Self Illumination

Managing PartnerPhenomena Communications

Dr. Ali Anani - Managing Partner

Dr. Ali Anani : As General Manager, Dr. Ali Anani heads and supervises a team of talented young professionals, and manages the overall brand strategy - ensuring the cohesiveness and creative parts of each campaign for all Agency clients.

Dr. Ali Anani holds a PhD from the UK (1972). He has a wide experience in many fields. His accomplishments include the writing of more than eighty publications in international journals, the writer of three printed books in Arabic and one E-book in English. He has written widely for the media and presented a TV program and many radio programs.

Dr. Anani main credit is his creativity thinking where he scored among the top %5

international conferences and an author of many business slogans. Moreover, he

has consulted for many international agencies including UNIDO, Atomic Energy Agency, UNDP, ESCWA, private businesses and governmental agencies.

indexConditions for SuccessWrong strategies Are ThornyCrossing the Intangible BridgesSocietal Fragility Must Be StoppedThe Profits SyndromeInducing Opposites for PurposeThe C-Day Is ApproachingWhat Unites Us All?Positive NegativityPairing ThinkingProfits Weedy Ideas and How to Deal with Them?Living on the EdgeGrowing IgnoranceTrustphobic CharactersMisunderstanding the MessageLive and Leave Good LeavesLife below the SoilA Fibonacci Perspective of EmotionsHoles in MindsThe Profit ParadoxThe Opinion PathExpecting the UnexpectedBuilding on Cores and not ArmsThe Flaw in the FlowIs Success the Organized Outcome of Chaotic Movements?The Team LabWill People-Before-Profit Movement Succeed?The Paradox of Fast WinsThe Dizziness of Employee RotationA Controversial Business MetaphorA Metaphor on the Movement of BusinessesArranging for SuccessThe Orbitals of NeedsDisturbing Social CompetitionHow Feeling Insignificant Makes You Significant?Reverse Competition of ValuesThe Butterfly Effect of TimeLeaders with Wet HeartsThe Luminescence of Minds

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Conditions for SuccessIt is amazing when people do more of the same and believe results will change. It is like if I fry eggs with vegetable oil I would get a banana cake. Results shall not change unless we have different ingredients that will make a banana cake.

Organizations that worked with the wrong ingredients are mostly continuing the same thing and yet get surprised when results don›t change. One false ingredient is that profits come first. Profits are the banana cake and will only come as a result of serving people and not the other way round. This is a directional fact.

Organizations that worked with the wrong ingredients are mostly continuing the same thing and yet get surprised when results don›t change. One false ingredient is that profits come first. Profits are the banana cake and will only come as a result of serving people and not the other way round. This is a directional fact.This explains my unconditional support for the uplifting purpose of the People-Before-Profit (PBP) Group. Having a purpose that serves people is the third party that glues members of the PBP Group together. We need to remember that there exists no real strong bond between two parties; it is always stronger through a third party. To explain, a wife and husband might differ and come close to divorce. If they have a kid then both the father and the mother would consider the ill-impact of divorce on the kid. They both have a shared purpose: to give their kid the opportunity to grow up healthily spiritually and physically.

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The kid is the third party that may prevent or delay divorce.

The PBP Group has the purpose of serving people before making profits. This is the gluing third party among its members. Even though this is a pre-requisite for success; however it doesn›t guarantee it. Like any group it takes positive thinking to plan out an action plan. The question that popped up in my mind is why some groups or communities succeed and others fail? My search led me to an excellent and thoughtful post in which the success of local communities depends on completing repeatedly a four-stage process as is shown in the figure below.

The PBP is not a transactional one in the sense it is not aiming at improving the current understanding of business; it is more towards transforming the future of how to do business by putting people before profit. The success of the PBP group depends on selecting the right members who share the same passion for transforming the future of business this way. This is the binding glue for members of the group who come from different parts of the globe. The purpose is their concern to serve people first. The members have other concerns in building strong clusters of different specialties and to communicate effectively with people everywhere to get their feedback. The PBP should not only have its own resources; but also connecting with people with particular interests so as the PBP may not distant itself from the masses. It is through people and their contacts that the reachability of the purpose and services of the Group may be channeled to the right people effectively. It is the entanglement of the peoples› desires with those desires of people and their communication channels that will fuel commitment.

The PBP Group is having its first global meeting in Las Vegas on May 12th, 2016. This is the time when grape yards will be blossoming. What does these yards teach us? We wish the grape flowers of the PBP Group to blossom to the best grape fruits. The growth cycle of vineyards go through four stages as is shown below:

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During the Bud Break stage, buds start growing shoots, which in turn and eventually sprout tiny leaves that can begin the process of photosynthesis, producing the energy to accelerate growth. The buds of ideas of the PBP must grow shoots and generate many ideas, even tiny ones, so as to accelerate the growth of the group. The early shoots are vulnerable to frosting; likewise the PFP Group should pay attention that even though it is holding its meeting in May, still some opponents shall try to «freeze» its shoots of ideas. The Group should know how to sway away the freezing winds away from its shoots.

Depending on temperatures, 80–40 days after bud break the process of flowering begins with small flower clusters appearing on the tips of the young shoots looking like buttons. Here is the need for the PBP Group to enthuse the attendees and the public to the value of its purpose. This shall reduce the time required for the flowering of its ideas to begin. It is equally important to realize the time requirement here are lengthy and maximum patience by all PBP members must be exercised. This patience shall be rewarding soon as the stage of fruit set follows flowering almost immediately. Equally important is that the Group forms clusters based on clear criteria and to address peoples› desires. The next stage is veraison, which means the onset of ripening. The grapes remain mostly sour so that they may not be eaten by predators. The strategy here is that the grapes remain «sour for the foxes» to ripen. This is followed by reversing the strategy and turning grapes into sweet ones. The reason is survival is that animals may distribute the seeds. There is a great lesson here for the PBP Group in that it should be «sour» to opponents till its purpose meets support enough to turn the idea into very sweet ones so that people may adopt and distribute them. It is at this stage that people shall connect and commit themselves to the group purpose.

It is by linking the two diagrams above that PBP Group shall be able to strategize it efforts. The grape yard is a great metaphor for this course of action. It is a nice surprise that the May conference is held close to grape yards.

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Wrong strategies Are ThornyA question overwhelms my mind. Are we the «product of circumstances» and if environment shapes us the way we are? The question spurred my mind having noticed how plants respond to critical environmental conditions repeatedly. This behavior ends up as a habit and a way of living. Are thorny behaviors of some people right in being forced to behave the way they do? It is not only behaviors; it is also making thorny assumptions that make life difficult for all.

Showing by examples is a good approach to explaining what I mean. Many plants have thorns, prickles or spines. Prickles, for example

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Harsh environments can create harsh behaviors and self-defense strategies. Pickles, thorns and spines are examples of such strategy. When they are noticeable to the naked eye they send a warning of don›t get near me or try to «eat me». Other behaviors resulting from scarcity of resources in harsh environments include being «extensive exploiters». Many smaller shrubs have a dense network of shallow roots that allow them to compete with other plants for water. Survival needs may even turn some plants into being very cunningly aggressive. For example, few shrubs are heavily branched and are pungent-smelling with roots which have roots that secrete chemicals that are toxic to nearby plants. The harsher the environment is the more aggressive plants may get. The self-defending strategies may change to aggressive strategies in some cases.

The aggression behavior may be so well disguised that it takes years to uncover them. Recent research (See the article «Plant biological warfare: thorns inject pathogenic bacteria into herbivores.» in Environ Microbiol, volume 9 on page 584) has revealed some disturbing findings. The nicely-colored thorns may release toxic pathogens to the wounded victims. This is death hiding in colorful thorns.

Scarcity may lead to different strategies. Plants have four different strategies to cope with the problem of water and nutrients scarcity as outlined in my presentation below:

Human may apply similar strategies to cope with harsh business environments. The lack of resources may send businesses into heated competition. Examples include wounding a competitor›s reputation and injecting the wounds with killing rumors. They could lead to depriving other competitors from resources by buying out all sources of a raw material. Establishing entangled networks so as to mutualism is another form of depriving competition from customers.

The problem extends to work environments. Depriving employees from useful information is creating a harsh environment for employees. This in turn could shape up the behavior of employees to adopt thorny strategies, which could develop into aggressive ones. This is a crucial issue for fear that employees who develop such behaviors at work may spell same behavior out to customers as well. Harsh work environments when combined with harsh business environment may inflame self-defense strategy into aggressive ones.

Making profit more important than people has the recipe of disaster. Profits drive managers to apply excessive pressures on employees signaling the start of a harsh work environment. If the prevailing economic conditions are lagging or getting slower they feed back on the internal work environment. Again, more pressure on employees is applied. The result is that aggressive employees may apply all sorts of negative strategies to protect themselves. A chaotic society may result.

Companies that have profits-Before-People strategies may be responsible for creating a society in which individuals may have to have thorns, prickles or spines if not all combined. The decreasing opportunities are for these companies to make profits, the more aggressive they shall be. But, it is their strategy that poison the work environment which in turn reduces profits. These are strategies of tightening the rope of profits on their necks. We know what results to expect.

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Crossing the Intangible BridgesA recent post by Sara Jacobvici enlightened me and surely changed me. Sara wrote in her post «I’m never in the same place twice. In other words, I’m not stuck in a transition, I am always moving from one transition towards another. What this means for me is that I need to adapt to the process of change which I need to experience in order for me to grow, develop and succeed. I need to find my “settled” spots or resting places in different ways».

This is a profound statement. Change is a process taking us from one state to another. What carries us from on state to the next is a bridge. This could be a moving bridge, a fixed one, a straight one, an arched one, it could be wooden or not. It could be a tangible bridge or an intangible one. It could be a lasting bridge or it could be a very short-lived ones.

Quite often than not, radical changes are associated with short «life spans». Take chemical reactions and the transition bridges between reactants and products are of fleeting existence. We can hardly capture them. If the products are firmly «settled» in their new spots they don›t revert back to reactants.

The beauty of flowers, the dim lights of dawns, the sunset that separates end of daylight and the arrival of night are the repeating bridges that never fail us. As we cross these bridges we move from one state of emotions to different ones. Some people live in constant worry for fear the lovely dawn hours shall soon disappear only to realize that the dawn has already disappeared. Other people enjoy the dawn and once it disappears they know when the

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next dawn shall arrive.

Emotional transitions are fast and as we move from one state of passion to another one over short-lived bridges. These bridges may be branched into many directions. Let us go back to the dawn example. One person will enjoy it and as the dawn disappears he/she is in a new state being willed with positive emotions. The same person could have a different perspective by complaining that the dawns are-only short-lived. By the time the dawn disappears he/she shall be in a sad state. One bridge takes us to more joy and the other bridge taking us to an undesirable state that doesn›t like to stay in that spot. But the experience shall repeat itself the next dawn and the same person will have the choice at the intersection of the two bridges which one to take. If this person takes the same saddening bridge this becomes later a habit in which the person shall sadly stay in for long times.

Life is thus a continuous series of intersecting bridges that may take us to different states. We experience this everyday while driving, to give an example. The driver in front of you makes a sudden stop or changes direction and he endangers your life. You could say may be he is sick and is not at his best times to drive and this fleeting thinking is your bridge to the state of toleration. Or, you might get angry with the driver and do acts to stop him or start yelling at him. This bridge shall take you to a negative state. Building negativity on negativity shall become a trend. Staying in its «comfort» might be the consequence.

Small and fleeting bridges may as a consequence result in building lasting bridges. The consequential moving to negative states may act at the same time in developing the bridges of habit on crossing them without even thinking. This is worrying as it takes far more effort to correct solidified bridges.

Businesses build bridges to interact with their customers. Imagine now that these businesses arrive at a bridge with two branches. One bridge of choice is to put people before profits. The other bridge takes these businesses to profit before people. This last choice is a negative one and upon repeating this behavior for long times walking this bridge becomes spontaneity. And soon the building of more negativity of a negative bridge shall collapse the bridge.

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Societal Fragility Must Be StoppedKeep writing posts- is a call that I received from many thoughtful readers. Is this a good strategy to follow? Or, is it better to write occasionally so that readers may miss your posts. It is like a friend who makes rare visits and this way I miss the friend. Which option to take? Is there a formula to help in answering these questions?

To write quite often may sound like a problem of surplus. Exceeding certain limits may be counter effective. Writing very frequently may turn into a problem of «over feeding». It is like over feeding a plant with fertilizers as over feeding plants with them can lead to fragility including pest attraction and disease. If we consider posts the fertilizer of minds then writing excessively can be a risky habit. Could this habit induce fragility to the minds of readers or the writer›s relationship with them?

This leads me to the concept of emotional fragility and an author may turn the emotions of his readers towards him into fragile ones. If the readers give strong emotions to a writer and then get soaked with many frequent posts they may have dry emotions to the writer. Like wet clay when it dries it cleaves and so are the emotions of readers. Emotional withdrawals are hard to reverse again and due care is eminent.

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The issue of emotional fragility is worthy of careful consideration and may lead to undesirable consequences. The emerging societies are subject to increased emotional fragility. This was shown in a great article titled «Causes of Students’ Emotional Fragility: Five Perspectives». Digging deep into this problem shows that it is a problem of surplus. Excessive controlling by college students whose parents are highly intrusive, controlling, and over-protective are especially prone to emotional difficulties and maladaptive feelings of entitlement. The parents want their siblings to get a high grading to qualify for acceptance at reputed universities. Their exert pressures on their kids, on teachers and on society to make sure their goal is realized. The teachers are under pressure to give high grades even when some students don›t deserve an A grade. Not all teachers have high resilience to pressure. The superficial A›s students attend universities and join courses given by part-time lecturers. The performance of part-time lecturers is in part judged by students, who shall not give high evaluations unless they get high grades. Once these students graduate and attend work they have already formed the habit of getting what they want by applying pressure. The conflict initiates as employers pay their salaries expecting certain levels of performances by the graduates. The latter fail expectations. Tension builds up at work and productivity suffers.

Emotional fragility has its rippling effect and the society suffers. We are building systems that don›t put people first starting from home. By not putting people first we are inducing fragile habits and the whole society suffers. It is a mentality that must be changed. We have seen many proofs of it. Shaky organizations because of falling performances, employees who produce little but require «soft» work conditions are accompanied by declining creativity. We have seen it in hospitals where some MDs make fatal diagnosis or give the wrong prescriptions. The examples too many to count, but the idea is that we lost the vigor to do the right thing right. We are putting family interests before societal interests. We are making quick profits as our prime goal. Profits are centered in the hands of few and again further fragility is introduced to our societies.

«People before Profit» is the way so as to restore the resilience of our societies. Continuing with the excessive practices will only compound our problems. If the value of an individual is «tell me how much money you make I tell you what your worth is» is a distortion of values and shall only lead to further societal fragility. It shall penetrate to all societal levels. This shall hurt all societal activities. «Profits before people» is simply a call for societal breakage.I would rather be accused of writing in surplus rather than feeding the society of surplus fragile emotions. That is my cry- put people before profits.

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The Profits SyndromeThe ultimate objective of a business is to make profits, without which a business shall not survive. There is no denial to this fact. It is when this objective overwhelms the mind that things starts to get distorted. Profits for the business and excluding the interests of people and the environment and basic human values are a recipe for disasters. Imagine a case in which a tires manufacturing company produces mal-manufactured tires. These tires are risky and could lead to fatalities. Still the company uses them in their manufactured cars. The innocent people who pay for the cars end in paying for their death or serious injuries. Who profited then? This is an appalling scenario because the profit of one side is at the cost of lives of others.

Selling pharmaceuticals with side effects that offset their benefits is another example of profits that are not. Shelves that are packed with expired products, selling meet that is not suitable for human consumption and trading in faulty building materials that lead to the collapse of buildings in which these materials are used are just few more notorious examples of focusing on profits for one side regardless of the cost it inflicts on people. Trading drugs is a sure way of making huge profits on the expense of the families and their emotional and financial cohesions. The movie « Erin Brockovich» in which an unemployed single mother becomes a legal assistant and almost single-handed brings down a California power company accused of polluting a city›s water supply is a shining example of the distortion I am talking about.

