked. The other pot had a crack in it and by the time the water bearer reached his master's house it had leaked much of it's water and was only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his master's house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.

After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you." "Why?" asked the bearer. "What are you ashamed of?" "I have been able, for these past two years, to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your master's house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don't get full value from your efforts," the pot said.

The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and in his compassion he said, "As we return to the master's house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path."

Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun warming the beautiful wild flowers on the side of the path, and this cheered it some. But at the end of the trail, it still felt bad because it had leaked out half its load, and so again the pot apologized to the bearer for its failure.

The bearer said to the pot, "Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of your path, but not on the other pot's side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it. I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you've watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master's table. Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house."

Each of us has our own unique flaws. We're all cracked pots. But if we will allow it, God will use our flaws to grace his table. In God's great economy, nothing goes to waste. Don't be afraid of your flaws. Acknowledge them, and you too can be the cause of beauty. Know that in our weakness we find our strength

GOD IS GOOD

Waiting for God

The hardest part about faith is that it is just that - faith - nothing concrete, nothing "there" to focus on, to see. Faith is believing in that which we cannot see, hear, touch or sense in any normal way. Thus, if we have prayed to God to provide us with a solution, we must have faith that He will provide it, for that is what He promises in His word. Of course we have to do what we can from our side - we do the possible, God deals with the impossible. Two thing that are hard, for me especially, to remember are this: 1, even though we do what we can, we still only do it through God's grace and power, thus He must get all the credit, and 2, God will do the rest IN HIS TIME, which usually has NOTHING to do with our concept of time. I am usually stressed and in a semi-panic when God puts His hand on my shoulder and says (I imagine with a slight smile on His face) "What are you worried about, don't you trust me - see, here is the solution."

When life throws you around........

One life lesson I have learned with the help and encouragement of my lovely wife, is that when life throws you around and you feel as though you are going to come crashing down on your head, don't try to land on your feet - land on your knees !

From your knees you look up at the world, you learn the right attitude. From your knees you are equal to your fellow man. On your knees you are vulnerable. On your knees you are closer to the earth - away from worldly comforts. And lastly, on your knees you learn to get to the point before your knees start killing you !

God listens when we are on our knees - not because He wants us to suffer or be uncomfortable, but because when we are on our knees He knows our focus is on Him and we are serious. On our knees we show God that we do not think we are better than our brothers or sisters on earth and that we are not ashamed to show others that we are praying to God. On our knees we are also an encouragement for our fellow Christians as God wants us to be. 

So land on your knees and God will help you to your feet.

eb - 11/7/11

Miracles come in CANS: Lessons Learnt... part 1

Miracles come in CANS: Lessons Learnt... part 1: "Life is filled with irony, for example I decided in my brittle state (this was on the 1st of July 2009) to for the first time in my life, ta..."

How to Rebut 3 Common Objections to Measuring Performance

You’ve done your research, you’ve prepared your case, and your next step is to try and convince managers and colleagues to endorse your proposal for a performance measurement project. And you brace yourself because you know what’s coming…

It will be a torrent of ‘yeah-buts’ – basically, objections to giving time, money or effort to performance measurement. Are you going to sit back and take it, or do something about it before it even happens?

OBJECTION 1: Performance measurement hasn’t worked in the past.
What’s happening with this objection is that the person is assuming that because there has so far been no successful approach to performance measurement, that means there can’t be a successful approach in the future. Your focus should be on raising and challenging this assumption, and offering an approach to performance measurement that acknowledges the causes of failure and show how that approach solves those causes.

A constructive response: “You’re absolutely right that performance measurement has had problems – we’ve got too many measures, people don’t find the measures useful, they don’t align to our strategy and staff are spending too much time collecting data for these useless measures. So if we want performance measurement to succeed, we obviously need to take a different approach, and an approach that deliberately solves and prevents these kinds of problems. Here’s how my proposed approach does that…”

OBJECTION 2: We don’t have time for performance measurement.
At the foundation of this objection is the assumption that everything people are currently doing is of a higher priority than performance measurement. We already know that people spend a lot of time on urgent things that aren’t in alignment with strategy or that are rework resulting from ineffective or inefficient processes. You simply need to highlight how good performance measures can reduce the time wasted on these kinds of activities, and therefore is of a higher priority than these activities.

