1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings."
3. There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."
4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
5. You should not confuse your career with your life.
6. Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.
7. Never lick a steak knife.
8. The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.
9. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.
10. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby.
11. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.
12. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.
13. A person, who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.
14. Your friends love you anyway.
15. Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.
16. Men are like a fine wine. They start out as grapes, and it's up to women to stomp the crap out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.
I agree with number 2. I have found at a "meeting" that when there is nothing left to be said, someone always says it :)
An American professor came to Oz in the 90's and was running workshops on contract management for us. He was very good and has worked on major projects around the world.
After the formal part of the course we all chatted a bit and he described his most rewarding projects and those not so rewarding. His least rewarding was a project in South America, forget the Country, where he was employed to "kill" a project that had national pride and great significance behind it. It was running far too slow and costs had blown out so much the Government couldn't afford it.
How did he do it???
Scroll down after you have a think about it.
He formed a committee for everything, 100's of them, really everything. There were overarching committees who managed "groups" of committees, what we call tool box meetings, health, safety, finance, rostering, leave, shifts changes, liason with locals, social, wages, meals, transport, weather, site layout, roads,,,, ie every function or peer group had a committee.
The project imploded and the Government refused any more finance for the project and it died a sudden death with everyone arguing about everything.
So the Professor succeeded in his role of project manager.
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Why is it so? Professor Julius Sumner Miller, a profound influence on my life, who explained science to us on TV in the 60's.