Profits have their boundaries and exceeding those boundaries turns the profit desire into

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a blind greed that is blind to peoples› interests. This burning desire to make profits while causing severe hazards to the buying customers is a prescription for disaster. Seeing profit in the sole perspective of money-making may deprive the societies from the limiting values that keep making profits within its acceptable zone.

The rich becomes richer and the poor poorer is even further aggravated by using illegal ways to satisfy the hunger for making more monetary profits. The result is a society with huge discrepancies and differences in its void structure. The greater the differences are, the weaker the whole society shall get and the possibility of its structure falling down. I discussed this terrible consequence and its destructive impact in the presentation below, which I urge you to scan through to fully comprehend this idea:

We cause a problem and then try to solve it. Making profits as the sole objective of businesses is a problematic attitude that is causing huge harm on all levels. We waste our energies in solving problems that we alarmingly created. This attitude has stretched too many domains in our lives and crippled long-standing values. School teachers are among the least paid in many countries. People avoid this job because a teacher is no longer respected for the profits the society gets from him in bringing up healthy generations. The attitude prevailing is that a teacher is a poor person. His worth is not what he provides the society with; it is how much money he/she makes. The results are frightening as people are avoiding teaching as a job or teachers get immersed in giving private tuition to make more money. For me, this is the most alarming issue. It is not only the poor get poorer as much as it is the values of societies are getting poorer as well. This unfortunate trend is spiraling with its damaging effect.

People make money, but money doesn›t make people. This is another example of irreversible equations. It is only through putting value to peoples› interest and serving them first that we may reverse the wrong trend and make profits, and including non-monetary ones, of value in our lives. That is the explanation of titling my post of yesterday «Social Fragility Must Be Stopped».

We don›t to stand on icy glories that melt as soon as the sun of reality shines out. We need to avoid sinking into the polluted waters of making monetary profits the sole value of a business.

We don›t to stand on icy glories that melt as soon as the sun of reality shines out. We need to avoid sinking into the polluted waters of making monetary profits the sole value of a business.

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Inducing Opposites for PurposeI am writing from home because I am not feeling well; yet I can›t resist the drive to write this post. The outstanding post of Sara Jacobovici of yesterday titled «Human Paradox 2#: Being Independently Dependent» exited me to the extent I find myself writing. In her post, Sara wrote «From Ali Anani’s provocative post on negativity and positivity, and the dynamic discussion of opposites that ensued, this series titled Human Paradox emerged». The exchange of ideas with Sara is developing into a game by throwing an «idea ball» at her and she responding by returning another «idea ball» at me.

Dealing with opposites is a tricky, but is an extremely enjoyable game. Building a strategy to invest in differences is possible, even though it requires advanced creative thinking. Let me start with a real story from which we may deduce a possible strategy.

My neighbor had two kids with opposite characters. One kid was nice and quiet; the other one was trouble maker and rough. My neighbor lived on renting few flats in which he collected monthly rents. As expected, some of the tenants procrastinated in paying the rent on time. My neighbor used to send first his «polite» kid to them to remind them of the due rent. Some tenants responded and the rest didn›t. So, the next time my neighbor sent his rough kid to those tenants who didn›t pay the rent. The kid was so aggressive that most of them paid the rent to him to avoid his harsh words and possible wicked actions.

The previous story shows how we may build a strategy to use opposite characters to our

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advantage by applying one opposite at a time. The strategy would follow the steps shown in the graph below:

Having opposites may be employed using a different strategy than the one I proposed above. Here, we may learn from nature. If we look at the bizarre behavior of plants we find that they use smell to repel and attract. That is to say same smell has dual, but opposing functions. The Stink Lily plant, which is found mostly in the Balkans regions, got its nicknames from the smell that it gives off, which has been compared to the smell of rotting flesh. The smell attracts pollinators so that the plant can continue to grow. The good thing is that the smell is only temporary and does eventually go away. What a creative way of using opposites! There are many other plants which behave similarly. They use the same smell to keep away predators while inviting pollinators.

Storytelling benefits from conflicts in personalities. One extrovert and the other introvert for example. When we wish to mix with people very similar to us we run into the risk of staying in our comfort zone. We seek comfort and avoid disrupting it. That is great as long as we don›t wish to experiment, discover and learn. It is in dealing with opposite characters that we get challenged, find new zones to walk into and open our eyes to new possibilities. I find homogeneous teams whose members share same attributes efficient, but not very creative. It is in the diversity that we see new possibilities. This is one of the risks of having social groups of similar interests as there is very little to disturb «their waters». Similar teams or groups or two people are like two keys with no lock to open. The challenge is to find the lock for the key and having the creativity to do that using smart approaches. I suggest to you my presentation below which shows how to use the opposites of silk flowers versus natural flowers purposefully:

The opposites that puzzle me the most are optical isomers. These are molecules that have same structure, but aren›t superimposable on each other.

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Notice how building up differences results in «emerging» properties. Notice that each of the black atoms carries the same four different atoms or groups. Yet; they are not superimposable on each other. This results in much diversity in their performances. One molecule shall turn the polarized light to the right while the other molecule will turn the light to the left.

You might ask, but so what? My answer is that our bodies are rich of molecules that exhibit this character. Not only that as our bodies show different metabolic pathways to the molecule rotating polarized light to the right than same molecules which turn light to the left. There is need to separate the constituent of drugs and only use the isomer that heals our bodies. Using the two together could lead to drastic harmful impacts. A still living example is the Thalidomide. The drug was used o treat pregnant women from morning sickness. Only years later it was discovered that this drug was responsible for the missing limbs of babies. The drug had the two optical isomers: one active and the other causing the babies› problems.

Opposites may have their «butterfly effect. A small difference in one molecule turning light right and the other isomer turning light left caused huge problems to humanity. Not all opposites are innocent.

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The C-Day Is ApproachingMay 2016 ,12 is the date for launching the People-before-Profit global conference in Las Vegas. The conference has +30 renowned speakers from different regions of our world. The attendees will cover the five continents and more. The conference shall be a great event by being a conference of brains and hearts united in putting people before profit. The dedicated workshops accompanying the conference shall provide greater opportunities for attendees to exchange knowledge and to strengthen their human bonds. It shall be a thrilling experience to meet with virtual friends with whom we built spiritual relationship in person. It is going to be a conference of minds, hearts, and exchange of knowledge all in a joyful atmosphere.

Sounds too good to believe! Yes, it is realizing that the whole idea of the Group was initiated by dear brother Brad Fergusson only few months ago. Dream big to achieve big, but the bigger the dreams are, the more difficult it is to realize them. It is like a kid aiming to reach the top of a high mountain with the harsh rocks of the mountain making the way up to the peak even harder. In spite of all these challenges Brad Fergusson didn›t lose heart and his unyielding determination made him focus on his noble goal with difficulties seen as opportunities to achieve more. Amazingly, over the period of only few months Brad successfully passed many milestones and is still heading his way relentlessly.

I find that nothing dilutes difficulties more than believing in a great purpose and following it with enough determination. This is the story of Brad Fergusson as his achievements reached

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the peak of his mountainous dream. This is a lesson for all that if there is a genuine will there should be a way. A thorny way may be, but experiences are the gloves that protect us from the thorns. It might get chilly at the top of the mountain, but the warm heart of Brad Fergusson to his friends and his concerns are the blanket not to keep him only warm, but also to those faithful friends around him.

I find the post of dear Jenna Stones on Brad Fergusson so fitting that I decided to make a «public-known» stealing of her image and incorporate it in this post.

As the C-Day (I mean Conference Day) approaches and our hearts beat faster we feel that it is time to take a pause and say: Thank You dear Brad Fergusson.

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What Unites Us All?I find me asking myself questions that sound so naive that I fail to answer them. One question is what unites people? What unites two members of a family, the whole family, the community, the society, the neighboring countries, a geographical region or the whole world? Is the uniting factor the same at all levels or does it vary?

Is it survival? That is an important factor because we see birds flock together and help each other by flying in flocks and within V-formations. We see it in fish because they find better survival opportunities in gathering in huge numbers. In wealthy families is survival an issue? Most likely it is not at the moment. The creation of The United Nations has the purpose of peace for all nations and this leads to achieving the purpose of survival for all. Apparently, working from top to down approach is not good enough to keep this dream fully alive.

Is it trust? Is this enough to unite people? With all the differences we inherited over the centuries we have created so many rooted differences that make full trust almost an impossible dream. We lost trust by not being trustful to differences and accepting them as a way of enjoying differences; instead to fight over them. Like a garden of flowers with so many flowers with different colors and fragrances that live together has its beauty because of the joy of differences that we experience. However; when it comes to humans and their «garden of differences» we behave differently. We tend to see the thorns in flowers and become self-defending with trust waning away. We have even created The Black Swan and The Black Tulip when we were doing the wrong things to Black people. A car is good as long as it is black. We started segregating beauty and enlarging our preferences. Is it then the

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lack of enjoying differences that is preventing humans from acting together?

The agony is that our inability to enjoy differences extends to all facets of life. Religions have been a cause of many wars. Religions are like flowers each with its fragrance; but we focused our attention on which one has the better one. In the process, we started to relegate other religions. Language is another example in which each language has its fragrance; yet we failed to enjoy the differences and went into logical preferences that plant the seeds of conflict. Race and country of origin are different; and again we fell miserably in enjoying the differences and make them a source of conflict because we even scale u differences. If an Arab makes a evil action the voices reach the sky kill Arabs. The evil act triggered the wrong attitudes of hating a nation because of its race, language and the «stored» feelings towards that nation.

We need to find an element that scales up from the individual to the whole world to act as a real bonding element among people. An element that scales up regardless of the differences, that only stands the test of time, but also strengthens with time. We need an element that applies to all regardless of their differences. WE need an element that is not based on profit from relationship because profits for some all losses for others. WE need a concept that doesn›t disengage itself from us like paint disengages from its substrate.

Thinking about the factor I find it to be LOVE. But not any love. It is a conditional one. It loves for others what you love for yourself. This is the fractal initiator that can extend its roots from individuals to families and teams and all the way up to the world. When you love others you think of their interests and grow to believe that if you do you are actually serving yourself, your family and the world.

Loving people means doing to them what you like for yourself. This is the unifying concept in a world that is fragmented because of differences rather than enjoying them.reached

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Positive NegativityTo be living is to be growing for a plant to live it has to grow. Businesses need to grow. Our hopes and aspirations need to grow. Trees need to grow. It is how trees grow that fascinates me and is worthy of pondering on and on.

Trees grow and they keep their fractal shape. They keep their uniformity. They keep the provision of equal opportunities for all leaves to have exposure to light and humidity. Trees do that keeping the Golden Ratio. It is the fairness and loving for other leaves what a leaf loves for itself that keeps the unity of a tree. The branches seemed to have a spiral pattern that reached up into the sky. It is amazing that solar panels arranged in emulation of the tree leaves and branches have the maximum efficiency in collecting sunlight.

It is fairness and loving for others what to love for self that builds the confidence for a tree to grow. This collective action makes the interest of all higher than the interest of one individual (leaf ). As our societies grow it is important to realize that growth should serve the interests of all that will keep the integrity of the social tree. It is not a genuine growth that advances one part of the society while ignoring other parts. It is like a tree growing healthily in one section and staying ailing in another. Soon the tree dies.

Within this frame of growth the tree grows tall. New heights impose new challenges. How will the tree transport water from the soil all the way up to the top sections of the tree? Why wouldn›t the lower parts capture all the water with its dissolved nutrients and deny the top

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sections of them? Even if the lower branches of tree attempted to do that would they be able to? So many questions percolate in my mind. But the one question of concern here is the way the tree transfer nutrients-enriched water extracted from the soil all the way to the top. It is by creating a negative pressure at the top. The majority of water molecules fall from the top leaves downwards because of gravity. The difference in concentration of water molecules creates a huge negative pressure at the top that overweigh the forces of gravity. This corresponds to a pressure decrease of one atmospheric pressure every ten meters. Water molecules then move up from the positive pressure to neutralize the negative pressure at the top of the tree. I call this positive negativity because the negative pressure led to positive actions. If not, the performance of organizations shall fall as dead leaves do.

This is an amazing mechanism and has many lessons to teach us. The top management must be the first to sacrifice water (resources, power, or whatever) and create negative pressure and not a positive one on employees. This way the equivalent of water and nutrients in the base soil get naturally to the top in which each layer of the tree acts as a supporter of the water transportation. What is equivalent to water and nutrients is the information at the base level of the organization. If the top management exerts positive pressure all it shall get is the transfer of orders from top to bottom. Organizations can›t grow high without having solid bases and the roots to extract information. More importantly, the unity of purpose and loving for others what a human loves for himself that eventually lead to a coherent structure that serves its own interest by allowing information to reach the top managerial level. Nutrients are not in the air and they are near the base.

My previous post on «What Unites Us All»? received a wealth of comments and thoughts. Some authors suggested thoughts as the unifying factor; others suggested power, enlightenment and love. We have a living metaphor- the tree- and show us the way ahead. It is when we serve each other as we want to be served lies the solution. Love and enlightenment are great catalysts when we realize that good things travel up easily if the pressure at the top is negative. This is only possible if people at the top give more than they take realizing that it is the only way to keep the coherence of the growing tree.

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Pairing ThinkingTo sleep is to awake; to live be to die, to think positively is to think negatively and the examples roll on. We live in pairs in spite of us separating the components of the pairs. In doing so, we lose. It is by accepting the pairs as a unity that we may arrive at even creative solutions and I shall show with examples.

I follow up on my previous two posts, which drew quite numerous and valuable comments that prompted me to write this post. I want to start with a simple example: the half empty cup, but in a different perspective. I show first the cup filled with optimism and pessimism. This cup could in reality be filed with any polar pairs (positive and negative).

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I consider optimism the denser of the two pairs and therefore fill the bottom half of the cup. The more we fill the cup the less of pessimism we have. We could fill the cup till the brim so that no pessimism shall be left. Is that fine working with one component of the dipolar pair?

My answer is that this could be counter-productive. This is simply we negating reality if we do so. It is like having a day without the night and the terrible effects this will have on our health. We need a stabilizing effect to our exaggerated sense of optimism like we stabilize our body temperature with negative feedback loops. I am therefore in accordance with the article on «How to Harness the Positive Power of Negative Thinking», in which the author Oliver Burkeman states « Consider the logic: when you try to persuade yourself that everything will work out for the best, you risk reinforcing your unspoken belief that it would be utterly catastrophic if they didn’t. Instead, try soberly working through how badly things could really go. You may find that your fears get cut down to manageable size».

We need to go with nature and not against it. That is why I find handling pairing is the natural thing and the swing to one extreme without a solid purpose can fire back. When our selectivity of going for one extreme polar end we fail to embrace reality, the natural laws of pairing and we start to swim against the tide. This is a way of self-deceive.

«In simple terms I say we have to think positively about negativity».

I enjoyed reading the E-book on The Positive Effect of Negativity, the books offer four examples of campaigns that benefitted from negativity. I produced the below figure from the text extracted from the E-book to show how a negative, but active minority awakened the sleepy majority to their case. It is an example of which the negative produces positive effects.

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I give another example from a post that Joanne Swecker shared recently. I love the way she paired the mind and heart, as shown in her image below:

My dear friend Edward Lewellen shared a very thoughtful post recently on «The Death of Your True Values», which is quite relevant to this post. Equally important are the great comments there contributed by many thinkers such as Yogesh Raheja, Rod King, Ph.D and JENNA STONE. The comments are of great value to this post.

And the big question now «Is it People before profit, or profit before people? I am separating the two opposites. I am saying people come before profit and that does not mean profits are unwelcome. It doesn›t mean turning a blind eye to negative comments. It simply means it is the determination to turn negativity into power to awaken the passive masses into a powerhouse to make the cup mostly full with supporters of people before profit. It is the negativity that shall keep the wave going. I wonder what my friend Brad Fergusson thinks of this post. I think I guessed the answer rightly.

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Profits Weedy Ideas and How to Deal with Them?Obstacles have to be removed. If they stay for long they become deterrent to our progress, which brings in fear, diminishing self-confidence and plants all kind of evil weeds in us. How to remove obstacles is an issue that warrants thinking about. A comment by the honorable lady Isabella (Demetriou) Wesoly, BA Hons, Dip.IRIS, FRSA on one of my posts invoked the idea of this post. In her comment Isabella wrote «In creating a business plan here, there are various levels of ‹pairing› going on, (including a content/discontent 15 year old). It›s as if I am a colander: A colander separates what we mix into a pot of boiled vegetables = SOLID/LIQUID both are useful for the same and different reasons EATING/DRINKING do we eat or drink soup? I feel we do both, considering that any liquid soup contains particles of food. USEFUL HERE/USEFUL THERE Things that I do not need are useful somewhere else».