A constructive response: “I agree – it seems like we’re all getting busier and busier and the last thing we need is something ELSE to try and squeeze into our days. And yet I can’t help noticing how a good proportion of the things we do can be done so much easier and quicker. For example, [insert some well-research examples from your organisation]. I truly believe that it’s better to risk taking time out from some of these urgent-but-not-important activities, in order to prevent them from continuing to happen in the future.”

OBJECTION 3: We already know what matters, performance measures won’t tell us anything new.
The assumption propping up this objection is that just by looking around or relying on our experience with the work we do, we can see and know everything that matters. But the truth is, we all have biases caused by our values and moods and what we notice and what we don’t notice. And these biases prevent us from seeing objectively the patterns and trends that data can show us more quickly and easily.
It’s not hard to demonstrate this with a few examples of how data has led people to surprising and valuable insights they otherwise would have missed.

A constructive response: “Our people have a fantastic knowledge of the work they do and a very strong commitment to doing their best. Our job is to empower them, so they can more easily focus on what will produce the best results. We can’t expect them to simultaneously watch the big picture as well as what’s right in front of them. Performance measures are great for showing them what’s happening in the big picture, quickly and easily, so they can make the best choices about what’s currently in front of them. For example, [insert some examples of how performance measures have produced insights that no-one noticed from just looking around].”

Be prepared, respectful, honest and focused on the big picture.
Handling objections to performance measurement requires that you dig a little deeper to understand the assumptions people are making that lead to their objections, raising those assumptions so everyone realises they are there, and then stimulating some dialogue to move beyond the objection.

It’s not about being a smarty-pants or winning a debate with the person who voices the objection. It’s about elevating the dialogue to a constructive level, so you can all get a better understanding and movement forward.

TAKE ACTION:
Which of these three objections is blocking your path to better performance measurement? Take pen to paper for 15 minutes and prepare some well-informed, respectful and constructive responses to the ways you expect this objection to be expressed by your managers or colleagues.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stacey Barr is the Performance Measure Specialist, helping strategic planners, business analysts and performance measurement officers confidently facilitate their organisation to create and use meaningful performance measures with lots of buy-in. Sign up for Stacey’s free email tips at www.staceybarr.com/202tipsKPI.html and receive a complimentary copy of her renowned e-book “202 Tips for Performance Measurement”.

Banks are the biggest evil !!!

Money is human labor transferred to a store of value, like dollars, euros, gold or silver. For example, when someone pays $30 for a kilo of fish, they are not paying for the fish in the ocean, they are paying for it on their plate. The difference between a happy fish swimming in the deep blue sea and a grilled halibut glistening before you is human effort. All other businesses that want to get a return on an asset must first buy the asset with money earned through work. 

This is not the case for banks. They earn interest on something they don't create.

In fact, a Minnesota Judge, Martin V. Mahoney, and a jury threw out a foreclosure on defendant Jerome Daly for just that reason. Daly argued that the there was no consideration in the contract between himself and the First National Bank of Montgomery. Consideration means both parties must give up something for there to be a contract. For example, if Jack offers to paint Jill’s apartment for free, there is no contract between them. If Jack bails on his offer to paint, Jill cannot sue him. Judge Mahoney ruled the bank gave up nothing in the contract.  They created the money out of thin air hence they did not commit anything to the contract; there was no consideration and the bank could not foreclose.

For everyone except banks, money is an expression of human labor, creativitity, or even luck.  But for banks, money is something they simply 'create' in exchange for IOU's. 

See the full article here

This is why banks hate it when you pay off all your debt - this means that you don't work for them anymore !!!

ESKOM !

Ok - so let me get this straight. You underperform, forget to do maintainence, don't understand the basics of capacity planning or predictable expansion, make a huge loss, pay your execs millions in bonusses, give them an average salary increase of over 110% and then YOU EXPECT US TO PAY UP TO 31% MORE TO SUBSIDIZE YOUR STUFF-UP !!!!!! 

This is why the world laughs at us !  We reward idiocy, corruption and lawlessnes with fame and money.

SA Consumers - are we all so pathetic that we cannot even stand together against this CRAP !!!!