1.

A Cup of Tea

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”

“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

2. The Burden

Two monks were returning to the monastery in the evening. It had rained and there were puddles of water on the road sides. At one place a beautiful young

woman was standing unable to walk accross because of a puddle of water. The elder of the two monks went up to a her lifted her and left her on the other

side of the road, and continued his way to the monastery.

In the evening the younger monk came to the elder monk and said, “Sir, as monks, we cannot touch a woman ?”

The elder monk answered “yes, brother”.

Then the younger monk asks again, “but then Sir, how is that you lifted that woman on the roadside ?”

The elder monk smiled at him and told him ” I left her on the other side of the road, but you are still carrying her.”

3. Finding a Piece of the Truth

One day Mara, the Evil One, was travelling through the villages of India with his attendants. he saw a man doing walking meditation whose face was lit up on

wonder. The man had just discovered something on the ground in front of him. Mara’s attendant asked what that was and Mara replied, “A piece of truth.”

“Doesn’t this bother you when someone finds a piece of truth, O Evil One?” his attendant asked. “No,” Mara replied. “Right after this, they usually make a

belief out of it.”

4. The Other Side

One day a young Buddhist on his journey home came to the banks of a wide river. Staring hopelessly at the great obstacle in front of him, he pondered for

hours on just how to cross such a wide barrier. Just as he was about to give up his pursuit to continue his journey he saw a great teacher on the other side of

the river. The young Buddhist yells over to the teacher, “Oh wise one, can you tell me how to get to the other side of this river”?

The teacher ponders for a moment looks up and down the river and yells back, “My son, you are on the other side”.

5. Is That So?

The Zen master Hakuin was praised by his neighbors as one living a pure life.

A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store lived near him. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered she was with child.

This made her parents very angry. She would not confess who the man was, but after much harassment at last named Hakuin.

In great anger the parents went to the master. “Is that so?” was all he would say.
When the child was born, the parents brought it to the Hakuin, who now was viewed as a pariah by the whole village. They demanded that he take care of

the child since it was his responsibility. “Is that so?” Hakuin said calmly as he accepted the child.

A year later the girl-mother could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth – that the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the

fishmarket.

The mother and father of the girl at once went to Hakuin to ask his forgiveness, to apologize at length, and to get the child back again.

Hakuin was willing. In yielding the child, all he said was: “Is that so?”

6. Maybe

Once upon the time there was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors

came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.

“Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.

“Maybe,” replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his

misfortune.

“Maybe,” answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The

neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.

“Maybe,” said the farmer.

7. Cliffhanger

One day while walking through the wilderness a man stumbled upon a vicious tiger. He ran but soon came to the edge of a high cliff. Desperate to save

himself, he climbed down a vine and dangled over the fatal precipice.

As he hung there, two mice appeared from a hole in the cliff and began gnawing on the vine.

Suddenly, he noticed on the vine a plump wild strawberry. He plucked it and popped it in his mouth. It was incredibly delicious!

8. The Blind Men and the Elephant

Several citizens ran into a hot argument about God and different religions, and each one could not agree to a common answer. So they came to the Lord

Buddha to find out what exactly God looks like.

The Buddha asked his disciples to get a large magnificent elephant and four blind men. He then brought the four blind to the elephant and told them to find

out what the elephant would “look” like.

The first blind men touched the elephant leg and reported that it “looked” like a pillar. The second blind man touched the elephant tummy and said that an

elephant was a wall. The third blind man touched the elephant ear and said that it was a piece of cloth. The fourth blind man hold on to the tail and described

the elephant as a piece of rope. And all of them ran into a hot argument about the “appearance” of an elephant.

The Buddha asked the citizens: “Each blind man had touched the elephant but each of them gives a different description of the animal. Which answer is

right?”

9. Right and Wrong

When Bankei held his seclusion-weeks of meditation, pupils from many parts of Japan came to attend. During one of these gatherings a pupil was caught

stealing. The matter was reported to Bankei with the request that the culprit be expelled. Bankei ignored the case.

Later the pupil was caught in a similar act, and again Bankei disregarded the matter. This angered the other pupils, who drew up a petition asking for the

dismissal of the thief, stating that otherwise they would leave in a body.

When Bankei had read the petition he called everyone before him. “You are wise brothers,” he told them. “You know what is right and what is not right. You

may go somewhere else to study if you wish, but this poor brother does not even know right from wrong. Who will teach him if I do not? I am going to keep

him here even if all the rest of you leave.”

A torrent of tears cleansed the face of the brother who had stolen. All desire to steal had vanished.

10. Nothing Exists

Yamaoka Tesshu, as a young student of Zen, visited one master after another. He called upon Dokuon of Shokoku.

Desiring to show his attainment, he said: “The mind, Buddha, and sentient beings, after all, do not exist. The true nature of phenomena is emptiness. There

is no realization, no delusion, no sage, no mediocrity. There is no giving and nothing to be received.”

Dokuon, who was smoking quietly, said nothing. Suddenly he whacked Yamaoka with his bamboo pipe. This made the youth quite angry.

“If nothing exists,” inquired Dokuon, “where did this anger come from?”

Bonus 11. Teaching the Ultimate

In early times in Japan, bamboo-and-paper lanterns were used with candles inside. A blind man, visiting a friend one night, was offered a lantern to carry

home with him.

“I do not need a lantern,” he said. “Darkness or light is all the same to me.”

“I know you do not need a lantern to find your way,” his friend replied, “but if you don’t have one, someone else may run into you. So you must take it.”

The blind man started off with the lantern and before he had walked very far someone ran squarely into him. “Look out where you are going!” he exclaimed

to the stranger. “Can’t you see this lantern?”

“Your candle has burned out, brother,” replied the stranger.

the emperor's new clothes (following the crowd, confidence trickery,
fear of embarrassment, bystanding, courage, scrutiny, questioning,
mob rule)
A pompous king is persuaded by mischievous tailors that a 'magnificent' and
extremely expensive suit they have produced for him can only be seen by clever
people.
In fact there is no suit at all, so when the king wears the suit, the king is actually
naked.
The king, then the king's courtiers, and eventually the crowds at the next royal
parade, are all tricked into agreeing that the king's suit is wondrous, even though
the king is naked.
Each person does not dare to appear to be stupid. Nobody wants to be the first to
question the claim.
So an entire population is persuaded to adopt a completely false belief - based on
exploiting people's individual pride, fear of embarrassment, and reluctance to be a
lone voice of disagreement.
The tale ends with the intervention of a small boy, who, unaware of the widely
publicized mythical claims of the tailors, loudly pronounces the king to be naked, so
exposing the sham.
The Emperor's New Clothes was originally written by the Danish author/poet Hans
Christian Andersen, as part of his famous fairy tales collection, first published in
1837.

the philosophy student and the chair story (creativity, quick-

thinking, exams and tests, short answers to long questions)
This is a widely circulated story from the early 2000s. It appeared online and in
emails in many different versions. Please tell me if you know it to be earlier, and/or
the origin. I've refined the wording of the story as follows:
A philosophy professor gave an unusual test to his class. He lifted his chair onto his
desk and wrote on the board simply: "Prove that this chair does not exist." The class
set to work, composing long complex explanations - except one student, who took
just thirty seconds to complete and hand in his paper, attracting surprised glances
from his classmates and the professor. Some days later the class received their
grades for the test. The student who took thirty seconds was judged the best. His
answer was, "What chair?"
 