Things that I do not need are useful somewhere else. This idea brewed in my mind. We have so many tangible and intangible wastes. Emotional wastes, energy wastes, time wastes and food wastes are just few examples. Worse, may be, are the ideas and emotional wastes that stay in our bodies and intoxicate us. Nobody shall remove those wastes for us. It is the individual responsibility first.

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One possibility is eliminating wastes by treating the waste someone as the starting material for another. Thinking this way proved to be very viable in negotiations and leading them to success. I explained this possibility in the embed presentation:

But then the idea of using colanders to separate liquids from solids strokes my mind. Solid ideas that might not be «solid» and thus sticking to them become blocking obstacles to our progress. The low efficiency of our thinking results in wastes that stay in our bodies? Don›t we have colanders to remove them? Or, are the colanders blocked by the vastly growing seeds of negative thoughts, attitudes, beliefs and bad habit patterns? Or, may be the colanders are glassy and they got broken leaving sharp pieces of irritating glass in our bodies?

I feel that we get hot-headed sometimes and try to purify our ideas by adding them to a plastic colander in our heads while holding it. This is risky and the hot ideas may penetrate the holes in the colander and burn us. It is not enough to have hot ides; equally important is purifying them correctly.

Hot-headed people and hot ideas need another type of care to contain them in the «colander». We need a breathing period to deal with them to deal with them successfully. Remember that you should never add cold water to hot oil for the oil shall splash around causing risk to people around. It is far better to either add the hot ideas slowly to our «colanders» or wait for the hot person to cool down. We want an approach «colander» that removes obstacles without creating new and major problems.

We rinse fruits in a colander to wash the fruits. We brain «wash» people to clean them and reform their ideas and thoughts. Great as we achieved that- but where the washing water ended up? If it is not released outside it allows for the growth of weeds that shall block the colanders of those people we brainwashed. This reminds me of the 1964 movie «36 Hours». Germans kidnap an American major and try to convince him that World War II is over, so that they can get details about the Allied invasion of Europe out of him. The kidnapped walked up to the fact that a small wound in his body did not heal yet. How could the war have ended then? He uncovered the plot. We may brainwash people, but this is subject to finding out the real facts later.

People have developed creative methods to expand the uses of colanders. For example, they use them to sprout beans. If you wish the video below shows you how. This way you may a constant supply of fresh beans. Be careful not to leave the sprouts to grow for extended periods for the sprout beans are best when young. This shows us we need constant supply of fresh ideas and that it is best to use them when are young. Blocking the colanders in our brains will only block us from sprouting them in the colanders, but also to inhibit their sprouting because of the colanders are already blocked by old and irrelevant ideas. Best is if we could use our brains colanders to turn wastes no matter of what origin to into useful ones.

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Little strain or pain can be of help in somewhat straining some people. They are like strained yogurt to make your own Greek-style yogurt: Line the colander with cheesecloth and. drain plain yogurt overnight in the fridge (remember to place a bowl underneath to catch all the liquid!).

We need to wash old thoughts such as profits come before people. Those weedy ideas grow fast and so they lose their tastes. They grow fast and block our colanders and we must remove them first. Streams of new ideas are needed to keep the momentum of «People before Profits». We need to carefully understand that blockage of the colanders is always possible. We need to understand that we shouldn›t waste our times and resources in vain because we then block our own colanders. Instead of wasting times cleaning them it is far better to keep the colanders clean to host other functions and including turning the wastes collected by the colanders into useful products and ideas. We don›t assume easiness of the road ahead, but we shall turn the wastes resulting from own effort into useful applications. This is how people benefit and we benefit.

I hope we are not trying to remove misunderstandings, bad ideas, habits, behaviors and emotions with the same blocked colander.

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Living on the EdgeI am experiencing now living on the edge of life and death. Living in a poor health state where death is eminent, but full of a lively desire to communicate to the world my experience. The two opposites almost meeting in one point and living the death experience. This is an amazing experience where the swing of the pendulum is frozen in one point. Too tired to write, but energized to exploit the last drop of living. It is a situation in which I find all opposites meeting in point. I find myself looking in the back rear and asking myself have I been honest or dishonest. What would I have done better for myself and others? Have I cheated being dishonest?

When people build trust in a person and have no reason to be skeptic about him/her and suddenly this person behaves in a dishonest way the consequences are terrible for all parties. In a story a woman told her friend» dear X… I am sorry to tell you that your husband is living with another woman». Mrs. X blew up and started screaming and cursing her husband. When she cooled down a little, her friend told her «now I have to tell you the truth. Your husband passed away». Mrs. X replied «Oh, now I feel better that he didn›t cheat on me». Cheating was more injurious to her than death.

The longer a wife and husband live together, the more the trust is the other partner is honest and is not cheating. When a solid foundation is established between the couple,

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trust is taken for granted. If this trust is then violated the consequences are dire. The wife reaches a stage where even she would prefer her husband›s death rather than cheat on her. Cheating can thus turn a relationship that is as bright as a diamond into charcoal that is dull. Why would we do that and how to combat it? What are the consequences of rapidly falling expectations on human relations

It seems to me that people great a natural concept- if you cheat and betray the trust people put on you then same people would react to counter your betrayal. This is not only in the human domain; it extends to the animal and plants worlds too. For example, Yucca plants and moths have a mutual interaction to benefit both. The female yucca moths deposit their egg one at a time to the yucca flower. At the same time, the female moth also deposits a small amount of pollen from yucca flowers as nutrition for the yucca moths. Because most of the pollen is not consumed by the larva, yucca moths are therefore also the active pollinators for the yucca plant. “Cheating” sometimes happens when the yucca moth deposits too many eggs in one plant. In this case, the yucca plant has little to no benefits from this interaction. However, the plant has a unique way of constraining this behavior. Whereas often the constraint against cheating occurs directly to the individual, in this case the constraint occurs to the individual’s offspring. The yucca plant can “abort” the moths by aborting the flowers. Notice that the yucca plant prefers aborting its flowers to being cheated. This reminds me again of the lady who found the death of her husband less painful than finding him betraying her.

Trust and love are a genuine mixture. Loving your wife and gaining her trust that you shall not betray her or cheat on her is a the way to live a life that keeps you in sheer joy of not inflicting pain on those people you care for. Losing trust by cheating generate all the rippling negative feelings. Losing trust and love lead to mounting doubts, building of worries and anxiety and developing feelings of suspicion of self and others as well.

It is love combined with trust that does the miracles. The opposite is at least equally true. Like living between life and death on the edge; it is also the same living on the edge of lovable trust and hateful betrayal. Betrayal signals the death of a living life vividly.

Businesses should realize that customers are people who shall behave similarly if their trust to the businesses is exploited. The same lessons and the same repercussions are derived.

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Growing IgnoranceI recall my days when I have just completed my doctorate degree becoming a university lecturer. The campus was lively with sports and entertainment facility. The swimming pools in particular were very inviting. I couldn›t swim and the kids started mocking at me. I didn›t try to swim again for a while. Realizing this was a negative thinking I decided to teach myself swimming. I based my thinking on trying at night so that nobody could see me «faltering» in water. Using my scientific background I realized that if I could float while relaxed I should self-learn swimming easily. I accomplished that in a short while. The next step was to synchronize my breathing while pushing water backwards so that it may push me forwards. I watched movies of great swimmers and how they do that. Soon, I managed to swim. Next time I joined other swimmers they thought that I was acting not knowing how to swim. The feelings that my self-worth was diminishing was the true force towards me to learn swimming and restore my self-worth.

Only two years later I decided to study the French language being a frequent traveler and I needed to understand some French. I had moved already to a research job and seconded to teach one course at the university. The French classes were evening classes. To my surprise, two of my female students at the university were my classmates in the French class. No text was given and we had to learn French like babies do. Watch a video in French and then repeat what you here. I still remember the first class in which the first phrase was «Je vais avec vous». I had difficulty repeating it while my students did very successfully. For two days I was under the heavy embarrassment of my students doing better than I. I could have

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quitted, but this was to be considered as an escape. I could tell my two students reported my failure to their friends. I decided to work on two fronts: to find out if there was a ‹secret formula» for my two average students to perform better than I in French and find a way to accelerate my learning of French. It turned out that in the country students study French at high school and that the students get the text of the videos from last year students. So, I was racing with a class who started the race before the whistle was blown. These findings restored some of my self-worth. I brought a private teacher for the weekend only to teach me French all day long. He would read French text and I had to repeat after him. My ear got «tuned» to the French language. I ended the first semester with Bien whereas my students got bien evaluation only. It amazes how times have changes. My daughter Sara speaks fluent Turkish only by attending Turkish TV programs and listening to Google Translate.

The rapidity of not only technological changes, but also the provision of tools and apps to foster the use of those technologies are mind-boggling not only in learning languages, but in every facet of life. I do routine screening of tools used in social networking. As soon as I have familiarized myself with one, a new tool or apps appears. I find myself losing self-worth for being unable to cope with the rapidity of change. This diminishing return on self-worth may be expounded in the following illustration:

This negative effect of change may crop in. Realizing that social networking is causing another negative phenomenon, which is increasing distraction and losing focus warn us that we are swimming in different waters and that we may need to adjust our swimming into diving in the ocean of rapid changes without losing our confidence of self-worth.

The propagation of technologies that is able to overcome the obstacles of time and space are rapidly diminishing time and creating new spaces that we are unfamiliar with. We need to upgrade our social skills and not only social tools. The feeling that we may suffer from «growing Ignorance» may damage severely our social and individual worth.

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Trustphobic CharactersMy dear friend, Rod King, Ph.D is the father of the ratio (Delight/Pain). As simple as this ratio is, still it has great repercussions on what we do. We wish to change, but change is painful as it takes us out of our comfort zone. The greater the displacement from this zone is, the greater the pain is. This means that we must anticipate change to give us greater delight than the accompanied pain of change if we are to change.

Change for me is of two major parts: voluntary change and compulsory change. If we communicate to people that change is for their benefit and delight their resistance to change me shrink making the change process much easier. In contrast; people will not change unless it is a compulsory change if not convinced of the outcome of it.

Change has its depth as well. It could be superficial or it could be deep. Superficial changes may look innocent, but could have major effects. A lime stone shall sink in water because of its heaviness; it shall not if coated with a fatty lubricant. The coating induces new propertied on limestone that create an opposing force to gravity strong enough to offset the gravitational force. This is how a duck floats on water instead of sinking in it. Plants do it as well. May be you heard of «The Lotus Effect». This super water-repellent plant (superhydrophobic) plant because of the presence of fatty materials on its leaves cause water to roll off the leaves and in the process washes away foreign materials. The lotus flower has become the symbol of purity for this reason.

It is painful that the purity of the lotus flower has been abused by some humans. You meet

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a person who shows you deep smile with whitish teeth and he makes you think this person is the symbol of purity. To your dismay, you find that below the smiles lies a different person with a cunning character. It is turning delight into pain that causes us to change our opinion of this person, but in the wrong direction. I have experienced this effect on LinkedIn. Few supposedly friends wrote to me urging me to read their posts and like them. No matter what, I shall only do that to a deserving post. If I read a post and it doesn›t resonate with me I don›t comment or surely will not click the like button. But then I noticed something. The number of likes decreased on some of my posts. Few likes were turned to unlike. You guessed right as this was done by the same people whom I liked their posts. This is what I call a «trusthobic character». These people roll off water but water drops are not enough to remove all their dirt. Interestingly, these people keep writing to me asking for my comments and likes! I changed my feelings easily because the delight of not responding to them is far greater than the interim pain they caused because of their unprofessional behavior.

Sometimes we may hate people or avoid them because of their religion, race or color and it is deep and difficult change to reverse the attitude. This is wrong, but we know it happens. The examples are too many to numerate them. There is an inherited hatred that can›t roll off from the leaves of our memory. Running across those people accidentally will initially cause feeling of avoidance. Changing feelings has to surmount a mountain because meeting them is devoid of delight and is full of pain. However; how many times we discover the wrongness of these behavior that base themselves on false assumptions. I experienced this and it turns out that the change of enmity to friendship may become a lasting one. This is a profound change because it involves change of long inherited assumptions. These changes uproot us from our comfort zones into more comfortable ones.

In businesses, a sure way to gain customers and change the hearts of your customers positively is by removing their pains. Not only we may track customers› complaints on social media, but also we may study customers› Journey Maps to identify painful points and creatively turn them to delight points. This is a big change as churning customers who return are the most loyal to your business.

Your comments and opinions shall delight me even if they are painful.

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Misunderstanding the MessageA heart-moving post that is written by Trish Goff and titled «The Power of Goodbye». In the post Trish describes her experience when she was sixteen watching her mother die. Before dying her mother gave her a note she could hardly write saying «Please leave». That was the last time Trish saw her mother alive. The message was poorly understood by Trish thinking her mother didn›t want to see any more of her. This faulty understanding led Trish to lose her way in life for years. Only when she awoke to the real meaning of the message that Trish corrected her paths. Her mother didn›t want her daughter to see her suffering and hardly collecting herself writing the short message. She wanted to relieve her daughter from experiencing the difficult times she was passing through. This realization and self-awakening years later led Trish into new beliefs, healthy actions and selecting the right paths to march on.

Trish post not only invoked my feelings, but also triggered an old memory of almost same message that I received and misunderstood. I was doing my PhD in England. One day I heard my name called upon in a loud speaker. I was requested to report urgently to the Department of Students Affairs. I rushed with worries flooding my heart. It turned out that a local hospital received an Arab lady from Morocco. The lady was in a poor health condition, but couldn›t speak English. The doctors were at loss what to do. They contacted

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the university to find if there is somebody who could speak Arabic. So, I rushed to the hospital and did the translation. The lady had to undergo a major surgery. Unfortunately, her husband had left one day before and didn›t know about the sudden surgery of his wife.

Two days later I decided to visit the lady just in case she needed help. She was recovering and happy that her husband was due to come back in two hours. Having been pleased with her recovery I said goodbye. She replied «Ismahli- meaning please permit me». So, I sat again each time I said goodbye and she kept saying the same words. Finally, «I said I have to leave». She responded «I have been telling you please leave». Even though we both spoke Arabic, Ismahli turned out to mean «you have my permission to leave»

Please Leave was the same message Trish and I received and we both misunderstood it, even though the repercussions were not to the same magnitude. The rush to misinterpret the message of please leave led us to guilty behaviors. Both women- the mother and the lady from Morocco- were being hospitalized and weak. Their weakness still prompted them to send positively-intended messages that we failed to comprehend.

It is amazing how much pain teaches us. The pain coming from unexpected people like mothers can be truly harsh and may lead some of us to do the wrong actions. It is the accepting the assumption that we build on misunderstanding the message. In a rush of thinking we take the wrong meaning, the wrong paths and the wrong habits. One wrong may invite for many more wrongs. It is only when we wake u to the real meaning and motives of the messages that we wake up. Too late is better than never. The guilt of misunderstanding clouds our minds and hearts. And when the clouds turn rainy, they rain regret and sorrow for not trusting the people who cared for us enough to accept our mistaken interpretations of their messages.

From the great pain comes the great regret and self-correction. It is comforting that we may misread the intentions of others. It is comforting that this self-induced pain may be our source of strength and self-correction later on.

Please leave… reading this post

Please leave…a comment

Please leave…your opinion

Please leave… the interpretation of the message is yours.

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Live and Leave Good LeavesHuman tragedies bind people and they rush for help voluntarily. The passionate feelings turn into a driving force that pool people towards helping the deserving parties. In a video that is becoming very popular in Jordan and was only published one day ago shows a kid selling kids stories on the streets. It is a snowy weather and extremely cold. This prompts a man stop his car and ask the kid why he was on the streets. The kid answered him because he needs to make money to buy fuel to heat his home as his family is poor and can›t afford it. As he lost his father the family is dependent on him. The man gave him money so that the kid could buy fuel and go home. When the kid handed him the books the man told him «I have no kids to read them». «But I take no money for nothing» and the kid insisted on giving the man the books.

The kid is in need for money, but also in need to keep his dignity. The need for money is for his family, but his dignity is for himself first of all. The man couldn›t drive away leaving the kid with no dignity. In life, we may leave, but we must keep the dignity of others for them.

On the internet there is an image of Indian leaders disguised in the tree leaves. The originator of the image is apparently unknown. I am not puzzling here how many leaders are in the image; I am more interested in what these leaders left for humanity. Did these leaders leave in the leaves great memories? We are the same. Instead of the Indian leaders we can visualize the many faces we have each hiding in a leave. Are we hiding the faces of beauty,

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love, affection or hatred, grudge and greed?

There are many faces for the same thing. Look at ice and how many faces it has. Look at isotopes how many faces they have. Look at love and how many faces it has. Look at a cube and how many it has. More dimensions we cover, the more faces we show. DO we want faces of heroes or…?

It amazes me how many faces passions have. Love is a complex force, but it has many forms as some minerals have. Depression has many faces as dear Dr. Edward Lewellen has shown in his recent post «Costly Depression in Your Organization». Not all depressions may be treated the same way. We call all cases depression, but forgetting they have different faces in the tree leaves.

My last post «Misunderstanding the Message», which was inspired by another post by dear Trish Goff and titled «The Power of Goodbye» the Leave order was the theme of both. Here, the theme is Leave healthy leaves with each leaf showing different love. When the hidden faces of love get exposed then people shall remember you for great things.

Leave, but leave good leaves behind

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Life below the SoilAmazing things go below the surfaces. We all know the Iceberg Effect. How about having a «Sandberg Effect», or «Soilberg Effect»? What we see on the surface is different when we travel below the surface. Why limit our thinking to what goes below the ice and not extend it to the soil?

Examples shall explain what I mean. Take the cooperation between plants and fungi. The fungi threads below the soil not only exchange nutrients between self and the roots of plants, but also the threads act as information carrier to the plants so that the plants may talk to each other. Plants have found other ways of communication to alert each other of possible threats coming from approaching threats such as herbivores. They exchange the release of volatile chemicals. Recent researches have shown that the plants have found other formidable means of cooperation. The plants click to the sounds coming from other plants to alert them to approaching threats. Amazingly, plants send sound vibration, which are inaudible for the human ear that can travel through the soil and which the other plants respond to. It is amazing how threats unite living systems and leads to the finding diverse creative solutions to combat the threat. Small plants tend to grow faster when receiving such threats to protect themselves. This is in contradictory to what most small businesses do as they tend to shrink as a means of survival when they in fact may need to grow faster.

Survival is a great way to promote voluntarily collaboration. Collaboration need not be

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observable and mostly goes below the soil. This is what I termed «Soil Iceberg». That is not the end of the story for this iceberg has many more lessons to teach us. Research has shown that plants have not only diversifies their strategy to combat threat, but also to satisfy their energy requirements. Research has shown recently that plants may draw energy from each other. Again, it is the algae that provided the example. The green algae not only engage in photosynthesis, but also have an alternative source of energy: it can draw it from other plants. The alga secretes enzymes that break down the cellulose from neighboring down into smaller sugar components. These are then transported into the cells and transformed into a source of energy: the alga can continue to grow. The waste of one plant is the source of energy for another plant. What is far more fascinating to me is the human may apply those simple concepts and develop them into feasible applications. The waste of one plant may be the seeds of great potential applications by humans. Here, imagination has a great role and that imagination should reach below the sandy surfaces of the familiar thinking. We need «Brainberg Thinking». Brains realize what great possibilities exist below the surfaces. Does the waste of plants need to be a physical material? Not necessarily as it could be a strange waste as electrons. That is right. Plants generate organic wastes that go into the soil. Great and cheap source these wastes are for bacteria neighboring the roots of the plants. The breakdown of these wastes by bacteria is accompanied by the release of electrons. The use of electrons is for what? It is for electricity generation. This genius idea was developed by Dutch researchers and they have now succeeded in making a pilot plant of this idea. “Via photosynthesis a plant produces organic matter. Part of this organic matter is used for plant-growth, but a large part can’t be used by the plant and is excreted into the soil via the roots. Around the roots naturally occurring micro-organisms break down the organic compounds to gain energy from. In this process, electrons are released as a waste product. By providing an electrode for the micro-organisms to donate their electrons to, the electrons can be harvested as electricity. Research has shown that plant-growth isn’t compromised by harvesting electricity, so plants keep on growing while electricity is concurrently produced.” (source)

You can see a video below of this concept and how it works:

Below the soil there are so many possibilities for humans to uncover and find innovative applications. I should not leave without mentioning that low «profile» creatures such as bacteria and algae happen to lead us to great discoveries.

Never belittle someone for being» little», for this little person could be the spark for great collaborations and innovations. Our view of some humans or employees being waste is distorted. If we can turn electron waste into high energy (electricity), do we fail to do the same with humans?

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A Fibonacci Perspective of EmotionsIt amazes me how much people tend to swing to an extreme among polar things such as emotions warning from negative emotions and encouraging positives emotions. Other examples include:

Positive and negative thinkingPositive and negative feelingsPositive and negative commentsPositive and negative opinionsPositive and negative beliefsPositive and negative loops, andPositive and negative numbersBeing named positive and negative means they are oppositely charged. One can only be present in the presence of its opposite. Yet; we warn against all negatives.

What makes things worse is our Negativity Bias, in which we inflate the negativity far more

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than we do with the positive ones. Inflating negativity may paralyze us and stop us from taking actions. It is because we focus on the negative of negativity and forget that negativity has a positive face as well.

There are many negative feedback pathways in biological systems, including:

Temperature regulationBlood pressure regulationHuman body homeostasis. The body tries to maintain an equilibrium; let us take temperature. If too cold, the body shivers to bring up the temperature. If too warm, the body evaporates to cool down.Blood sugar regulationThyroid regulationSupply demand balancePhotosynthesis in response to increased carbon dioxide, andPredator/prey population dynamicThe negative feedback loop may cool down the positive escalation of negative feelings and emotions. Take anger as an example. Anger bursts as soon as they get started, they keep growing until reaching a maximum point. We need a negative loop to subdue escalating anger.

It is very unhealthy to have meetings in which all people express positive attitudes to an idea. We may experience a positive loop and turn us blind to seeing the negative side of the idea and we get off balance as we tend then to think irrationally. We need some negative thoughts to bring us back to reality. We need negative ideas to oppress our chaotic positive thinking and to awake our senses to the possibility of overlooking what I may term in this context «The Positive Bias». Is this another name for «groupthink»? I dare say that too much of sugar in your cup of coffee makes the coffee unpleasant to drink. No drinking of coffee means no action. Too much of positive can also lead to no action and sleeping on sweet dreams that shall not be realized.

Please refer to the two presentations below for greater details:

and, «People before Profit» is a positive concept. Its reverse «Profits before People» is a negative one. We need negative thoughts and opinions to stabilize our zeal to the concept and we see them as an opportunity to build on and purify the concept further. This is a concept that id advocated by Brad Fergusson - PBP Heart Centered Leadership and is assisted by great mind to carry it through with enough determination, but not without some self-doubt to think and imagine the brighter future sensibly. But the question is by how much? How much time and effort should be allowed for this mix of positive and negative thinking? My answer is by following Fibonacci Rule»: %62 of time and efforts to positive thinking and the remaining %32 for negatives ones. Is there a better way than using The Golden Ratio of Fibonacci?

What prompted me to write this post is a comment that I made on a post by Sophie Mill titled

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«Global Politics with the University of Oxford». In her response Sophie wrote «The reason I write so freely about medical and therapy is because I have been through depression and I have come out the other side with so much insight about ourselves and how we are treated by ‹therapists›. My biggest mistake was to put my soul and life into the hands of people who didn›t know me or understand what I was capable of overcoming. I am very lucky that I had my creativity. Today, I teach the young ones not only painting techniques but how to relate each stroke, dot and layer to their own life; painting a picture is similar to painting your life picture. If a mistake happens I never allow them to rub it out - a mistake can lead to another interesting part of the painting that your conscious mind would never have dreamed. It is allowing mistakes and it is allowing yourself to go forward without fear of making the mistake that you can find the jewel in the crown. This jewel is Creativity. Creativity will give you the tools to break out of your own tundra». Is there a better way to show how negative thinking may turn negative experiences into great positive ones?

I hope this post serves in painting a better future for all readers.

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Holes in MindsHoles vary in shape, size and tangibility. You see holes in flowers, tree trunks, cement structures, eggshells, rabbit holes, paint holes and that is to name few examples. You may observe structural holes in social networks and these networks might send you through rabbit-like holes while surfing. In this sense, the term «rabbit holes» is used to describe online activities. You start with an idea in mind, but find yourself going into paths that you didn›t intend to. You learn, may be lucky to run into a new discovery or a video that explains a concept clearly, which was vague to you or run into a new interest. As much as this experience might be enriching, it could also distract you from your initial intent of surfing. Small observations while surfing may drastically change your path of surfing.

There are nine holes in the human body. It is amazing how these holes are connected together. Just watch this wonderful video and see for yourself the miraculous human body and how the integration of these nine holes affects the behavior of our bodies.

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Structural holes in social media could be a source of information through the bridges connecting the holes. It is again «location, location, location». Structural hole is understood as a gap between two individuals who have complementary sources to information. A benefits from having two bridges allowing him to get tangible advantage.

So, a hole might be advantageous for some people and need not be a bad thing. However; it is the intangible holes that prompted me to write this post. These holes could have an adverse effect in that A in the above figure may use his «arms» to exercise power and to pass information that benefits him. Egoism and self-interest might be the consequences of having such a powerful location. A hole is a way to promote self-interest by communicating disordered information.

Holes in social network structures with their double faces are indifferent from holes in the leaves of plants. Insects such as beetles that chew the leaves of your plants cause the formation of holes in the leaves. This is the negative side and is not fatal as chewing shall not kill the plants. On the positive side, these insects feed birds. This keeps the ecosystem in balance. Somebody›s loss is somebody else›s profit. Thinking on an ecosystem level is different from thinking self-interest level only as we experience with holes of some networks structures. Here is an important point to consider by the «People-before-Profit Group» as it looks for the profit not from the self-interest only, but also for the interest of the ecosystem as well.

Intangible holes result from our negative thinking. I would is that negative thinking is like insects that bite leaves and leave holes in them. These are holes of low-esteem, of self-poverty and indecisiveness. These negative insects (thoughts) may cause the formation of many holes in the minds. These are dark holes that reflect no light. The adoption of wrong concepts such as «Profits-before-People» may allow for immediate gains. But overtime their harmful effects on the self as well on the ecosystem may not be curable. Profits that lead to holes on the structure of the societal ecosystem are not profits. They are based on self-interests making the interest of an individual or group higher than the interest of the society. When you have a puncture in a tire the car doesn›t drive safely. A puncture in our thinking will only do the same to our societies.

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The Profit Paradox Amazing is how life plans for us and we think we do the planning. Dear Sara Jacobovici started a series of posts that are built on a post that I published before. Sara is writing hugely mind-provoking posts. In her last brilliant one titled « Human Paradox 3#: How to Be in the Process of Becoming» she discusses the paradoxes of becoming. The first paradox she attunes to is «As we strive to become, we need to understand who we are, so as to then find the way to be». Sara then moves on to arrive at a second emerging paradox «The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change - Carl Rogers». This paradox then invites for another paradox «paradox of our need for novelty within a structured and familiar environment». It is identifying paradoxes and their emergence that act as a high-level octane fuel to prompt us to see new possibilities and uncover butterfly effects that make businesses profitable while serving high purposes.

I commented on this post and I extract the following from my comment «I read the post three times and each time get more amused with a paradox generating another paradox. It is a rule that a paradox generates another paradox? Are we living in a state of fractal paradoxes? Are we chasing an impossible dream by trying to solve a paradox because as soon as we try to do that a newer paradox appears (or emerges)? You remind me of a presentation I wrote few years back titled «The Cost of the Emotional Coast». In the presentation I explained what you described ably in this post «This results from the fractal-

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like properties of coastlines…..». If emotions are part of what drive us towards the unknown, then the driver itself is fractal and it shall then be impossible to track or measure a driver because it might change face into a similar, but different face. I have to think more of the linkage between fractal emotions and fractal paradoxes and how they could be related».

The great post of dear Sara stretched my boundaries of thinking. Does profit have a paradox attached to it? If yes, is this paradox fractal in nature in the sense that if we zoom in a paradox another one shall emerge? Has anybody experienced this? What were the results?

My Google search led me to a heart-breaking and wonderful video. The experience sheds tremendous light on what Sara wrote and on what I am trying to achieve. It is a must see video and I embed it below for the readers› convenience. It is the proof that what Sara wrote is supported by a great life example:

We want to be what? Profit-making machines, but what purpose does that serve? Do we increase profits by making employees stressed and unhappy? Is the purpose to make profits a source of happiness when we create unhappy and stressful work environments? Do we create our own confrontations with embedded tensions and paradoxes and then we create a losing work environment and then hope to make profits.

Who will win the cake? I believe it is those businesses that focus on the input and not the output. The cake metaphor shall help in clarifying what I mean. If you make a cake that is of low quality and nobody desires it then you need to see what went wrong. It could be the high mixing of the ingredients (rushing the formation of groups or teams). It could be using the wrong ingredients and mainly unsuitable flour. The presence of gluten in the right amount to balance the formation of tiny voids and inflation of the cake to the desired levels is a prerequisite. It could be the high humidity environment that changes the suitability of gluten. Finally, it could be due to the baking process itself. Just think of the causes and they are all input-related and not output-related. And here comes the paradox of making profits in its alarming face: we stress people, overload them with work and make them work like machines and then expect a great cake o be the outcome!

Profits are outputs and we are beyond our control. The cake of profits shall never come to the right level unless the ingredients are right. A main ingredient is that «People-before-Profit» concept is applied. Anything else is a mirage.

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The Opinion PathI want first to start with two real scenarios that we all experienced. Suppose you feel very hungry and you want to eat. You also have an important appointment and you must eat fast. You have one supply of canned food. Before opening the can you read the expiry date. To your dismay, today is the expiry day of it. Would you eat? What would be your behavior? Or, you have a supply of rotten potato would you fry it and eat it? Or you have yogurt whose expiry date was yesterday- would you eat it, or throw it in the can?

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People are in general risk averts. The instinct of survival will make them react violently if they see the risk as a huge one that endangers their life. However; it is the risk assessments that may people behave differently in above situations. It is also the tension being on the edge between risk and safety. Some people will eat the canned food saying it is low risk to do so because manufacturers tend to bring earlier the expiry date for safety and selling reasons. Others will say why take the risk and add to it the risk of missing the meeting and opt to discard the can. Still some people will at the canned food for economic reasons and avert the loss of purchasing a can that they throw away. I am sure readers have many other thoughts on what they shall do.

Now imagine putting all those people in one room and only you have the same food can and who would eat it? The group dynamics shall influence the individual path of opinion on the same issue. Groups of opinion shall form. One group shall opt not to eat and leave. Another group will be tolerant to the risk and eat the food. A third group shall be undecided and stay on the edge. Same incident, same people but with some different opinions because of the way we influence each other. Those people staying on the edge are the ones whose opinion shall be difficult to predict because a word might send them into different paths.

The risk of losing and how it changes the paths of our opinions is well manifested in a soccer game that I witnessed yesterday. Two football teams were competing. The host team had an on-loan player from the competitive team. The match ended in the host team winning one to nil. But the agony was that the on-loan player not only a goal-scoring opportunity for his old team, but also one minute later he scored against his previous team with a brilliant header. I made a point to read some of the comments after the match. It is incredible how the pain developed. The «waste» player who had little value suddenly became the center of interest, being a hero by the fans of his new club and a traitor by the old fans. That «double-pain» came from a player who was relegated made the pain escalate and take a totally different path than expected.

Change is painful as it takes people out of their comfort zone. Very rapid changes are even more painful. New technologies are changing fast. As soon a firm buys a new technology a new one emerges. Ideas are taking different paths and as soon as people come to grip with one a new one appears. A scientific research reveals a new finding that makes our current knowledge obsolete. As soon as we get over this pain a new research finding reveals new facts, which make the newly acquired beliefs wrong. We experience the paradoxical pain of knowing more to find how lesser we know. We are living on canned knowledge whose expiry date is now and the pain of deciding is it worthy to acquire a knowledge that is about to expire.