The story is one of several similar urban myths which make fun of supposedly high-
minded theorizing and academia, in which an apparently very difficult or impossible
question is defeated by a very simple quick 'clever' answer. The story also inspired
the fine 'philosophy student' contribution to the Glass Half-Full/Empty Quotes
Collection. Here are some other examples of funny legendary test questions and
answers:
Q - What do you think of this as a question? A - What do you think of this as an
answer?
Q - Why? A - Why not?
Q - Why? A - Because.
Q - Define 'courage'. A - This. (or This is.)
Q - Prove that this chair does not exist. A - This chair is actually a word on a board.
The chair that exists is that one on the table.
Q - Briefly explain what hard water is? A - Ice. (This one was real)
Q - What do we call the science of classifying living things? A - Racism. (So was
that)
(Thanks for the suggestion, R Bubb)

the bishop the priest and the ladle story (assumptions,

deceitfulness, dishonesty, creative problem-solving, arrogance,
delusion)
This wonderful story was circulated by email several years ago. Here is an adapted
version which can be used to illustrate several different themes.
A bishop invited a young priest to dinner. During the meal, the priest noticed some
signs of intimacy between the bishop and his housekeeper. As the priest was
leaving, the bishop said to him quietly, "I can guess what you are thinking, but really
our relationship is strictly proper." A few days later the housekeeper remarked to the
bishop that a valuable antique solid silver soup ladle was missing - since the young
priest's visit - and so she wondered if he might have taken it. "I doubt it, but I will
ask him," said the bishop. So the bishop wrote to the priest: "Dear Father, I am not
saying that 'you did' take a solid silver ladle from my house, and I am not saying
that 'you did not' take a solid silver ladle from my house, but the fact is that the
ladle has been missing since your visit.." Duly, the bishop received the young priest's
reply, which read: "Your Excellency, I'm not saying that 'you do' sleep with your
housekeeper, and I'm not saying that 'you do not' sleep with your housekeeper, but
the fact is that if you were sleeping in your own bed, you would by now have found
the ladle."

(Adapted from a story sent to me by A Höyden. If you know the origins of this story
please tell me.)

the man, the boy, and the hotel story (assumptions, customer
service, helping others, kindness, humanity)
This story is frequently told to be true. Whether true or not, it is certainly powerful.
A man and a young teenage boy checked in to a hotel and were shown to their
room. The two receptionists noted the quiet manner of the guests, and the pale
appearance of the boy. Later the man and boy ate dinner in the hotel restaurant.
The staff again noticed that the two guests were very quiet, and that the boy
seemed disinterested in his food. After eating, the boy went to his room and the
man went to reception and asked to see the manager. The receptionist initially
asked if there was a problem with the service or the room, and offered to fix things,
but the man said that there was no problem of that sort, and repeated his request.
The manager was called and duly appeared. The man asked to speak privately and
was taken into the manager's office.
The man explained that he was spending the night in the hotel with his fourteen-
year-old son, who was seriously ill, probably terminally so. The boy was very soon to
undergo therapy, which would cause him to lose his hair. They had come to the
hotel to have a break together, and also because the boy planned to shave his head,
that night, rather than feel that the illness was beating him. The father said that he
would be shaving his own head too, in support of his son. He asked that staff be
respectful when the two of them came to breakfast with their shaved heads. The
manager assured the father that he would inform all staff and that they would
behave appropriately.
The following morning the father and son entered the restaurant for breakfast.
There they saw the four male restaurant staff attending to their duties, perfectly
normally, all with shaved heads.

(Adapted from a story sent to me by A Smith. If you know the origins of this story
please tell me.)

the blind man and the advertising story (communications,

perceptions, empathy, connecting with people, advertising,
marketing, language meaning, intervention, helping others,
expertise, equality, discrimination)
Warning: This story contains language and a potentially 'offensive
stereotype' of a visually impaired person that certain audiences may find
objectionable. At the same time the story carries a powerful main
message, is culturally/historically significant, and is useful in debating
equality/disability, aside from its obvious 'different perceptions' theme. So
be careful how you use this story. Alter the language appropriately where
warranted, position it carefully, and if in doubt do not use the story at all.
This story is not recommended for education/sharing unless you are very
sure of how to use it safely.

the blind man and the advertising story

An old blind man was sitting on a busy street corner in the rush-hour begging for
money. On a cardboard sign, next to an empty tin cup, he had written: 'Blind -
Please help'.
No-one was giving him any money.
A young advertising writer walked past and saw the blind man with his sign and
empty cup, and also saw the many people passing by completely unmoved, let alone
stopping to give money.
The advertising writer took a thick marker-pen from her pocket, turned the
cardboard sheet back-to-front, and re-wrote the sign, then went on her way.
Immediately, people began putting money into the tin cup.
After a while, when the cup was overflowing, the blind man asked a stranger to tell
him what the sign now said.
"It says," said the stranger, " 'It's a beautiful day. You can see it. I cannot.' "

(My Dad told me this story when I was a teenager in the 1970s. Much later it was
interpreted into a popular video on the web. This story illustrates in a timeless way
how important choice of words and language is when we want to truly connect with
and move other people. The story can also be used to explore issues of disability,
equality, discrimination and political correctness, for example, what is it that makes
this story offensive to some people?, and given the valuable main message, is there
a way to adapt this story so that it cannot cause offence to anyone? Thanks BC and
SD)

the shoes story (positive thinking, negative thinking, attitude,

perspective, mindset)
You will perhaps have heard this very old story illustrating the difference between
positive thinking and negative thinking:
Many years ago two salesmen were sent by a British shoe manufacturer to Africa to
investigate and report back on market potential.
The first salesman reported back, "There is no potential here - nobody wears shoes."
The second salesman reported back, "There is massive potential here - nobody
wears shoes."

This simple short story provides one of the best examples of how a single situation
may be viewed in two quite different ways - negatively or positively.
We could explain this also in terms of seeing a situation's problems and
disadvantages, instead of its opportunities and benefits.
When telling this story its impact is increased by using exactly the same form of
words (e.g., "nobody wears shoes") in each salesman's report. This emphasises that
two quite different interpretations are made of a single situation.
See also the glass half-full/empty quotes.
the pub story (racial issues, discrimination, exclusion, inclusion,
lateral thinking, different meanings in language and
communications)
A Sikh, a Muslim, an Englishman, an Irishman, a Scotsman, a Welshman, a Jew, a
Buddhist and a Hindu go into a pub.
The barman looks up and says, "Is this some kind of a joke?"