Our real dilemma is that we are on the edge having to make instant decisions on issues that are about to expire. We know whatever decision we make shall take us into unknown paths and that people shall never be in full agreement while staying on the edge.

If my thought are scattered then I hope readers will help me focus them.

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Expecting the UnexpectedIt is amazing how a small adaptation may lead to unexpected results and produce «Butterfly Effects» on our lives. The need to adapt to changes is a hot issue. But could a small adaptation lead to further adaptations that are disruptive to our lives? Are we aware of the consequences urging people to adapt that in the asking is embedded the possibility of a possible butterfly effect that may lead to heavy disruptions of our lives with its cascading effects?

Let me explain. When Edward Lorenz constructed a mathematical model of the weather, namely a set of differential equations that represented changes in temperature, pressure, wind velocity and other parameters he focused on measurable ones to obtain data for his weather simulation. That led him to the discovery of the butterfly effect wherein small changes in weather parameters may cause drastic and unpredictable weather changes. Now, new scientific discoveries shows a different butterfly effect- it is certain types of bacteria, which were never accounted for in the equations by Lorenz, might be responsible for the weather unpredictability. How will these finding reflect on our thinking shall be discussed later in this post.

The story began with the discovery by Deane Arny that more frost formed on plants infected with P. syringae. The bacteria produce a special protein, InaZ, which can act as an ice

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nucleus at the relatively warm temperature of °2-C, probably because its repetitive shape is just right for coaxing water molecules into a crystalline ice. Pure water may go below 38- Celsius degrees before freezing. Water molecules enjoy being fluid water apparently! It is the presence of impurities around which water molecules arrange into ice crystals that water phase turns into the ice phase. Impurities include microscopic dust particles and soot which may act as ice nucleation centers. But what purpose what serve the bacteria to produce an ice-nucleating protein? It turns out that it is for a frosting damage. Ice has a larger volume than water causing the plant to damage and release its nutrients upon which the bacteria feeds. Later on, the same bacteria were found in the upper atmosphere causing the conversion of water in air to ice. I wonder how such adaptations shall require us to adapt our thinking, simulations and ability to predict the already unpredictable climates of business!

If interested, you may watch this short video on «The bacteria that turns water into ice»

Adaptations serve a purpose. The purpose of one adaptation of a species might harm the purpose of others in survival or living healthily. It is the «conflict of «purposes» that we are witnessing. When a new business forms it ideally must have a clear purpose that is well expressed. It is the «who» the business shall serve combined with why and how of implementing it that count. It is quite helpful to consider business on different time scales. These may include the far future, the near future and the present.

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I call this «The Venn diagram of Time». It is great to have a look into the future; however it is equally important to realize that the business climate is turbulent and «small» nucleating agents may frost the climate and lead us to burst out our information like a protein from bacteria forces a plant to burst and feed its nutrients to the bacteria. We need to be realistic and do reverse thinking. We need to think of the near future and what to do and then we need to focus on the present. Using this «time funnel» would help us spot adaptations of «small players» who may be able to make life difficult for any business and even on a global scale.

Not all purposes are equal- they have different impacts and these impacts might vary over time. We may place them in a graph similar to those used for risk graphs. Some purposes might be impactful and grand; others could be marginal with no impact. At least it is how they appear today. Be aware for some purposes may be small in your opinion, but may be the bacteria that defeat the purposes of others and frost them to deprive them of any value.

Work on grand purposes, but always remember the opposing purposes coming from small players. Small purposes have the advantage of being almost unnoticed, while preparing self for digesting a noticeable business. The grand purpose of survival of the weak might be the most hidden threat to a business. Expect the unexpected from them.

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Building on Cores and not A r m sThere are books that I read and reside in my memory. They keep popping in my head abruptly. One book is surely that is written by the dear friend Edward Lewellen titled «The -90Second Mind Manager». I am still privileged to have written the foreword for this «thinking book». In the book Dr. Lewellen highlights the importance of mining out the core values of people as a primary step in their healing.

The question that reminded me of this book is what happens if we don›t build on the core values? Is there a metaphor to answer this question? And what lessons may be derived? Having scratched my head I found what I believe is a good metaphor. It is the growth of polymers either from the core or from the arms. The simplest polymer that has some fascinating properties is Ethylene Oxide. The building block is ethylene oxide, which upon reacting with itself it produces a polymer with many faces (morphs). This process of building the polymeric chains may be by adding more molecules of other chemicals to the core or arms of the growing polymer. It is amazing that the resulting copolymer of core-first showed different behavior of the material produced by adding to the arms. For example, the core-based one gave a copolymer that is soluble in water; in contrast, the arms-based

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one is water insoluble and formed aggregates. The star-shaped copolymer remains «more homogeneous» with itself.

Source: Tobias Rudolph et al. Published Tobias Rudolph. Published in Polymers ,5 ,2013 1101-1081; doi:10.3390/polym5031081

Edward Lewellen calls for identifying the core values to build on them, stretch them and add to them if we are to stay homogeneous with one self. If not, we may be extending the arms of non-core values and this way we become less homogeneous with self. It is strengthening the core that matters. It becomes then of extreme value to identify the core values and the «The -90Second Mind Manager» e-Book shows you the way on not only how to identify your core values, but also how to build on them and stretch them to cope with depression and low-energy states.

Trees define their attachment points so that dead leaves may fall. Attachment serves a purpose. See in particular Slide 6 of the presentation in particular on how attachment may be «tailored to serve certain purposes.

Attachment to core values must therefore serve a purpose as well. It is amazing our tendency to stretch the arms of non-core values and still expect great results when in fact we are making ourselves less «homogenous» with selves, others and the environment.

The story doesn›t end here as a new definition of leaders may be elucidated. It is amazing how ethylene oxide might give so many different shapes of polymers to adapt to the reaction conditions. This molecule, ethylene oxide, has a triangular shape with two carbon atoms and one Oxygen atom. The triangle is stressed so that it loves to «open up» and with other molecules rather easily.

Analogously, do we need leaders who have initially a closed and tight group of three people who are «stressed» enough to open easily for others so that they may build a chain of supporters? Are leaders more stressed with the prevailing situations so that they arrange

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themselves in closed triads ready to burst and open up for energetic supporters? Have movements such as «People-Before-Profit» started with a core of three people who were highly energetic to expand by adding great supporters? Brad Fergusson surely has the answer.

The metaphor of ethylene oxide still serves other ideas on leadership. This molecule produces highly flexible polymers because it has no bulky groups to restrict the movement of the resulting polymer chains. This way ethylene oxide polymers upon crystallization produce so many different shapes- almost endless shapes that adapt to the prevailing conditions. It is the flexibility of the linkages of the backbone of the monomer, ethylene oxide that allows for the formation of so many different shapes. As with all crystallization, you have the competing effects of nucleation and growth occurring. The relative rates determine the shape of the final crystal. See figure below for examples of these shapes.

Source: http://www.rheothing.com/12/2011/peo-crystals-snowflakes-of-polymers.html

The take away here is that having a stressed triangle of people with enough flexibility shall allow their ideas to crystallize in many shapes and forms depending on the emerging needs. In the case of «people-Before-Profit» Group this means that they might be assessing two different needs: the nucleation of new activities versus the growth of existing ones. It is the flexibility in the structure that shall allow for balancing the two forces and new shapes of growth, activities and responsibilities shall emerge. It is nucleation and adding to the core or expanding and adding to the arms.

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There are books that I read and reside The Flaw in the FlowBased on my experiences I dare say that our efforts reach their climax when we are able to turn negative events into positive ones. This change of direction requires momentum to do, but with creative ideas we may turn them into great successes.

I had my share of negative situations. One example is a freely-distributed weekly newspaper that carried the name of Al Madina meaning the city. The newspaper had a label in red and bold letters saying it is for free for fear some distributors would sell it. Complaints soon mounted because critics didn›t like the sound of their city being offered for free. They linked for free with the city and not with the newspaper. The owners were at loss what to do. I was consulted and came with the following solution «Al Madina for Free… it is too dear to be sold». This became a trademark for the newspaper and people loved it. It proved to be a great idea to dissolve all objections.In a story from old Arab history a leading man was killed. For Moslems to dignify a dead person you must bury him/her. The governor ordered that the corpse of the man be hanged to a high tree so as not to dignify him and remind people of what would happen to them should they carry on with the guidance of the killed leader. A brilliant poet passed be the

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hanging corpse of the leader and wrote a poem that would move hearts even today. To translate poetry is a formidable task, but the poem started with what means: placed so high in your life and death- truly this is one of a miracle. People started to repeat the poem. The governor had one option: to order the burying of the leader›s corpse.

Sometimes when we focus on a problem we invite for the creation of other problems. This happens when we restrict our thinking to a limited zone. For example, if a teacher focuses his attention on one problematic student soon this student shall develop «immunity» and appear as a hero among students. He shall rally support around him and may become the class leader. This negative behavior of the student turns into a chaotic behavior of the class.

The previous discussion suggests that approaching negative problems with negativity may fire back. It shall be more rewarding to take the positive side of a problem to tackle it. This thinking shall open the rose hidden among the thorns. To make the idea clear, I take the «profit-before-people» attitude as an example. This attitude leads to a chain of problems if profits dwindle. Most likely the company will think in a «reduction» mentality. Lay off employees and reduction of benefits and lawsuits become the talk of the day. Wrong attitudes are nucleating sites for negative actions. The top management goes with the flawed flow of doing what others do. It is during these dark times that we look for the moon of bright positive thinking. Just simply reverse the mentality from «Profits-before-people» to «people-before-profits». Will that work? Surely it does and the proof is in the pudding. Take the great example of a medical center in the USA. This center didn›t go for the alternative of terminating staff; instead the CEO decided to work with people (staff) to find a solution. The CEO, Paul Levy, addressed the staff in the auditorium emotionally and addressed them movingly. Part of what he said is «I want to run an idea by you that I think is important, and I›d like to get your reaction to it.»I›d like to do what we can to protect the lower-wage earners - the transporters, the housekeepers, the food service people. A lot of these people work really hard, and I don›t want to put an additional burden on them.

«Now, if we protect these workers, it means the rest of us will have to make a bigger sacrifice,» he continued. «It means that others will have to give up more of their salary or benefits.

The CEO pooled hearts into one heart so that no single worker would be fired. The audience came with so many diversified ideas to work out balanced solutions for the present times and other suggestions for the future. The CEO didn›t go with flawed flow that profits come before people. There are other examples of very successful people who cared for people and then profits poured in. So, my response to your question dear friend Edward Lewellen if « Dear Ali Anani, PhD, If «People come first and then profit pour in», then does People come second and then profit poors in? :^). Pour in no, but pour out yes. When profits pour out eventually poor indoor employees will suffer.

Managers who are drunk with temporary profits coming from wrong concepts shall end up driving against a wall.

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Is Success the Organized Outcome of Chaotic Movements?While watching the great TED talk video on «How great leaders inspire action» by Simon Sinek, so many ideas poured in my mind. In his talk Sinek emphasized why we should start with why and not how or what. He explained that successful companies start with why because they expose their passion for their purpose of what they do. Later, Ekaterina Walter, wrote a post based on this video showing the 3Ps of success: Passion, Purpose, People are the ingredients of success for any business. When I write a post I should believe in what I write and have a purpose of writing so that people may «buy» what I write. Leaders as all other people must fulfill these 3Ps if they are to succeed. People buy beliefs that resonate with their beliefs and not the functional attributes of a product, service, educational article or whatever else. Having a belief is not enough; coupling it with passion to fuel you to realize your belief is of immense importance. You can›t go naked in this world and coupling your efforts with similarly passionate people generate the synchronization that leads you to success.

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You may have noticed that I used the word coupling repeatedly. This is done in purpose: to show the connection of the 3Ps and also to derive a suitable metaphor(s). Passion, purpose and people don›t work in isolation and are coupled to each other. The movement of one affects the movement of the other 2Ps. I think here of a triad pendulum in which Passion, purpose and people are the three pendulums attached to each other. They could be arranged like a Tourbillon 3 Dimensional Triple Pendulum, in which the pendulums are named Passion, purpose and people. You can watch this video imagining that the pendulums represent the 3Ps. You may notice imagine then how the three spheres of the 3Ps overlap.

You could arrange the three pendulums as attached to each other or distributed individually on a support. Two attached pendulums create enough curiosity. Imagine now if we extend the two pendulums to three. I guess we might end up with a strange attractor similar to that of the butterfly strange attractor of the weather. Here is a video to show how two attached pendulums affect each other. Add one more pendulum and your curiosity shall increase. These three pendulums represent the 3Ps of success. Is success is the self-organizing of chaotic movements of its contributing factors (the 3Ps)?

Extend the possibilities to arranging the pendulums on linearly on a support and new ideas shall emerge. It seems to me success is the emerging outcome of coupled pendulums and the more pendulums we have the greater is possibility of success is. How come a chaotic system would give an orderly success against the Law of Entropy? It seems to me that systems that are far from equilibrium, with a high flow-through of energy, could produce a higher degree of order. Passion is source of energy that may lead to reaching this higher degree of order of the 3Ps system.

I have a hypothesis that the system gets so frustrated with chaos that the desire to self-arrange becomes overwhelming. It is like change when our hate for the current situation exceeds our fear of change that we may change. I have shown in a presentation the music coming out from the chaotic movement of trees.

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A second metaphor occurred to me while reading an infographic: Order From Chaos: How Big Data Will Change the World. I noticed this graph within the infograph:

The 3Ps are replaced by 3Vs of Variety, Velocity and Volume. But the whole shape looks like the chaotic barrels with the «cups» on the boundary of each V being filled with different «info waters». Are our efforts of utilizing big data chaotic and once the hate for chaos reaches a high level an orderly state would appear?

A second question is if the 3Ps and 3Vs are related in any way? The interaction of people with passion and purpose would increase the generation of variety of ideas with different velocities and volume. What would happen to the wheels of Big Ideas turning chaotically in our minds?

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The Team LabManagement of teams: is this a concise term? Can we manage teams when effective teams self-organize without external interference? The definitions, composition, space and formulations of teams are experiencing rapid changes. Would old definitions and theories on teams still hold? Are bio-teams and virtual teams subject to same theories? Are teams confined in space and time similar to global teams where the movement of team members in and out of teams is fluid? Is there a way to evolve our perspectives of teams? In this post I try to share my perspective.I wish to start with the chaotic wheel. We have a wheel in which cups, attached to the wheels. are filled with water from a faucet laid above the wheel. The wheel rotates first regularly, but all of a sudden the wheel rotates chaotically. It shall be very difficult to guess whether the wheel shall rotate clockwise or anticlockwise and for how long.

Let us change the barrel into a team barrel. The cups shall remain the same. However; each team member is a faucet that pours its knowledge into the cup so that we have this time more than one faucet and the number of faucets represents the team members. Also, this time the cups are not filled with the same liquid, which is water, but with the knowledge of every team member. Let us try to imagine what would happen.

As the wheel of knowledge rotates the cups shall be filled with the fluid knowledge. It

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shall rotate in an expected manner. Soon, so many things are bound to happen. Few team members shall fill the cup with hot knowledge and others with cold knowledge. If the cold knowledge is added to an already filled cup with hot knowledge the ingredients in the cup shall behave in a manner similar to adding cold water to hot oil. The oil shall splash out randomly and create chaotic conditions. Or, it could be resembled by adding a cold wave to a hot wave resulting in unstable weather conditions. The team members shall create chaos for themselves.

In another scenario one team member might add knowledge to a cup filled with an immiscible liquid (knowledge). You have heterogeneous ingredients and no matter how hard we try to immerse them they shall stay separated. They are like salad dressings that we have to shake well before using them. Will the wheel when it starts rotating randomly create a less heterogeneous mixture? If so, do we expect to see a real life example of order coming out of chaos?

There are liquids when mixed together they cause explosion. The mixing of the two liquids generates enough wave pressure to cause an explosion. Will this explosion be disruptive enough to cause the self-organizing of the team? Again, chaos leading to order!