(This short aside can be used to illustrate or draw attention to issues related to racial
stereotyping/discrimination. Separately it offers an example of lateral thinking, and
also an example of double meaning in language. The ethnicities may be changed for
your own situation or part of the world. Do not share this story unless you can safely
position it or you are confident that it will not cause offence.)

the inflatables story (context is everything, discipline and

admonishment)
In the land of inflatables (bear with me..), at the inflatable school, what did the
inflatable teacher say to the naughty inflatable boy caught misbehaving with a pin?
"You let me down, you let yourself down, and worst of all you let the whole school
down."

the mechanic and the surgeon story (perceptions, the devil is in the
detail, the nature of big differences)
A heart surgeon took his car to his local garage for a regular service, where he
usually exchanged a little friendly banter with the owner, a skilled but not especially
wealthy mechanic.
"So tell me," says the mechanic, "I've been wondering about what we both do for a
living, and how much more you get paid than me.."
"Yes?.." says the surgeon.
"Well look at this," says the mechanic, as he worked on a big complicated engine, "I
check how it's running, open it up, fix the valves, and put it all back together so it
works good as new.. We basically do the same job don't we? And yet you are paid
ten times what I am - how do you explain that?"
The surgeon thought for a moment, and smiling gently, replied,"Try it with the
engine running.."

zodiac star signs story (for remembering the signs of the zodiac, and
memory aid example for teaching mnemonics methods)
This story is a mnemonic (pronounced 'nemonic' - meaning memory aid) for
remembering the twelve Signs of the Zodiac, in order, starting in January.
While this example is useful for pub quizzes, more importantly the method of
creating a story mnemonic can be used to retain all sorts of difficult-to-
remember pieces of information, for yourself, and taught to others. Mnemonics
stories need not make sense - they simply need to be memorable.
In January, a goat (Capricorn), drinking from a stream (Aquarius) said, "Look, a fish
(Pisces)."
A ram (Aries), and a bull (Taurus), carrying the twins (Gemini) said "There's also a
crab (Cancer)."
A lion (Leo) roared in agreement, which startled the young maiden (Virgo) so that
she dropped and smashed her scales (Libra).
"That's no crab - it's a scorpion (Scorpio)," said the archer (Sagittarius).

Note that the Signs of the Zodiac are normally deemed to start and end anything
between the 18th and the 24th day of each month, depending on interpretation. It is
not by any means a precise science.

the two bulls story (tactics, wisdom, planning, youthfulness vs

maturity, impulse vs patience)
Two bulls, one young and full of enthusiasm, and the other older and wiser, see a
herd of cows.
The young bull says, "Let's charge down this hillside and have our wicked way with a
couple of those cows."
The old bull replies, "No, how about we stroll gently down this hillside and have our
wicked way with them all."

You will perhaps have heard this story told with more fruity language. Feel free to
adapt it for your own situation.
(Thanks A Dobson for suggesting it. See also Softly softly, catchee monkey.)

the thief and the paintings story (planning, preparation, resources,

project management)
A thief was caught after stealing some paintings from the Louvre in Paris, when his
getaway van ran out of fuel.
Given bail at his first hearing, a reporter asked him on the steps of the courthouse
how he forgot such a vital part of his plan.
"Simple," said the thief, "I had no Monet for Degas to make the Van Gogh."

(Ack CB)
the gardener's badge story (positive thinking, attitude, seeing the
good side)
A landscape gardener ran a business that had been in the family for two or three
generations. The staff were happy, and customers loved to visit the store, or to have
the staff work on their gardens or make deliveries - anything from bedding plants to
ride-on mowers.
For as long as anyone could remember, the current owner and previous generations
of owners were extremely positive happy people.
Most folk assumed it was because they ran a successful business.
In fact it was the other way around...
A tradition in the business was that the owner always wore a big lapel badge, saying
Business Is Great!
The business was indeed generally great, although it went through tough times like
any other. What never changed however was the owner's attitude, and the badge
saying Business Is Great!
Everyone who saw the badge for the first time invariably asked, "What's so great
about business?" Sometimes people would also comment that their own business
was miserable, or even that they personally were miserable or stressed.
Anyhow, the Business Is Great! badge always tended to start a conversation,
which typically involved the owner talking about lots of positive aspects of business
and work, for example:
 the pleasure of meeting and talking with different people every day
 the reward that comes from helping staff take on new challenges and experiences
 the fun and laughter in a relaxed and healthy work environment
 the fascination in the work itself, and in the other people's work and businesses
 the great feeling when you finish a job and do it to the best of your capabilities
 the new things you learn every day - even without looking to do so
 and the thought that everyone in business is blessed - because there are many
millions of people who would swap their own situation to have the same opportunities
of doing a productive meaningful job, in a civilized well-fed country, where we have no
real worries.

And so the list went on. And no matter how miserable a person was, they'd usually
end up feeling a lot happier after just a couple of minutes listening to all this
infectious enthusiasm and positivity.
It is impossible to quantify or measure attitude like this, but to one extent or another
it's probably a self-fulfilling prophecy, on which point, if asked about the badge in a
quiet moment, the business owner would confide:
"The badge came first. The great business followed."

the jewels story (enjoyment, fulfillment, possession, wealth,

materialism, greed)
Once there was a very rich and greedy man. He loved and hoarded jewels.
One day a visitor asked to see them.
So the jewels were brought out, amid much expensive security, and the two men
gazed at the wonderful stones.
As the visitor was leaving he said, "Thank you for sharing your jewels with me."
"I didn't give them to you," exclaimed the rich man, "They belong to me."
"Yes of course," replied the visitor, "And while we enjoyed the jewels just the same,
the real difference between us is your trouble and expense of buying and protecting
them."

(Thanks Jackie Carpenter, adapted from an original item in New Internationalist

137.)

the atheist and the bear story (loyalty, conviction, payback and
reward, changing sides)
A committed atheist (that's someone who steadfastly does not believe in a god of
any sort) was on a trekking holiday when he became lost in some dense woods.
A large angry bear, with ten starving cubs back home and claws like kitchen knives,
suddenly emerged from the undergrowth.
The atheist screamed in terror, turned and ran. The bear was quicker however, and
after a long and desperate chase eventually cornered the atheist in a gully.
The exhausted atheist sank to his knees, shaking.
The bear, seeing that its prey was trapped, moved slowly towards the petrified man,
drooling. The bear was drooling too.
The atheist lifted his head, with tears in his eyes, and uttered the words he thought
he would never say in all his life: "God help me..."
With these simple three words, a blinding flash of lightning lit up the sky. There was
a deafening crash of thunder. The clouds parted. A brilliant light shone down. The
forest fell silent. The bear froze still, in a trance. The atheist stood gaping,
transfixed.
A voice came loud from above. Louder than twenty AC/DC concerts all happening at
the same time. We can safely assume this voice to have been the voice of a god of
some sort.
"You atheists make me seriously mad," boomed the god, "You deny me all your life.
You tell others to deny me too. You put your faith in all that bloody Darwinian airy-
fairy scientific nonsense, and then what a surprise - you get lost because you can't
read your stupid map, and now you're about to get eaten by an angry bear all of a
sudden you're on your knees snivelling and begging for my help?......... You must be
joking..."
The atheist looked down, realising that he was not arguing from a position of
strength.
"Okay, I take your point," said the atheist, thinking on his feet, while he still had
them, "I can see it's a bit late for me to convert, but what about the bear?... Maybe
you could convert the bear instead?"
"Hmmn... interesting idea..." said the god, thinking hard, "...Okay. It shall be done."
At which the brilliant light dimmed and vanished; the clouds closed; and the noises
of the forest resumed.
The bear awoke and shook its head, a completely different expression on its face.
Calm, at peace.
The bear closed its eyes, bowed its head, and said, "For what we are about to
receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful, Amen.."
THE END
_________________________________

N.B. The grace prayer in the punchline is the version commonly taught in UK
schools. Alternatives might work better depending on the audience, for example:
"Come Lord Jesus, be our guest, let this food of ours be blessed. Amen.."
(suggesting an Australian bear of unspecific denomination)
"Lass't uns beten! O Herr, segne uns und diese deine gaben, die wir von deiner Güte
nun empfangen werden. Durch Christus, unseren Herr'n! Amen.." (suggesting a
German Catholic bear)
You will perhaps devise your own endings. Perhaps your own animals. Perhaps your
own god.
It has been suggested that this story could offend certain sensitivities.
I apologise therefore to bears everywhere.
(Adapted from a story sent by S Hart, thank you.)