Will some strange phenomena be observed? Will mixing of knowledge accidentally behave like mixing caffeine and alcohol? Alcohol and caffeine together produce a very toxic mix. Alcohol is depressant and caffeine is a stimulant. Mixing the opposites doesn›t cancel each others› effect; in contrast a deadly mix is the result of mixing. Are we going to see that the mix of knowledge by team members may cause the intoxication of the environment in which the team operates and the whole purpose of forming the team shot down?

There is a global trend to form Finance Lab, Knowledge Labs, and Project Lab and so on. There are strategies developed to maximize the effect of such activities as they involve teams from different parts of the world with different cultures, background and experiences. These are great efforts. In this «imaginary post» I tried to highlight some issues that we may encounter.

I hope your fluid opinions shall mix well with the ideas of this post so that only great mixes are produced. It is amazing how a change of metaphor changes perspectives. The chaotic wheel metaphor and hatching of ideas metaphor expose us to different experiences.

I dedicate this post to the wonderful thinker dear CityVP Manjit. His comments are truly wealthy and engaging.

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Will People-Before-Profit Movement Succeed?One of the great merits of the internet is that it reduced the time span between the inceptions of an idea and its global diffusion. For example, when the idea of Fab Lab was born in this century, soon it flourished and more than one thousand Fab Labs are currently distributed worldwide.

A Fab Lab is a technical prototyping platform for innovation and invention, providing stimulus for local entrepreneurship. The Fab Lab is a house of knowledge, of expertise, of relevant machineries, of interested people and of regional and global networks so that people may produce prototypes of their ideas, test them and develop them while easily pooling ideas and advices locally and globally. Fab Labs are the dream converters to reality for the young generations who have feasible ideas, but lack resources to test them, to modeling them and to learn and improve on the idea and the prototype.

The success of the concept of the Fab Lab encouraged its morphing into other sectors such as the Finance Labs in which many parties cooperate so that the business ideas may be tested, improved upon, and with the increasing possibility to be financed by entrepreneurs or funding firms.

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Why am I writing about Fab Labs and Finance Labs? In fact, I am writing about projects that serve people and their dreams. Only two months ago I met with fresh graduates who found a great way to manufacture ink for colored printers in a very efficient way. They needed to test their product and apply it. They needed a hub to accommodate their dream. When we allow for great ideas to stay dormant, if not killed, we are also killing the dreams of people who want to be creative and advance themselves and the community. It is the establishment of hubs of Fab Labs that shall help new ideas to have the opportunity to be tested, improved upon and find their ways to the market.

This is my perspective of the People-Before-Profit (PBP) movement. It is in a way the dreams tester to validate the worthiness of a dream to become true. PBP started with a triad ring of three people led by the purposeful and people-loving Brad Fergusson - PBP Heart Centered Leadership with the collaboration of Mike Fenton - PBP and Vivien Hudson. This Golden Triad opened up its ring to sincere partners who put people before profit as a guiding principle. There is a misconception by some people that the PBP is not a profit-oriented one and this shall lead to its failure because of lack of funding. This is not true as is experienced by the Fab Lab history. Fab labs are funded for three years and then they should by the end of this period have proven themselves enough that they deserve to continue the journey by having the trust of the local BP community. Fab Labs get revenues from training, opening other Fab Labs, conducting workshops and co-investing in commercially-viable ideas. I can visualize PBP opening many global PBP hubs that serve people in certain areas. The availability of great minds who are connected passionately with a purpose to serve people fast with efficiency and proven solutions shall gain the trust of people. This in turn shall increase its space and time of rendering improved and new services.

The grand work of Rod King, Ph.D. on the Fractal Grid is completely relevant to the PBP Group. The grid helps PBP to build solid internal structure for each PBP Lab that caters for local communities while cooperating on a global level to create new services for people and improve the existing ones. It is a win-win strategy for all parties (in fact I need to find a better word than parties).

PBP is not a concept that makes the rich richer. It is a concept that extends fairness. I mention the tree leaves that have equal opportunities to light; PBP provides equal opportunities for people to learn to grow and extend their knowledge profitable to their communities.

I see the great analogies between Fab labs and PBP concepts. Both share the value of enabling people and the sharing of minds and hearts to serve people. What is built on a correct purpose with passion shall not fail because passionate people shall make the dream come true. Brad Frgusson, commented on one of my post «Is Success the Organized Outcome of Chaotic Movements»?

«In PEOPLE Before Profit I started with a deep burning passion, one which was at its core, to create a space where PEOPLE were a first consideration, in ALL areas of life (The Golden Rule in a sense). It as time developed morphed into my purpose which was to do this in a

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business sense by creating a concept / mission to assist me in this process. I then realized that to have the Biggest possible positive impact I required other like-minded thinkers, People) to be able to do this. Hence the PBP concept was born. As time has progressed I have witnessed the ‹ desire to self arrange becomes overwhelming ‹ first hand. As more people have come in and embraced the idea their passions and purposes have somewhat collided with mine (positively for the most part) and created the overwhelming need to find RESULTS (the action). By the sheer energy created within the 3 P›s». The three P›s are Passion, Purpose and People. Rod King, Ph.D. added a 4P, which is Proposition (product). Fab Lab is a proxy for PBP and as Fab Lab proved to be successful so is the PBP noble concept.

I dedicate this post to dear Brad Fergusson - PBP Heart Centered Leadership and all his supporters who are too many to name individually.

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The Paradox of Fast WinsParadox examples are many. Some paradoxes might be apparent or they could be born under the wings of other paradoxes. One example is «do more for less» or «little is more». There is the paradox of fast wins leading to fast failures.

When a renowned manager moves to a new job the expectations are high. Expectations include fast wins to cope with the reputation of the new manager. When expectations are high, the failure to realize them can be very painful. I discussed this issue:

The real expectations of a new manager regardless of how succinct he/she is shall be mostly poor performance in the first few months. The manager needs to «condition» self with the new work environment. Like never two snowflakes are the same, I dare say never two work environments shall be the same. So, even very qualified managers shall need time to test the «waters». And yet the paradox we expect them to show results in the first few months! Going with nature and not against it is the route to success.

This paradox of fast wins leads to negative feedback loops. When a new manager falls early on to make the expected impact he/she feels stressed. This in turn makes the manager edgy and acts in a nervous manner. The trust in the manager drops and the employees›

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confidence in him/her dwindles. This results in the manager losing trust in self and others and shaky decisions become the norm. Fast wins turn into fast losses. Away with the manager and a replacement is appointed, but only for the vicious circle to repeat itself.

Fast wins and fast profits have a different meaning in the above scenarios. The demand for initial fast wins leads to fasting from wins. The mentality of fast profits leads to greed and when this monster is not satisfied it leads to monstrous actions and decisions. Fast wins are self-defeating because they stress people and their performance drops accordingly. The more we apply stress, the less is the performance and the higher the gap between expectations and actual results. I call this phenomenon the «Expectation Stress». Placing more emphasis on fast wins over the need for new managers to get to know the staff, establishing rapport with them, building trust with them, knowing the previous success limiting factors and get people work towards a grand purpose is the result of greed of putting profits before people. This has a terrible consequence that results in repeating the same mistake and establishing a negative repeating pattern of doing more of the same and expecting better results! A new paradox emerges. Just look in soccer and find out how some football teams changes the manger more than five times in one year. We create unstable work environment and we expect great wins! Wins do not come from self-defeating work paradigms.

The above discussion reminds me of the Marshmallow Experiment. 40 years ago, at a nursery school at Stanford University, psychology professor Walter Mischel ran an experiment in which a group -4year-olds were brought into a room, one at a time. They were given one marshmallow and had the choice of eating it immediately, or if they could wait 15 minutes without eating it, they›d be given a second marshmallow, and could eat both. %70 of the kids ate the marshmallow right away with only %30 of the kids could wait the full 15 minutes to get the second marshmallow. So the choice was simple: one treat right now or two treats later. It turned out from following studies on same kids years later that the kids who opted for two treats were more successful in their lives. The future-focused people are more successful than those people who opt for fast wins. Here is the new paradox: future-focused managers are more successful than present-focused managers and still we ask them for fast wins!

I remember reading a story about a young girl who participated in a contest for many schools to sell Xmas cookies for which the prize was a round trip around the world. She decided to surprise CEO›s of big companies by rushing her way to them to say «Sir, invest in my future so that one day I may invest in yours». Her brilliance in choosing long term prospect made her one of the leading salesperson in the USA.

Is there still any doubt that the way to go is People-Before-Profit?

I dedicate this post to Peter Brodie for he made a comment on one of my previous posts that is still heart-fulfilling and mind-boggling.

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The Dizziness of Employee RotationA week away I felt dizzy and felt my head rotating at the speed of sound. It turned out I had ear infection that got me off balance. Somehow, I found myself exploring the idea of employee rotation and whether this rotation causes dizziness to employees, in spite of documentations that this rotation is for the benefit of the employee and the body in which he/she is employed.

Rotation is experienced in many ways in our lives. Crop rotation, idea rotation, course rotation, «working- hour» rotation, lecturers› rotation at universities and power rotation are common examples. The challenge is to answer questions such as is it better for the USA, in which presidential elections take place every four years, to have same ruling party win the elections or is it better for the country to rotate the ruling parties? Let us start our search to find the answers. One more relevant question is it better to lock employees in one position, or is it better to rotate them and is rotation the key to their unlocking?

Rotation must serve a purpose. Crop rotation serves as a beautiful metaphor in this respect. Why do we rotate crops? The answer is because if we don›t rotate them we may end up with many problems. One problem is one plant tends to overuse nutrients from soil and make

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the soil deficient in some certain nutrients that other crops are needy for them. Employees who stay in one job may have the tendency to do work using same human and other resources and deprive the organization of basic expertise. Political parties might favor certain strategies that lead to the deprivation of resources for other important economic sources. In both cases rotation helps in avoiding such deficiencies.

Employees who stay for long times in one position might also cause toxicity to themselves without even realizing it. They are like some plant such as alfalfa, which suffers from auto-toxicity by excreting poisonous chemicals to protect itself. These toxic chemicals become toxic to the alfalfa and the way to stop this is to plant other crops. Self-toxicity may be experienced with unqualified employees who stay for long in the same position. They defend themselves by using toxic rumors, gossiping and the like. If they stay long enough in the job soon they intoxicate themselves and others.

Not all rotations are useful; in contrast they could be harmful. It is a very good practice to rotate a group of crops together rather than individually. This way we insure that rotated plant still have homogeneity among them and make their adaptations to the new job easier. Likewise; we may consider moving a group of employees together rather than individually. The DNA molecules in our bodies rotate four molecules at a time and not one by itself. I explained this idea in the presentation below:

One terrible mistake of crops rotation is moving a crop neighboring a hostile plant. Companion planting is the art of putting plants that get along next to each other and those that don’t away from each other. Companion planting can be applied in both time and space. Plants that don’t get along should neither be planted next to each other at the same time, nor following each other in your crop rotation. Some managers rotate employees only to reduce their «yield» because of the wrong timing and/or spacing of the rotation. Management should realize that we don›t rotate employees only; we rotate their expertise, aspirations, characters and profiles as well. The worse that could happen is rotating them to not only reduce their output, but also of other employees. There must be a purpose for the healthy rotation of employees. In crops rotation, we plant sunflower a tall and sun-loving plant with lettuce, a short and shade loving plant. This leads to better use of space, resources and soil. We need to consider the same issues when rotating employees.

We all have our wheels of life and we need to get them balanced. I show below my own wheel of life. I know that the wheel is imbalanced. If I get the wheel of lives for all employees would be have a new approach for fitting the locks and keys. The strength of one employee may compensate for the weakness of another employee. The shining and exposure-loving employee may give shade to «young» and shade-loving employees.

You may get your wheel of Life from this source: http://www.thecoaches.com/wol/wheel_of_life.php

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When we have a purpose for what we do then we may not only do it right, but also create new ways for exploiting profitably the space-time field of any organization. One example is The Green Wheel which is an indoor gardening concept, in which hydroponically-grown plants rotate around a central light source. You may also watch a video on this lovely concept.

To go with nature means understanding how nature works and adapt this to our mode of operating. That is if we wish to rotate healthily and without dizziness.

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A Controversial Business MetaphorThe idea of «Birth of Ideas and how to deliver them» has been brewing in my mind for a long while. All of a sudden a question appeared in front of me «why birth of ideas»? Not all animals give birth of living bodies, but rather they lay eggs instead. Why not talking about birth of baby ideas and laying eggs of ideas? The question took me on a telescoping journey that I wish to share with you.The first idea I tackled is relevance to snakes. %70 of snakes lay eggs inside or outside their bodies; the remaining %30 don›t use egg hatching. Do we need to think similarly and discuss the possibility of either delivering a living «baby» idea, or lay it for the world to watch it hatch? One questions leads to another. The next question is related to successful startups and whether the ideas were born as living bodies or as eggs to hatch later? The answers to these questions proved to be disruptive to my thinking as new understandings emerged in my view to the world.

The snake example is extremely interesting because egg-laying snakes may keep the eggs in their bodies till they hatch, or lay them outside their bodies to hatch. Should we keep the ideas in our bodies till they hatch fully or expose them to the external world to hatch or avoid hatching altogether and only show the world a living body- an implemented startup?

Snakes lay eggs in hot climates. This way they may hatch. I tend to extrapolate the idea to business ideas. If the climate of the business is hot you may think of laying them out

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because they may hatch faster and better. I found this article extremely illuminating and supportive to this idea. The article tells the story of a young millionaire and namely Alex Shlaferman, founder and CEO of Brooklyn-based Vante Toys. This gentleman made his first USD 10,000 at the age of 11. Shlaferman explains his success by putting simple ideas. First, come up with an idea and «You don›t think of how you›re going to do something first,» he says. «You think of what it is you want to accomplish and then you work backward.» This thinking reminds me again of snakes that lay eggs and leave them unattended. They don›t protect the idea. If it is strong enough it shall survive. It is the genuine reverse thinking of the common fallacies that gives the opportunity to «egg-like» ideas to hatch.

Reverse thinking guides us to act. I discussed this is a presentation, which I embed here again for those readers for their convenience. However; we soon realize that unconventional thinking leads to another unconventional thinking. Instead of protecting your ideas think in reverse and expose your ideas. Expose them to input from others because you own the idea and it was born from the womb of your mind nobody shall know about them more than you. If your idea is strong enough it shall «deliver». If not, then it may not be a good idea to start with. It doesn›t have the fitness to survive.

http://www.slideshare.net/hudali15/reverse-businesses

This approach creates another challenge. For a successful entrepreneur, it is starting with what you want to accomplish and then working in reverse. The Golden Circle calls for starting with the why, how and then what? Your starting step shakes up upon reversing the order. These ideas are reinforced by the post of on a successful mind that is of Yanik Silver. In a post written about him quotes him as follows»My biggest example of this is the «Underground» online seminar concept I developed. Every year I bring in unknown speakers who were really succeeding online. It›s not the usual suspects you›d see at other seminars. And each year the event has sold out weeks in advance». If your idea has a hook attached to it then you think of what to do to make it happen. Great storytellers know how to hook the readers and your idea must have a hook to attract people to listen.

Many animals spend their energies on how to protect their babies. They have developed a myriad of self-defense ideas. I am asking myself while writing this post should I keep it to myself till it matures or expose it to the readers? I want to go with publishing it. The worst thing is that readers would dislike it, but then I have gained new knowledge. I can improve my thinking, reverse it if necessary and keep learning. I am not going to spend lots of time protecting it when I could have published it. What to do: publish and then I shall work backwards.

Is it always wise to start with the «who and why» questions? Or, with what questions? The debate goes on.I dedicate this post to a great thinker and accomplisher. I dedicate it humbly to Rod King, Ph.D

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A Metaphor on the Movement of BusinessesThe stages of growth are a subject that warrants more attention. Dear friend Dr. Rod King, Ph.D. made a great comment on my previous post «A Controversial Business Metaphor» in which he commented eloquently on growth stages. To keep the formatting, I paste an image of the relevant part of the comment below. It serves a lot to ponder on these seven stages as they are very relevant to businesses today. The No. 1 stage involves marrying of disparate ideas, followed by allowing this idea to fertilize and shape up into a living organism. This stage is followed up by the birth of idea, developing into an infant, growing up till maturity and finally dying. The timing of «releasing» the ideas are mostly in stages 3 and 5 and a hybrid of the two.