A much shorter and simpler version of this story (thanks D Baudois) is as follows:

the missionary man and the lion story

A missionary came upon a hungry lion in the middle of the African plain.
The missionary knelt and prayed, "God, please give this lion a christian soul!"
The lion stopped, knelt, and prayed also: "Lord above, may this meal be blessed.."

And here is another interpretation of the story (thanks Koppa Dasao)..

the atheist and the bear II (alternative Koppa Dasao version)

An atheist was trekking in the woods when he came across an angry bear. Startled
at the disturbance the bear gave chase.
After a minute or so the bear said, "Hey, atheist, why are you running?"
The atheist replied, "I don't believe in talking bears."
The bear replied: "Well, I don't believe in atheists."
"Thank God, I'm safe," said the atheist, and stopped running, at which the bear bit
off his head.

(thanks Koppa Dasao - published at Businessballs.com/stories.htm 25 March 2012)

the fairy story (strategic alliances, tactical awareness, ageism,

sexism, being careful about what you wish for and how you go about
getting it)
A couple were dining out together celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary.
After the meal, the husband presented his wife romantically with a beautiful very old
gold antique locket on a chain.
Amazingly when his wife opened the locket, a tiny fairy appeared.
Addressing the astonished couple, the fairy said, "Your forty years of devotion to
each other has released me from this locket, and in return I can now grant you both
one wish each - anything you want.."
Without hesitating, the wife asked, "Please, can I travel to the four corners of the
world with my husband, as happy and in love as we've always been?"
The fairy waved her wand with a flourish, and magically there on the table were two
first-class tickets for a round-the-world holiday.
Staggered, the couple looked at each other, unable to believe their luck.
"Your turn," said the fairy and the wife to the husband.
The husband thought for a few seconds, and then said, with a little guilt in his voice,
"Forgive me, but to really enjoy that holiday of a lifetime - I yearn for a younger
woman - so I wish that my wife could be thirty years younger than me."
Shocked, the fairy glanced at the wife, and with a knowing look in her eye, waved
her wand.....
and the husband became ninety-three.

(Adapted from a suggestion from J Riley, thanks.)

circus story (developing young people, talent, career choice,

parenting)
This short story - it's a joke really - can be used to illustrate attitudes to developing
young people, career direction, and especially the advice and aspirations of parents
and coaches, which might be different to the dreams of the individual...
In a circus, the Bearded Lady and the World's Strongest Man fell in love, and
decided to start a family.
Soon the Bearded Lady fell pregnant.
A few weeks before she was due to give birth, the Bearded Lady and the circus ring-
master were talking.
"How's it going?" the ring-master asked, "Are you well?"
"Yes thanks - very excited," said the bearded lady, "We have so many plans for the
baby - we want to be supportive parents."
"That's nice," said the ring-master, "Do you want a boy or a girl?"
"Oh, we really don't mind as long as it's healthy," said the Bearded Lady, "And it fits
into the cannon.."

(Thanks DC)

stranded car dilemma story (creative thinking, ethics, decision-

making)
This story is adapted from a scenario which featured in a widely circulated email, in
which (supposedly) job applicants were given loosely the following question to
answer, to indicate their personality and decision-making motives (supposedly). The
job application context is extremely doubtful, but the lesson in creative thinking is
interesting, especially if people are not given too long to dwell on it:
You are driving alone in two-seater car on a deserted road in blizzard conditions,
when you see another car which has recently run off the road and into a tree. There
are three people in the stranded car, none of whom is injured:
 an old friend, who once saved your life
 your childhood sweetheart greatest lost love
 an elderly lady

No-one has a phone. The likelihood of any more passing traffic is effectively zero.
The conditions are too dangerous for people to walk anywhere. It is not possible to
tow the crashed car. The nearest town is an hour's drive away.
The question is: Given that your car is just a two-seater, in what order should the
stranded people be taken to the nearest town?
Answer

the school story (attendance, sickness, responsibility, parenting, and

various other uses)
My apologies if this story is well-known to you. It's an old joke, yet a useful
illustration for various themes.
A mother repeatedly called upstairs for her son to get up, get dressed and get ready
for school. It was a familiar routine, especially at exam time.
"I feel sick," said the voice from the bedroom.
"You are not sick. Get up and get ready," called the mother, walking up the stairs
and hovering outside the bedroom door.
"I hate school and I'm not going," said the voice from the bedroom, "I'm always
getting things wrong, making mistakes and getting told off. Nobody likes me, and
I've got no friends. And we have too many tests and they are too confusing. It's all
just pointless, and I'm not going to school ever again."
"I'm sorry, but you are going to school," said the mother through the door,
continuing encouragingly, "Really, mistakes are how we learn and develop. And
please try not to take criticism so personally. And I can't believe that nobody likes
you - you have lots of friends at school. And yes, all those tests can be confusing,
but we are all tested in many ways throughout our lives, so all of this experience at
school is useful for life in general. Besides, you have to go, you are the
headteacher."
 
(Based on a suggestion from P Hallinger, thanks.)

the soldiers and the trench story (leadership)

The story goes that sometime, close to a battlefield over 200 years ago, a man in
civilian clothes rode past a small group of exhausted battle-weary soldiers digging an
obviously important defensive position. The section leader, making no effort to help,
was shouting orders, threatening punishment if the work was not completed within
the hour.
"Why are you are not helping?" asked the stranger on horseback.
"I am in charge. The men do as I tell them," said the section leader, adding, "Help
them yourself if you feel strongly about it."
To the section leader's surprise the stranger dismounted and helped the men until
the job was finished.
Before leaving the stranger congratulated the men for their work, and approached
the puzzled section leader.
"You should notify top command next time your rank prevents you from supporting
your men - and I will provide a more permanent solution," said the stranger.
Up close, the section leader now recognized General Washington, and also the
lesson he'd just been taught.
(This story is allegedly based on truth. Whatever, similar examples are found in
history, and arise in modern times too, so please forgive the mythical possibility of
the above attribution; the story's message is more important than its historical
accuracy.)
the john wayne story (instructions, communications, understanding,
confused messages)
It is said that when filming the biblical epic The Greatest Story Ever Told, the
director George Stevens was trying to encourage extra passion from John Wayne
when delivering the highly significant line, "Truly, this was the Son of God."
"You are talking about Jesus - think about it," said Stevens, "You've got to say it
with awe."
For the next take John Wayne duly summoned his most intense feelings. He paused
dramatically, and said:
"Aw, truly this was the Son of God."

the blind men and the road story (stretching, dependency, risk,
achievement under pressure)
Warning: This story contains language and a potentially 'offensive
stereotype' of visually impaired person that certain audiences may find
objectionable. At the same time, the main message is uplifting and in
major part offers an empowered and optimistic view of visual impairment.
Nevertheless, be careful how you use this story. Alter the language
appropriately where warranted, and if in doubt do not use the story at all.
A blind (visually impaired) man had been waiting a while at a busy road for someone
to offer to guide him across, when he felt a tap on his shoulder.
"Excuse me," said the tapper, "I'm blind - would you mind guiding me across the
road?"
The first blind man took the arm of the second blind man, and they both crossed the
road.
Apparently this is a true story. The first blind man was the jazz pianist George
Shearing. He is quoted (in Bartlett's Anecdotes) as saying after the event, "What
could I do? I took him across and it was the biggest thrill of my life."
There are times when we think we cannot do something and so do not stretch or
take a risk. Being forced to stretch and take a risk can often help us to reduce our
dependencies (on others, or our own personal safety mechanisms), and to discover
new excitement and capabilities. The poem Come to the Edge is another wonderful
perspective on risk and stretching.

the doctor and the thief story (ethical decision making - also
adaptability, flexibility, accepting what cannot be changed)
A man goes to the doctor and says "Doctor, I've become a compulsive thief."
The doctor prescribes him a course of tablets and says, "If you're not cured in a
couple of weeks would you get me a widescreen television?"
This is not a lesson of ideal behaviour, it's a humorous illustration of options -
whether to try to change something, to accept it or to actively support it. Such
decisions normally have two main reference points - the difficulty of the change, and
the ethical implications of the situation.
The Serenity Prayer is a different and less cynical view of change and choices.

the preacher and the farmer story (understanding the needs of your
people, caring for minorities and individuals, looking deeper than the
mainstream)
An old hill farming crofter trudges several miles through freezing snow to his local
and very remote chapel for Sunday service. No-one else is there, aside from the
clergyman.
"I'm not sure it's worth proceeding with the service - might we do better to go back
to our warm homes and a hot drink?.." asks the clergyman, inviting a mutually
helpful reaction from his audience of one.
"Well, I'm just a simple farmer," says the old crofter, "But when I go to feed my
herd, and if only one beast turns up, I sure don't leave it hungry."
So the clergyman, feeling somewhat ashamed, delivers his service - all the bells and
whistles, hymns and readings, lasting a good couple of hours - finishing proudly with
the fresh observation that no matter how small the need, our duty remains. And he
thanks the old farmer for the lesson he has learned.
"Was that okay?" asks the clergyman, as the two set off home.
"Well I'm just a simple farmer," says the old crofter, "But when I go to feed my
herd, and if only one beast turns up, I sure don't force it to eat what I brought for
the whole herd..."
From which we see the extra lesson, that while our duty remains regardless of the
level of need, we have the additional responsibility to ensure that we adapt our
delivery (of whatever is our stock in trade) according to the requirements of our
audience.
(Adapted from a suggestion from P Hallinger, and based apparently on a story told
by Roland Barth, whom I assume to be the US educationalist.)

the old lady and the hearing-aid story (assumptions about

weaknesses, underestimating people, tactical advantage)
An old lady had a hearing-aid fitted, hidden underneath her hair.
A week later she returned to the doctor for her check-up.
"It's wonderful - I can hear everything now," she reported very happily to the
doctor.
"And is your family pleased too?" asked the doctor.
"Oh I haven't told them yet," said the old lady, "And I've changed my will twice
already.."

(Thanks BC. Based on a letter published in the newspaper several years ago, written
by the doctor. I suspect variations of this story have been told many times
elsewhere too.)

the mobile phone story (assumptions, authority, control, the risks of

modern communications and technology, privacy, security, identity
theft, etc)
Several men were in a golf club locker room.
A mobile phone rings.
"Yes I can talk," says the man answering the call, "You're shopping are you? That's
nice."
The listening men smile to each other.
"You want to order those new carpets? Okay.. And they'll include the curtains for an
extra five thousand?.. Sure, why not?"
More smiles among the listeners.
"You want to book that week on Necker Island?.. They're holding the price at
twenty-two thousand?.. Sounds a bargain.. You want a fortnight?.. If that's what
you want honey, okay by me."
Smiles turn to expressions of mild envy.
"And you want to give the builder the go-ahead for the new conservatory? Seventy-
five thousand if we say yes today? Sounds fair.. sure, that's fine."
The listeners exchange glances of amazement.
"Okay sugar, see you later.. Yes, love you too," says the man, ending the call.
He looks at the other men and says, "Whose phone is this anyhow?.."

the trench-digger story (initiative, self-development, making things

happen, career advancement, how to get a job requiring experience
when you have none)
This is adapted from (apparently) a true story.
An elderly couple retired to the countryside - to a small isolated cottage overlooking
some rugged and rocky heathland.
One early morning the woman saw from her window a young man dressed in
working clothes walking on the heath, about a hundred yards away. He was carrying
a spade and a small case, and he disappeared from view behind a copse of trees.
The woman thought no more about it but around the same time the next day she
saw the man again, carrying his spade and a small case, and again he disappeared
behind the copse.
The woman mentioned this to her husband, who said he was probably a farmer or
gamekeeper setting traps, or performing some other country practice that would be
perfectly normal, and so not to worry.
However after several more sightings of the young man with the spade over the
next two weeks the woman persuaded her husband to take a stroll - early, before
the man tended to arrive - to the copse of trees to investigate what he was doing.
There they found a surprisingly long and deep trench, rough and uneven at one end,
becoming much neater and tidier towards the other end.
"How strange," the old lady said, "Why dig a trench here - and in such difficult rocky
ground?" and her husband agreed.
Just then the young man appeared - earlier than his usual time.
"You're early," said the old woman, making light of their obvious curiosity, "We
wondered what you were doing - and we also wondered what was in the case."
"I'm digging a trench," said the man, who continued, realising a bigger explanation
was appropriate, "I'm actually learning how to dig a good trench, because the job
I'm being interviewed for later today says that experience is essential - so I'm
getting the experience. And the case - it's got my lunch in it."
He got the job.
(Adapted from a suggestion - thanks R Columbo)

double-positive story (make your point and then know when to stop,
language, communications, lateral thinking, quick-thinking)
On hearing one of his students use the expression, "I don't know nothing about it..."
a teacher took the opportunity to explain about double negatives and correct
grammar to the class.
The teacher explained, "In the English language a double negative makes the
statement positive, so your assertion that you 'don't know nothing about it' is
actually an admission that you do know something about it."
Encouraged by the interest in this revelation among certain class members, the
teacher went on to demonstrate more of his knowledge of world languages: "Of
course not all languages operate according to the same grammatical rules, for
example, in Russian, a double negative remains negative, although perhaps
surprisingly, there is not a single language anywhere in the world in which a double
positive makes a negative.."
At which a voice from the back of the classroom called out ironically "Yeah, right.."
 