The seven stages of ideas lifecycle of Rod King, Ph.D. are a greater degree of zooming in the general classification of growth cycles generally accepted. These are before birth; immature young; and mature adult.

This great comment of Rod King, Ph.D. inspired me of a different perspective. Instead of

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studying the stages of growth then why not study a major attribute of growth, which is movement. Some businesses freeze by fear of gloomy outlooks, recession and falling sales. They hibernate like reptiles during winter. Other times, same businesses are running fast and are energetic. Other times they are moving one step forward and one backward and they end where they are. Are they right to move this way? Should businesses move in accordance of their growth stages and change their metaphor of movement? For example, should they start like a reptile- move up like a snake- fly like an eagle? I shall try to find answers to this question and try to relate it to the comment of Rod King, Ph.D. Another question that pops us is if linking the degree of movement of the movement of businesses and their agility to their strategy (hiding strategy versus exposure strategy).

A baby needs time to creep and then walk. However; the flexibility of their body structure allows them to do many unusual things. They adapt the structure to enable them do unusual movement. For example, the bodies of snakes have no feet, flippers or legs to propel them along. Yet; snakes have a tremendous ability to move in accordance with their growth stage. HowStuffWorks explains beautifully the ability of snakes to move in four different ways and in different media. The serpentine movement has an s-shaped movement and this reminds me of the S-shaped growth curve. This type of movement is common on land and water. A snake contracts its muscles, thrusting its body from side to side, creating a series of curves. In water, this motion easily propels a snake forward because each contraction pushes against the water. On land, a snake usually finds resistance points in the surface -- such as rocks, branches or dents -- and uses its scales to push on the points all at once, thrusting the snake forward. An important idea emerges. Businesses may use the resistance points as anchors for their movement if they have the «scales» to do that. A creative business uses resistance points to its advantage to continue moving.

Snakes flexibility in moving is spectacular as they may move like a caterpillar, but when they climb the ladder of growth they move in a different way by bunching the middle part of their body into curves to push up. Again, there may be another lesson for us to learn. The middle management of a business is similar to the middle part of a snake and therefore this «part» of the body of a business is the one to curve so as the organization may walk up the ladder. The marginalization of middle management or leaders of teams is a sure way of preventing an organization from growing. Another lesson that each stage of growth of an organization calls for considering the way it moves. Snakes move horizontally using a different regime than when walking vertically. Organizations may consider the same strategy.

The extrapolation of ideas on the movement of snakes to businesses extends to the size of the business in concern. Snakes come in all body sizes from as little as 30cm up to more than 700cm. Is it better to stay in a small size than growing up? In the early stages a snake changes its scale quite often and this change of scale slows down as the snake grows. A business should consider carefully what is that representing the equivalent to scales in reptiles because growing without changing scales is like trying to fit a suit of a child on a grown man.

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Snakes have the ability to coil up when climbing a tree. Rapid growth of businesses should consider this type of movement. If these businesses wish to climb the ladder fast they must have a great flexibility of structure so that all employees may «coil up» and release the stored energy fast. Reshaping organization to satisfy the desired movements of organizations is worthy of careful consideration.

Reptiles have the ability to gallop and walk fast when young, but become very slow when they get old. The young can escape from predators much faster than the old ones. So are some businesses as they grow they become slow and an easy target for predators. Growth without consideration to agility might be fatal.

The type of movement has still another strategic consideration regarding adopting a hiding strategy or exposure strategy. But this is another issue.

In conclusion, growth on its own is not enough. It has to be accompanied by adjusting the structure of a business to remain agile and to give it different styles of movement. If not, they shall be an easy target for even for small businesses that are agile. It is essential when we study the growth of businesses to reconsider the type of movement that best fits the growth phase. Some snakes don›t need to coil up to climb a tree. The flying tree snake, which is common in Singapore, flattens out its body to soar from one tree branch to a lower one. The common gliding lizard, also known as the common flying dragon, can likewise glide through the air, but it does so by stretching out a large flap of skin, as if opening a fan, on each side of the body.

Avoid strategies that lead to extinction rather than distinction. Diamonds aren›t always forever. Remember that Rattlesnakes have a diamond-shaped design along their back.

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Arranging for SuccessThere is a peculiar harmony between Pareto Rule and minerals on earth. The Pareto Rule, also known as (Rule of 80/20) states that %20 of people do %80 of the work or %20 of banks in a county make %80 of the banking profits. The Law of Few is applicable to many sectors of our lives. The air we breathe is almost %20 Oxygen whereas %80 is almost the inert Nitrogen. Likewise, there are about 92 natural elements in the earth, but almost eight of them form %80 of the crust. The two major ones are oxygen and silicon. How are these facts related to management? Let us try to find out.Silica is the most abundant mineral on earth. Some silica are very cheap, some are very expensive and in between we have moderately expensive silica.

We have different types of people as we have different types of silica. Are they related? Are there gem people like we have gem silica? What makes two elements produce a gem? Can we emulate that on people by reacting them together to form a gem? Is it possible to produce «gem-like teams»? Lastly, if we bond people the way oxygen and silica bond to each other can we then produce different teams purposefully to tackle different subjects? How natural systems bond together and what can we learn from them?

Silica shares the same building unit. One oxygen atom that is surrounded by four silicon atoms to produce a tetrahedral that is still hungry to interact with other tetrahedra. This is because the tetrhedra isn›t. Fulfilling one need created another need, as the figure below

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shows. Here, we have a shared need for the two elements to react: satisfying their outer shells with eight electrons. This is not a transient need and is a permanent one. Permanent needs that are interdependent between actors to fulfill them lead to lasting bonding.

Let pause here for a while. We may create human bonds if two humans have one shared need and satisfying this need creates another need to satisfy with other humans. This way we may establish a chain of interactions. A simple example would be a wife and husband sharing the desire for having a baby. Once the baby arrives the parents have other needs- to keep the baby in a good health and to be taken care of. The greater the needs are, the stronger the bonds with other people are.

Back to our story of silica- one silica tetrahedra will love to interact with other silica tetrahedra one and the resulting structure will be still thirsty to react with more silica tetrahedra. We end up with many variant structures. Structure backbones dictate the flexibility of these chains and render them with different properties.

It shall be great if we could pack humans analogously to silica chains for many new phenomena shall appear. For example, opal is silica mineral. However; its properties are affected by the packing of its chains into extra tiny spheres. If these spheres are packed randomly, opal will not be of high quality. In contrast, if these tiny spheres are arranged in an orderly fashion opal shall exhibit high quality and sell as a gem. The opal shall diffract light in beautiful colors and each orderly pocket within its structure shall show its «personality» character. There is a great lesson here: it is not enough to pool people in chains; it is equally important to pack them in an orderly fashion so that their work diffracts light in beautiful colors. It is OK to have pockets of groups as they still shall exhibit beautiful colors.

Opals are the «sons» of their environment. They produce gems if the environment is stimulating. And that is not all. In keeping with the rule «gems are not always found where they were formed, nor are they formed where they›re found», I dare say that Groups such

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as «The People Before Profit Group» has better chances to come up with gem ideas to help people because of the varieties it has and thus exposing every member of the group to different environments. Gems may be produced in Australia, but collected in the USA. The opal of the PBP Group will at least have few orderly pockets.

In another example, arranging the silica chains in certain ways may produce singing sand. Yes, that is possible as is explained in the presentation below:

You may replace the silicon or oxygen in parts of the silica chain and get new arrangements of novel properties and new gems may appear. This reminds me of replacement of employees and if done with purpose within a known structure new gem ideas and rearrangement may result.

Let me show by example how new ideas may emerge. Rod King, Ph.D. and I are different and we tend to learn from each other. One idea develops into another idea. Rod King made a comment on my post «A Controversial Business Metaphor». This resulted in the development of «The Idea Ouroboros Universe». This is an advanced version of his previous work. Later, Dr. King made a second comment on my subsequent post «A Metaphor on the Movement of Business». Dr. King applied the type of movement required on his Idea Ouroboros Universe and I expect a new development of his idea. The gem ideas are appearing in the USA. I am sure some gem ideas will emerge in Jordan as well. If Dr. King and I were of the same thinking type this would happen. It is the need to satisfy our «outer shells» that keep them charged and having a constant need to neutralize the charge. We are fro from filling this need. Dr. King asked in one of his comments about what type of thinker I am « In case you are wondering what type of «snake» I am, I may describe myself as a Lean Snake with some streaks of a Stealth Snake. And with that, may I ask: Which type of snake are you»? My answer is exactly the opposite. That is why we need each other.

Building chains of creative ideas may just start from two differently charged ideas or minds.

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I have a question to dear friend Brad Fergusson…if you are the silicon of the tetrahedra, who are the four oxygen people of the tetrahedra?

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The Orbitals of NeedsTwo almost simultaneous reading events sent my mind in all directions to come to grip with paradoxes. Even one paradox was created by me and emphasized by Rod King, Ph.D. In his comment on my last post, Dr. King highlighted the following statement from my post»»It is the need to satisfy our «outer shells» that keep them charged and having a constant need to neutralize the charge». Within the same comment Dr. King mentioned «My rationale for mentioning the concept of the ‹universe in an atom› is that our universe is fractal». Almost immediately following reading this comment I read the excellent post of Sara Jacobovici in which she wrote «Although Maslow himself never used the pyramid, his hierarchy is often portrayed in the shape of a pyramid with the largest, most fundamental levels of needs at the bottom and the need for self-actualization at the top». I found myself in turmoil of asking myself several questions: is the pyramid the best representation of Maslow›s ideas on needs? How true is representing the world as an atom? And even more questions that I leave for a later discussion.

The search for answers to the above questions proved to be as rewarding as demanding. The excitement started building up as more thoughts emerged, which I am sharing with you now. If we dig deeper into the needs we find that all of them come out of deficit, except for self-actualization being positive. The idea of establishing atomic orbitals of jumped in my head. The world is an atom with positive nucleus (self-actualization) and the deficit negative needs surrounding it like electrons surround a nucleus. So, I found myself drawing

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the following:

The orbitals look similar here, but they aren›t the same in real atoms. How then to modify this presentation of Maslow›s Pyramid? What are the practical things that would emerge? The second phase of the research started. In real life we might move from one need before satisfying one need fully. Is that possible in atoms, and if what are the repercussions? How do these repercussions reflect on the needs? For example, a university professor bought a very expensive car to protect his social image even though his income was far less than being able to afford the car. In this case his social needs exceeded his economic and basic needs, which are contradicting with the Maslow›s pyramid. There is the tension of the paradox at play here. In fact, I found profiling people from the car they dream to own shows many more paradoxes. For example, buying a car to show off on the expense of the comfort of his /her family is an example wherein need in the higher rug exceeds a need in the lower rug.

One more point is the placement of the basic needs in the outer shells. Is this sound? My answer is yes, because these needs are active and intense. They are like electrons in the outer shells, which are normally the active ones.

In atoms this is possible and we may fill a higher orbit than filling a lower one. This is because of the paradox between satisfying the filling of the orbit with the simultaneity of keeping the atom neutral or the minimum charge. The atom found the solution by filling the higher orbit before filling the lower one. Unfortunately, few humans, hopefully few only, they don›t feel this paradox and end up in making things worse. Like filling orbits with electrons, so are filling human needs. They might face several paradoxes and we need to optimize the outcome. Examples of paradoxes include:

Egoist needs and connection needs:We want to be «ourselves» and part of a community. A husband wants join friends to play soccer, but his wife wants more of a shared life. If the husband is strongly attached to soccer

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he might end up divorcing his wife. Some orbitals of needs are repulsive as tow similarly charged orbits do.

Social trends are increasing the tendency for clusters of similar needs and want to separate and seclude selves from society. The creation of «mini-societies» is evolving and the tendency of clusters to segregate is increasing. The coalescence of clusters into very specific ones makes its members feel they are as many in one and one in many. This is a form of de-bonding and forces that make two bonded atoms to de-bond are n operation. The overlapping orbitals that once loved the bonding are turning now into hostile ones. The phenomena of what I term «social segregation» could be on the rise. It is through building flexible social networks that we hoped for better resilience of human societies, but apparently technological trends have a different intention. Like an atom propels the electrons from the outer shell, by the same token we seem to be throwing the need for connection with others.

Shrinking to self turn us inert as inert gases are. We become self-saturated and repel the need to connect and be part of the society. A warning here is that in nature animals who opt to live this way die. Being inert is a formula for death and I hope our societies are not folding into self so greatly that they would commit suicide with meaning it.

The Needs GapThe higher the gaps between the needs between two people, the more likely they are to connect! Like in atoms of sodium and chlorine they have opposite affinities: to lose electrons and gain electrons, the more likely they are to lose egoism and dissolve into a new body. I have seen quite often a strikingly beautiful girl walking with much less pretty girl. They aren›t in rivalry and their needs may be quite opposite. One wishes to repel eyes through the ugly one and the other one to attract eyes through the pretty one.

It is when needs are in the middle that people may have one option: to bond and coordinate. Like carbon atoms do, so are people who fall in the middle orbitals of the «need atom». Or, they may exhibit transition characters such as the transition metals. Here, so many new possibilities emerge and just by changing the metal quite new properties emerge.

The greatest fact in life is people. Look at the beautiful fractal below, which represents a healthy society.

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The beauty is in the whole and the whole makes the individual prettier. We can turn our needs into fractal atoms that make us a beautiful unity. We have people who become very rich, but are devoid of happiness. They wish if they could buy it. The true value of richness is through advancing others. This is the way or else the rich shall stay in an orbit that is isolated from others and they shall keep rotating round selves. Create beauty and happiness for others and it shall shade you with its lovely canopy.

To cater for the great comment of dear Rod King, Ph.D. I include our two perspectives in one image: The Diamonds of Needs as network of needs with my above-mentioned orbitals of needs. Thank you Dr. King for the inspiration.

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Disturbing Social CompetitionPeople grow in age, in jobs and in thinking. Growth has different shapes. Linear growth and S-Curve growths, exponential growth and logarithmic growths are examples of what I mean. Our emotions grow with intensity. A broader look shows that even politics shape the growth of rules. The why, when and how factors that affect the growth factors are also linked to political factors. The growth in jobs is indifferent because as we grow in a job our needs may change. When the market is deprived of job opportunities for the young generation the need to find a job becomes a prime factor. A basic need may have the overriding effect of selecting a job.Having a job means having the income to cater for the basic physiological needs. When a young employee gets generous annual raises and above the inflation rate, he/she soon will have different needs. I shall give myself as an example. When I finished my PhD I got a job teaching at a university with adequate income. During the two years I discovered that teaching is not my career pat. I switched to working for a research institute for ten years in which I accomplished a lot. I needed scientific recognition, adequate income, a good title and to travel to attend international conferences. I had more than my share of the pie. Post of my attending a summer course at the prestigious MIT on managing the flow of information I discovered that I had new need- to understand people behavior. That was a bifurcation

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point in my life because it meant going into a complete trajectory in my life by abandoning what I have achieved. I took the decision to take the new path. My emotions were mixed between happiness to do what I wanted to do and the fear of not accomplishing what I aimed for as I was advancing in age. I was angry sometimes at myself because I felt a big gap between my understanding of human behavior and my aspirations where I wanted to be. I felt like wearing a suit of much bigger size than my own. My colleagues at the research institute were making their marks and I felt left behind. This angered me sometimes and saddened me other times. My needs in life changed completely. I needed to read a lot and self-actualization seemed a remote possibility. However; once I felt I am advancing on this new path all resentments disappeared.Why a mi writing on this topic? For the simple reason that we need to orient more the growth in a job with the new needs that accompany the new job. I find it terrible that teachers and some university professors engage in private teaching to make enough money to reflect the image of their new social status. There is a gap between what some jobs pay for and the social image of those jobs. There is disparity between the growth of job titles and the growth of their respective salaries. I call these needs «imported needs» because they are imported from societal drives and not from the self. The society expects a CEO to get high wages. If the company is only able to make the raise in titles, but not in salaries might create a need for some executives to make money illegally to satisfy the societal expectations. This is one need that is artificial because self-actualization by tempting to please others and fulfill their expectations has led to self-bankruptcy and eventually to the bankruptcy of the companies.