(This is adapted from a story sent to me by M Morris. Apparently the original story
was based on a true incident at a Modern Language Association meeting in New
York in the mid-1970's, reported in the NY Times. The quick-witted response in the
original story, actually "Yeah, yeah..", seemingly came from from Sidney
Morganbesser, a professor of philosophy who was noted for his speedy retorts.
Thanks M Morris, Apr 2007.)

the bath and the bucket story (lateral thinking, making assumptions,
dangers of judging people)
Given the title (on the subject of buckets..) and its quick simple message, this story
is a good partner analogy to the rocks in a bucket time management story.
The story illustrates lateral thinking, narrow-mindedness, the risks of making
assumptions, and judging people and situations:
A party of suppliers was being given a tour of a mental hospital.
One of the visitors had made some very insulting remarks about the patients.
After the tour the visitors were introduced to various members of staff in the
canteen.
The rude visitor chatted to one of the security staff, Bill, a kindly and wise ex-
policeman.
"Are they all raving loonies in here then?" said the rude man.
"Only the ones who fail the test," said Bill.
"What's the test?" said the man.
"Well, we show them a bath full of water, a bucket, a jug and an egg-cup, and we
ask them what's the quickest way to empty the bath," said Bill.
"Oh I see, simple - the normal ones know it's the bucket, right?"
"No actually," said Bill, "The normal ones say pull out the plug. Should I check when
there's a bed free for you?"

the stamp story (customer services, communications, product

design, customer inertia)
The staff at an old people's home were puzzled when one of the residents began
gargling with TCP. They asked her why but all she would say was that something
had happened at the post-office. This is what actually occurred.
The old lady, who rarely ventured out, had visited the post office to post a letter.
She bought a stamp, and since there was a long queue behind her she stepped
aside. She put her change in her purse, licked the stamp and put it on her letter.
Despite pressing and thumping and licking it again, the stamp failed to stick.
"Excuse me, this stamp won't stick," said the old lady.
"You need to peel the paper off the back," explained the clerk.
The old lady put on her spectacles, fiddled for a few seconds to peel off the backing
paper - and then licked the stamp again.
"It still won't stick," interrupted the old lady again.
"It's a self-stick stamp," said the assistant.
"Well this one isn't sticking at all - there's something wrong with it," demanded the
old lady.
"Well it won't stick now because you've licked it."
"Well I'm totally confused now," said the old lady.
"Just give it here and I'll post it for you," said the cashier, and doing her best to
explain continued, "These new stamps don't need licking. They are self-sticking.
They save time. They are already sticky."
The old lady continued to look blankly at the assistant.
"Look," said the well-meaning but desperate post-office clerk, "Just imagine they've
already been licked..."
Which sent the old lady scurrying out of the door and across the road to the
chemist.
(Thanks Stephen Rafe for the original tale from which the above was adapted.
Stephen also provided another example of confused customer service
communications, in which the customer was convinced for a while that the customer
service person was somehow carrying on his work from inside prison, because the
bad line was due to him speaking from his cell-phone..)

the shot at dawn campaign story (ethics and culture, leadership

integrity and styles, decision-making, policy-making,)
By December 1916 more than 17,000 British troops were officially diagnosed as
suffering from nervous or mental disability (we'd say shell-shock or post-traumatic
stress disorder these days), despite which the British military authorities continued
to charge and convict sufferers with 'cowardice' and 'desertion', and to sentence to
death by firing squad many of those found 'guilty'.
On 16 August 2006 the British government announced that it would pardon 308
British soldiers who were shot by firing squad for 'cowardice' and 'desertion' during
the First World War of 1914-18. The decision was ratified by Parliament on 7
November 2006, and represented a remarkable u-turn by this and previous
governments who had always firmly refuted any evidence and justification for
pardoning the victims.
This reversal followed and was largely due to decades of persistent lobbying and
campaigning by organisations and individuals, many being families and descendents
of the victims. It is not easy to imagine their suffering, especially of the widows and
parents long since gone, for whom this decision came a lifetime too late.
The story emphasises two things: first, that people in authority have a responsibility
to behave with integrity. Second, that where people in authority fail to act with
integrity, the persistence and determination of ordinary people will eventually force
them to do so.
Here is more background about the Shot At Dawn campaign, and the history of this
particularly shameful example of British institutional behaviour.
It provides lessons to us all about doing the right thing, and calling to account those
who do not.
See the related discussion ideas for developing awareness and understanding of the
issues and how they relate to us all.
N.B. Some people will not agree with this interpretation. This makes it
such an interesting subject for debate, especially in transferring the issues
and principles to modern challenges in organisations, and the world
beyond.

direct mail campaign clanger story (human nature, integrity,

delegation and training, and advertising is a funny business...)
This is a true story. Some years ago a client engaged a consultant to help with a
small postal mailing to the purchasing departments of blue chip corporations. The
consultant sourced the list (which was provided on MSExcel) and drafted the letter.
Thereafter the client was keen to take control of the project, ie., to run the mail-
merge and the fulfilment (basically printing, envelope-stuffing and mailing).
The consultant discovered some weeks later that a junior member of the client's
marketing department had sorted the list (changed the order of the listed
organisations in the spreadsheet), but had sorted the company name column only,
instead of all columns, with the result that every letter (about 500) was addressed
and sent to a blue chip corporation at another entirely different corporation's
address.
Interestingly the mailing produced a particularly high response, which when
investigated seemed to stem from the fact that an unusually high percentage of
letters were opened and read, due apparently to the irresistible temptation of
reading another corporation's mail...

the god and eve story (gender and sexual discrimination, equality,
battle of the sexes debates, after-dinner speaking, etc)
"God, I've been thinking.." says Eve one day.
"What's on your mind Eve?" says God.
"Well, I know that you created me and this beautiful garden and all of these
wonderful creatures, but lately I've been feeling that maybe there's more to life."
"Go on..." says God.
"Sometimes I get a bit bored - I fancy a bit of fun. And I get a bit fed up with all the
heaving lifting and carrying, and warding off the mammoths and sabre-toothed
tigers, not to mention that bloody snake. This garden can be dangerous place."
"I see," says God, pausing for thought.
"Eve, I have a cunning plan," says God, "I shall create Man for you."
"Man?" asks Eve, "What is Man?"
"Man..." says God, "Is a flawed creature. He will have many weaknesses and
disgusting habits. Man will lie, cheat and behave like an idiot - in fact mostly he'll be
a complete pain in the backside. But on the plus side he'll be big and strong, and will
be able to protect you, and hunt and kill things, which might be handy sometimes.
He will tend to lose control of mind and body when aroused, but with a bit training
can reach an acceptable standard in the bedroom department, if you know what I
mean."
"Hmm," says Eve, "Seems like this Man idea might be worth a try, but tell me God,
is there anything else I need to know?"
"Just this," says God, "Man comes with one condition... In keeping with his arrogant,
deluded, self-important character, Man will naturally believe that he was made first,
and frankly we all have better things to do than argue, so you must keep all this a
secret between us, if that's okay with you. You know, woman to woman.."
(unknown origin - if you can shed any light on the origin please contact me - thanks
CB)

the wrong guy interview story (interviews, preparation, thinking on

your feet, communications)
This is a true story. It concerned Guy Goma, a lovely cuddly business graduate from
the Congo, who on 8th May 2006 attended the BBC building in West London for an
interview for an IT job. At the same time, the BBC News 24 TV channel was
expecting a Guy Kewney (now sadly deceased), editor of the website
Newswireless.net, for a live 10.30am studio interview about the Apple court case
judgement. (Apple Corps, owned by surviving Beatles McCartney and Starr, lost their
case against Apple Computers, in which they sought to prevent the Apple name
being used in relation to iTunes music downloads.)
Due to failed communications, entirely the BBC's fault (both Guys were blameless in
this), the BBC News 24 staff grabbed the wrong Guy (waiting in a different reception
to Guy Kewney), who, being an unassuming, foreign and extremely polite fellow,
dutifully took his place in the studio, and after declining make-up (really), was
introduced on live TV to viewers as Guy Kewney, editor of the technology website
'Newswireless', and then asked three questions by the BBC News 24 business
presenter Karen Bowerman about the Apple judgements and its implications for
internet music downloading.
Meanwhile the real Guy Kewney sat and watched 'himself' on the monitor in the BBC
reception. See the 'wrong Guy' interview. (At some stage in the future the link to the
BBC interview clip might cease working - I don't know how long they keep these
things. Let me know when and if you can no longer see the video clip and I'll try to
source it elsewhere. As at Jun 2010 - thanks Joe - it seems that the clip is not so
easy to play as it once was, although the video is still available via the BBC's 'Launch
in stand alone player' link for the 'wrong Guy' item.
What's so utterly fascinating about this story and the supporting video, is:
Guy Goma initially expresses surprise about the interview situation, but, largely due
to his broken English and heavy French accent the interviewer interprets and leads
Mr Goma's response to mean that he is surprised about the court judgement. If you
listen carefully Guy Goma does actually mention his 'interview' in his first answer.
See the transcript below. However the pressure of the situation is too great and he
has little option other than to play out the role that the fates have created for him.
He actually does quite well, given that he knows little about the subject. Subsequent
media reports that Guy Goma was a taxi driver are false - he's a business graduate.
He later attended his IT job interview but regrettably was unsuccessful. You can
read what Guy Kewney thought of it all on his own blog at www.newswireless.net
(there are several entries - read them all to see the full picture).
As mentioned, sadly Guy Kewney has since died, on 8 Apr 2010. His blog as at Sep
2010 still stands. Please let me know if it ceases to be available. On hearing of Guy
Kewney's passing (thanks D Guy - another different Guy..) I considered whether to
remove or retain this item and obviously I decided to retain it. I never met Guy
Kewney. From what I understand he seems to have been a lovely man. The
opportunity to say this is part of my decision.

the wrong guy interview transcript

Karen Bowerman: ...Well, Guy Kewney is editor of the technology website

Newswireless.
[Camera switches to Guy Goma's face, portraying a mixture of shock, disbelief and
impending disaster.]
KB: Hello, good morning to you.
Guy Goma: Good morning.
KB: Were you surprised by this verdict today?
GG: I am very surprised to see... this verdict, to come on me because I was not
expecting that. When I came they told me something else and I am coming. Got an
interview... [another word, impossible to discern] .... a big surprise anyway.
KB: A big surprise, yes, yes. [seeming a little anxious]
GG: Exactly. [growing in confidence]
KB: With regard to the costs involved do you think now more people will be
downloading online?
GG: Actually, if you go everywhere you are gonna see a lot of people downloading to
internet and the website everything they want. But I think, is much better for
development and to empower people what they want and to get on the easy way
and so faster if they are looking for.
KB: This does really seem the way the music industry's progressing now, that people
want to go onto the website and download music.
GG: Exactly. You can go everywhere on the cyber cafe and you can take [maybe
'check'?], you can go easy. It's going to be very easy way for everyone to get
something to the internet.
KB: Thank you [actually sounds more like 'Thank Kewney' - as if Ms Bowerman was
a little distracted, no wonder]. Thanks very much indeed.
Lessons from this:
 Good clear communications are essential when managing any sort of interview.
 Pressure situations can easily lead people (especially interviewees) to give false
impressions, which are no help to anyone.
 The behaviours demonstrated in this incident illustrate the power of suggestion, and
NLP, albeit used mostly inadvertently in this case; the point is that all communications
involve a hell of a lot more than just words..
 The power of the media to interpret just about anything for their own journalistic
purposes is bloody frightening.

the very old lady story (positive attitude, self-image, ageism)

A very old lady looked in the mirror one morning. She had three remaining hairs on
her head, and being a positive soul, she said, "I think I'll braid my hair today." So
she braided her three hairs, and she had a great day.
Some days later, looking in the mirror one morning, preparing for her day, she saw
that she had only two hairs remaining. "Hmm, two hairs... I fancy a centre parting
today." She duly parted her two hairs, and as ever, she had a great day.
A week or so later, she saw that she had just one hair left on her head. "One hair
huh...," she mused, "I know, a pony-tail will be perfect." And again she had a great
day.
The next morning she looked in the mirror. She was completely bald.
"Finally bald huh," she said to herself, "How wonderful! I won't have to waste time
doing my hair any more.."
(Ack CB)

the train travellers story (relationships, assumptions, etc)

A wealthy businessman who is used to getting his own way finds himself sharing a
sleeper compartment with a beautiful young woman as they travel to Brussells on
the train. It is winter and the heating is not working so the compartment is cold.
The two settle down to sleep.
"Two strangers, on a train..." says the businessman.
"Yes," says the woman.
"A man and a woman - away from home - probably never meet again.." Says the
businessman.
"Yes," says the woman.
"It's cold, isn't it?" says the businessman.
"Yes," says the woman.
"Could you pass me another blanket?" says the businessman, "... Or maybe we
could pretend to be man and wife for tonight?.."
"Yes, that would be good," says the woman, "Get your own bloody blanket."
the william pitt story (working creatively to reach agreement,
managing situations and environments, facilitation of agreements)
There is the story of William Pitt, 1759-1806, British statesman and Prime Minister
from 1783-1801, who once sought to expedite a crucial agreement in Parliament for
the movement of the British fleet to defend against the French. The Chancellor of
the Exchequer, Lord Newcastle, had certain objections, but when Pitt called on the
Chancellor endeavouring to resolve the differences, he found the Chancellor
distinctly unhappy in bed suffering with gout. The bedroom was freezing, and when
Pitt remarked on this, Lord Newcastle replied that the cold weather would hinder the
fleet movement, but more particularly that the combination of the cold conditions
and the gout would prevent any further discussion of the issue at that time, which
Pitt quickly judged to be at the root of the problem. Begging the Chancellor's
pardon, Pitt calmly removed his boots, climbed into bed and drew up the covers
(apparently there was another bed in the room..), whereupon the two were able to
discuss the matter and soon agreed a united way forward.

the biscuit factory story (making assumptions, other people's

perspectives, individual needs and motivations)
This is a true story. Some years ago the following exchange was broadcast on an
Open University sociology TV programme.
An interviewer was talking to a female production-line worker in a biscuit factory.
The dialogue went like this:
Interviewer: How long have you worked here?
Production Lady: Since I left school (probably about 15 years).
Interviewer: What do you do?
Production Lady: I take packets of biscuits off the conveyor belt and put them into
cardboard boxes.
Interviewer: Have you always done the same job?
Production Lady: Yes.
Interviewer: Do you enjoy it?
Production Lady: Oooh Yes, it's great, everyone is so nice and friendly, we have a
good laugh.
Interviewer (with a hint of disbelief): Really? Don't you find it a bit boring?
Production Lady: Oh no, sometimes they change the biscuits...
 