Societal changes are responsible for changing the rules as well and not only political factors. Social jealousy, social obedience, social comparisons and social evaluations are creating new needs whose satisfaction may be hard to achieve. Social needs are taking us into new paths that are not of our choice, but rather from the forces of society. A lady buys a new dress shows on her social accounts for other ladies to see and demand the same. How come her friend who is less social status and financial power gets a dress better than her? This led one lady to take her maid to a wedding and dressing her same dress of another wealthy lady attending the wedding! This was her social revenge of her. Social competition is creating false needs that affect some people›s behavior very negatively.

We need to grow values and real values faster than we grow false social values that disrupt behaviors very negatively. Tell me how much real values you have then I can tell who you are. It is about time to go back to our senses.

for self-actualization being positive. The idea of establishing atomic orbitals of jumped in my head. The world is an atom with positive nucleus (self-actualization) and the deficit negative needs surrounding it like electrons surround a nucleus. So, I found myself drawing

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How Feeling Insignificant Makes You Significant?I am reading a lot of scientific stuff these days. All of a sudden some bewildering facts threw a question in my mind: Why is it always huge number of units that cooperate in passing information, carrying information, processing information and in carrying Oxygen in the blood. The average human brain has about 100 billion neurons (or nerve cells) and many more neuroglia (or glial cells) which serve to support and protect the neurons. Neurons are the cells in the brain that convey information about the world around us, help us make sense of the world, and send commands to our muscles to act. They are exquisitely responsive to the world around us, enabling us to learn. Learning can change the shape of a neuron, what that neuron projects to, and its signaling efficiency.

Look at large numbers in our eyes. Muscles enable you to move your eyes. Ocular nerves allow you to interpret what you see and blood vessels keep your eyes oxygenated. The retina contains two types of photoreceptors, rods and cones. The rods are more numerous, some 120 million, and are more sensitive than the cones, with numbers ranging between 7-6 million cones. Huge numbers are in operation.

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We need to collect light (information), carry it to the brain so that the brain analyzes the information correctly. Billions of cells and chemicals are involved in these processes. Is there an advantage to these huge numbers? I feel there is a huge advantage in that a molecule or a nerve cell will feel like a drop in the sea: powerless on its own, but strong if it conforms to the overwhelming majority. This «feeling» of self-insignificance as compared to the wholeness of the system spurs conformity with the wholeness. In countries where we have billion of population each individual might feel being too little to contribute; but this feel will change if the individual sees collective contribution of the society.

It is amazing how working in harmony with system following simple rules generates new perspectives. Take for example the Hemoglobin carries Oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body. All Hemoglobin does is bind to Oxygen molecules while passing through the capillaries in the lungs, and then release Oxygen where it is needed: muscles, organs and the brain. The paradox here is that in spite of the affinity of hemoglobin to Oxygen it has later to release it when needed. How can Hemoglobin carry it two conflicting roles? One reason is that hemoglobin changes its complex shape from one that is Oxygen-loving to one that is Oxygen-Releasing. This reminds me of leaders who may have to change their roles from leaders to followers. Do these leaders have to change shape to do this change? Not only has that as the human body created the conditions for hemoglobin to release Oxygen such as by increasing the acidity in the releasing sites. Do we have to make the environment acidic (sour) for a leader to release off his role as a leader?

The availability of huge numbers of molecules prompts their arrangement in a functional way. The Snakes have rods and cones in their eyes, as do we, though in different numbers. Shrimps have different arrangement of squared structures that act as mirrors. The possibility of varying arrangement to cope with the environment is a subject of huge interest. The complexity of eyes is not only related to their arrangement, but also the degree they adapt to the environment following simple rules.

The value of large numbers is in making a number unimportant on its own; in contrast if part of fully collaborative system.

bifurcation

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Reverse Competition of Va l u e sCompetition has many faces and morphs. Competition versus collaboration is one example of deciding which path to take. Competition has its own self-born competition: going for Porters› Five Forces Strategy versus adopting the Blue Ocean Strategy. Caring for social needs versus economic growth is another example that confuses politicians and economist. «Reverse Competition» is a term I coined for concepts that are in reverse relationship to each other. One example is: Profits before People versus People before Profit concepts that lead to different strategies.

We encounter many situations in which we have to choose between competitive solutions. I remember a story from my childhood. The guard of the school was a long-time employee and was known for his honesty. One day he stole money and was found out. It turned out that he needed money to take his two-year old son to a medical doctor and he had no money. He justified his action by saying «The critical condition of my son and my fear of his death overwhelmed my honesty. I spent hours of what to do and then decided my son›s life is greater than my keeping my record clean». This kind of competition is harsh for it leads us to doing the wrong things. It forces us to reverse our principles and do what w wouldn›t do under normal conditions.

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Do we apply the type of «Exploitation Competition» whereby one value can live in «our space»? This is the strongest type of competition and the survival of one value means the death of another? Competition can be defined as the direct or indirect interaction of organisms that leads to a change in fitness when the organisms share the same resource. The fitness of one idea vanishes leading to its distinction.

In real world there is a competition that we may not pay enough attention to. This is «Apparent competition», when two individuals that do not directly compete for resources affect each other indirectly by being prey for the same predator. May be you heard the story of the two chefs who were preparing dinner for their employer. They suddenly discovered they have one orange left, but unfortunately for them both chefs needed the orange. Finally, the two chefs decided to share the orange (resource). They soon discovered that one needed only the peels only to flavor the cake he was preparing. The other chef needed the peeled orange to make orange juice. Because the employer was very strict on his dinner time, he left the two chefs as preys to his strictness. Their apparent competition was false. I know of many examples in which managers put employees in similar situations by creating a «Mirage Competition» that doesn›t exist in reality.

Having a niche of value to people is a good strategy to walk away in spaces where there are no competitions, at least for a while. A new niche is appearing. The rapid change of technology is making many products obsolete. We are competing with time. A market niche is appearing by selling few samples of the past technologies such as land phones. But even this niche is not expected to be good enough because people don›t hold to a product long enough to feel they own it. Transient ownership is a shaky soil for niches of these kinds.

People with double values have an ongoing struggle between them in their inner space. These values may at early stages find a way to coexist like expressing one value in public while reserving the private meeting for the second value. But sooner one value shall grow in popularity and these people find it difficult to accommodate both of them. Creating this type of competition is very stressful to their bodies and soon these people feel burn out. Actions and words that go in different directions are stressful. The hidden stress for fear these people would be found out accelerates their burning out.

We are living newly apparent conflicts. Holding a family spirit versus spending long times networking with the outside world. We are reducing both the space and time for our families. The value of the family is declining and we have seen cases of divorce. The death of time and space is leading to the death of many good values such as family values. What happens should the wrong values prevail?

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The Butterfly Effect of TimeThis post aroused me and forced me to refocus my attention. I felt heated up like a balloon filled with hot air and flying up. The post is «Don’t Manage Time, Manage Yourself» by Sara Jacobovici. So many thoughts crossed my mind while reading from the post «In reality, time does not control us, our sense and perception of time does». And then this statement struck me «Time is like air, we need it to survive and it’s out there for us to use, naturally and unconsciously».

I commented on this great post by writing «Time is like air, we need it to survive and it’s out there for us to use, naturally and unconsciously. I love this dear Sara Jacobovici. You sent my mind in many directions. Air is %20 active oxygen and almost %80 inactive nitrogen. Does time follow path like air with %20 only used effectively and energetically? Do we pollute time like we have air pollution? Do we have «The Green House Effect» of Time, like we do experience with acidified air? Is time availability different at different heights like air? Is time chaotic like air? Is time compressible like air? Does time flow in pressure waves like air? So many questions are flowing in my mind and I surely shall think of an answer. If time is a sense then how time as air and sense combine? I wrote a presentation on «The Blue Ocean Strategy of Time»- was I correct»?

If time is like air so we are responsible for compressing time and not the other way round. This reverse thinking has a blowing effect on our perspective for time. Time is biased in

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its composition with the inert nitrogen its major constituent. Do we have then a very limited choice of changing the composition of time and its functionality? Well, we have to remember that a minute trace of a toxic pollutant might intoxicate the air we breathe; by the same token we might intoxicate the time we inhale. Wow! The idea of inhaling and exhaling time just popped up. Do people breathe time? Do we mean we run out of time when we say we run out of breath?

Do we pollute time like we pollute air and cause the Green House Effect? We are polluting our times like we are polluting air. If time is like air we are breathing the toxic time that we caused and this is feeding back to us. We complain about global warming, and likewise we may extend the idea to «global time warming». Air becomes lighter when it gets warmer and so time gets lighter when we warm it and it flies higher and faster.

The precise properties of air vary in accordance with where we are. At elevated highs oxygen percentage decreases and breathing becomes more difficult. I imagine managers who go to the high floor have less oxygenated times and they suffer from difficult breathing. It is not only the breathing of air, but also the breathing of time. If these managers inflate themselves with false pride then they become lighter and go higher, but only to find the top chilly, lonely and difficult to breathe. It is at the sea level where more oxygen for breathing is available. Would not it be wise for those managers to «visit» the ground occasionally be deflating self so as to breathe healthy air and time?

The air composition shall be different in nearby points. If time is like air then the composition of time at two near places shall be different. In complex systems like air we notice the butterfly effect where minute differences between neighboring points may take completely different paths over time. The paradox here is that time itself is like air and no neighboring points will have identical time composition? Are we watching the Time Butterfly Effect or the Air Butterfly Effect?

I wrote a presentation on The Blue Ocean Strategy of Time». If time is like air then I should reconsider. If time is like air then I need to change terms other than those used by the conventional blue ocean strategy such as compressed time, expanded time, heated time, circulating time, dry time and so on.

From dry air to dry hair- can you think of an analogy for dry time to dry….? And dry time to airtime- where are we going? Will airtime have a different meaning from now on? Would spacetime still hold same meaning? How about Spaceair?

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Leaders with Wet HeartsWhat do you feel if you do something with great intentions and the opposite happens? This happened to me yesterday. Dear Luigi Rendina wrote a «light, but illuminating» comment and shared the post with even a greater comment. I felt inflated and tried to «humble» myself in my response and even used Google Translate to write a bilingual comment: English and Italian. Once intentions were publicly clarifies, Mr. Rendina and I got connected. In a message he wrote to me he said «Do not worry. No problem. We could write a post about communication and the pitfalls of Google translator ;-)». This message led to the writing of this post.

Communication is vital and is also risky if the message is misunderstood. A «light» comment instead of illuminating may turn into a confusing one. Of all the paradoxes leaders face such as growth versus sustainability or mind versus heart, I find the communication paradox is a vital one to consider. Misunderstood communication can damage relationship. It is here where a leader knows how important it is to use his/her heart to understand others instead of exercising power over them. This leads to a second paradox that might preclude the use of heart: the power paradox. This paradox is well-explained in this quote «by fundamentally misunderstanding the behaviors that helped us to gain power in the first place we set ourselves up to fall from power. We can’t retain power because we’ve never understood it correctly, until now. Power isn’t the capacity to act in cruel and uncaring ways; it is the ability to do good for others, expressed in daily life, and itself a good a thing». I firmly believe that

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the «power of soft skills by far exceed the power of positions».

Leadership is truly a paradox born out from another paradox. I dare to say there is a possibility of «Fractal Paradoxes», and it is unfortunate they are not beautiful ones to look at in spite of the general impression that fractal represent beauty. I decided to look for some paradoxes of leaders (we are all as we are also responsible for leading ourselves). I collected in the figure below, realizing that there are many more paradoxes and they shall appear upon zooming on them.

Influence Paradox: If you watch the programs, one thing becomes clear immediately. The worst workers in virtually any business are the people who are obsessed with the question of whether they are being disrespected.

Respect Paradox: If you watch the programs, one thing becomes clear immediately. The worst workers in virtually any business are the people who are obsessed with the question of whether they are being disrespected.

Leadership Paradox: To lead, indeed to live, is to accept that much of what we do is inherently paradoxical, with elements that are often contradictory, even mutually exclusive. So we straddle an idea instead of embracing it, and we avoid the tension inherent in paradox.

Work Paradox: Work becomes «worth doing economically if you can attract a price. But the more you put a price on work, the more that vital work...such as teaching...becomes unattractive.»

I find that using aging trees as a great metaphor to explain all paradoxes above. Few trees grow and may live for more than five hundred years. Successful organizations may live long, but what makes them die is their inability to protect most of its inner heartwood and/or exterior. Organizations grow, but those who have succeeded managed better than others to protect themselves from self-infected wounds. When leaders grow they have to remember they need to protect their hearts like trees protecting their inner heartwood. They need to protect themselves from the wounds caused by enjoying power and leaving their hearts to dry up. Growing power requires softening hearts and not hardening them.

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Some trees live so long and reach heights that the roots become unable to send nutrients-rich water to the top. They die. Organizations that reach their top have to remember it is the roots that the root-like workers extract the nutrients only to fail to communicate them to the top management because managers have closed the pores, blocked the membranes for the information to reach them.

What shape do you think fractal paradoxes have? What is your story?

Great leaders know that when they grow the only way to balance their growing power with wet hearts. There is no other way. I dedicate my story to a great human who inspired this post- to Luigi Rendina

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The Luminescence of MindsYou have experienced these events:

Your idea ignited my mindYour illumination is….Your glowing comment inspired meYour comment is the spark that...Your idea enlightened meIn the light of what you said…….words that emit light in our mindsThey all share illuminating ideas. But what makes an idea enlightening, sparking, illuminating and light producing? Can we develop or plan for having illuminating ideas? Do we have sacs in our minds to that harbor light sources? These questions surfaced out again while reading the latest post of Isabella Wesoly FRSA People. Synergy. Purpose. In which she replied to one of my comments by saying «The colors change according to aspects of personal energy that are affected by and involved in each step between experience and learning». Light has different colors and so are colorful ideas. Where from the different colors originate?

I found myself searching into the darkness of a dark sea of ignorance and I needed a lighting source to guide me. The source is there. WHILE A HANDFUL of land animals can create their own light, homemade luminescence is the rule rather than the exception in the open ocean›s dark waters. Humans are mostly living on land and we need to generate lighting ideas. Can

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we emulate sea creatures to better our efforts to generate them? Researchers estimate that between 80 and 90 percent of deep-dwelling animals are bioluminous, creating light by mixing a pigment they have with a catalyst enzyme that makes it glow. The light tends to green and blue. These are the colors that can travel far in seawater. Glowing helps attract mates, lure prey or confound predators. The environment has its constraints and limited colors are produced accordingly. See great example in the link below:

But we don›t have what sea animals have the chemicals that emit light. There is the other possibility that some marine creatures such as crystal jellies have chemicals that react with a protein in the presence of oxygen and certain metallic ions to produce light. These reactions have their unique kinetics. The catalyst is involved in the reaction and allows for the regeneration of the illuminating protein chemical. Ideas are like chemicals and if we have the right varieties of ideas and in the right environment they may produce the «enlightening ideas, the glowing ideas and the illuminating ideas».

A third way to produce light in the dark oceans is by symbiosis. . Many marine animals, such as squid, house bioluminescent bacteria in their light organs. Chemists have produced oscillating chemical reactions in which alternating colors may be observed. See the video below for further enlightenment:

Without going into the «troubling» scientific explanation, it is suffice to state here that there are eighteen reactions going in the reaction vessel. We need to collect human ideas in one vessel so that they may interact, and get oxygenated so that they may produce light. Oscillating reactions are not common and creative ideas of real value are uncommon. We want ideas in our «vessels», which are our minds» to interact, to bombard and to produce the illumination.

Isolated ideas rarely illuminate. It is through their interactions that oscillation occurs. Different ideas are the substitute for different chemicals that produce oscillating light. It is not the network of people as much as it is the network of ideas in the right vessel and environment that shall create the illumination. Don›t we express creativity by a lighting bulb? Let this bulb be an oscillating one with different colors.

This is a trip of mind. William King made a comment on my previous post by writing «You can look and listen, in four ways as a leader on a walk. Impartial observer, look with your senses. Analyze, look and listen with your mind. Feeling, look and listen with your heart. The fourth, I have been reading about lately, is the incubation, look and listen with your soul. As a leader your vision can begin to express itself after you›ve gone through the four steps». Dear William, I tried to do the same while writing this post.

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Self Illumination