My thanks to Shirley Moon for this lovely story, who also points out the following
lessons within it:
 Do not impose your own needs and ambitions on to other people who may not share
them.
 Don't assume that things that motivate you will motivate someone else.
 Recognise that sources of happiness may vary widely between people.
See also the sections on personality styles, multiple intelligence and learning styles,
and motivation, which all relate to this story.

a short story about eggs (time management, creative thinking and

problem-solving)
A young woman was in her kitchen.
A pan of water was simmering on the stove.
She was making boiled eggs for breakfast.
He walked in.
Their eyes met.
"Make love to me here, now," she said.
They made love on the kitchen table.
"Couldn't resist me, huh?" he said.
"The egg timer is broken," she replied.
 
Of course this story is a bit far-fetched given that an egg timer lasts for three whole
minutes..
(Ack Detoxman)

the translator story (communications, assumptions, creativity,

deceit, language, relationships, just deserts)
The story goes that a prominent, married, philandering, wealthy politician took
advantage of a young female Italian translator during an overseas visit. Shortly after
his return home he received a phone call at his office from the woman informing him
that she was pregnant and that he was definitely the father.
Seemingly experienced at dealing with such situations, the politician instructed the
young woman, "I will arrange for you and the child to be provided for. Do not worry
about money. I will pay ten times the typical Italian settlement, but this must be
kept secret."
"I see," said the young woman, a little taken aback, but since she knew the man and
his reputation she was not unduly surprised, and was also entirely happy never to
see or speak to him again.
He went on, "Don't ever call me again. Send me a postcard with some sort of coded
message confirming date of birth, that the child is healthy and whether a boy or girl.
Use your imagination - you are a translator after all."
"As you wish," said the young woman, and ended the call.
A little under nine months later the politician's wife (who was also his PA) was
opening his mail. When she came to a particular postcard the politician noticed and
suddenly became attentive.
"Here's a postcard..." said his wife.
"Oh yes," said the politician, "What does it say?"
"Just a silly joke I think," said his wife, continuing, as she watched the colour drain
from her husband's face, "It says: 'March 12th - Just had three big beautiful bowls of
spaghetti - all with meatballs..' "
(Ack SF)

the helpful old lady story (check the facts, false assumptions, etc)
One afternoon, an old lady, laden with shopping, noticed two small boys on the front
step of a house. With their bags and uniforms they were obviously going home after
school. They were on tip-toe trying to reach the door-bell with a stick.
"Poor little lads, they can't get in," she thought, "Parents these days just don't seem
to care."
So she marched up the path, reached over the boys and gave the bell a long firm
push.
The surprised boys turned around and screamed "Quick, run!" and promptly
disappeared over the garden wall.

the buddha and the abuse story (responding to other people's

negative behaviour; angry customers, disruptive kids, bad-tempered
bosses, etc)
A tale is told about the Buddha, Gautama (563-483BC), the Indian prince and
spiritual leader whose teachings founded Buddhism. This short story illustrates that
every one of us has the choice whether or not to take personal offence from another
person's behaviour.
It is said that on an occasion when the Buddha was teaching a group of people, he
found himself on the receiving end of a fierce outburst of abuse from a bystander,
who was for some reason very angry.
The Buddha listened patiently while the stranger vented his rage, and then the
Buddha said to the group and to the stranger, "If someone gives a gift to another
person, who then chooses to decline it, tell me, who would then own the gift? The
giver or the person who refuses to accept the gift?"
"The giver," said the group after a little thought. "Any fool can see that," added the
angry stranger.
"Then it follows, does it not," said the Buddha, "Whenever a person tries to abuse
us, or to unload their anger on us, we can each choose to decline or to accept the
abuse; whether to make it ours or not. By our personal response to the abuse from
another, we can choose who owns and keeps the bad feelings."
(This is related to Transactional Analysis)
the gandhi shoe story (selfless compassion, generosity without
strings)
Mohandas [Mahatma] Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948), the great Indian statesman
and spiritual leader is noted for his unusual humanity and selflessness, which this
story epitomises. Gandhi was boarding a train one day with a number of companions
and followers, when his shoe fell from his foot and disappeared in the gap between
the train and platform. Unable to retrieve it, he took off his other shoe and threw it
down by the first. Responding to the puzzlement of his fellow travellers, Gandhi
explained that a poor person who finds a single shoe is no better off - what's really
helpful is finding a pair.
Separately, Gandhi was once asked what he thought of Western Civilisation. Gandhi
replied: "I think that it would be a very good idea."
The notion still applies.
(More inspirational and amusing quotes.)

greta garbo negotiation story (negotiation tactics, negotiating

position, independence and the power of choice)
Great Garbo (1905-90), the 1930's Swedish-born film star, demonstrated how to
negotiate with a bullying adversary, and particularly the tactic of 'walking away'.
After Garbo had become established as a major star, she decided to negotiate a
contract that suitably reflected her considerable box-office value to the producers.
Accordingly she demanded a weekly fee of $5,000 - compared to the derisory $350
a week she'd previously been paid. When film mogul Louis Mayer heard Garbo's
demand he offered her $2,500. Garbo replied simply, in her Swedish-American
accent, "I think I go home.." And off she went.
Garbo returned to her hotel and stayed there, not budging, while Mayer stewed - for
seven months - at which Mayer eventually caved in and gave Garbo what she asked
for.
(Interestingly Garbo never actually said, "I want to be alone". There phrase was in
fact "I want to be left alone," which her character Grusinskaya said in Garbo's 1932
film Grand Hotel. The resonance of the words with Garbo's real life didn't just extend
to her negotiating style: she retired in 1941 with the world still at her feet, and lived
the rest of her life an obsessive recluse in New York after becoming a US citizen in
1951.)

the jesse james story (tactics, morality, good and bad in us all)
The notorious American Wild West bank robber Jesse James (1847-82) was hunted
and demonised by the authorities, but was held in high regard by many ordinary
folk. Here's an example of why:
The story goes that Jesse James and his gang had taken refuge for a few days in
ramshackle farmhouse after one of their raids. The old widow who lived there fed
the men, and apologised for her modest offerings and the poor state of the
accommodation. While the gang laid low, they learned from the widow that she
faced eviction from her landlord and was expecting a visit from his debt collector any
day. Taking pity on the old lady, as they left, the gang gave her some of the spoils
of their robbery to settle her debt - several hundred dollars, which was a small
fortune in those days. The gang moved on, but only to a nearby copse, where for a
couple more days they watched and waited for the arrival - and departure - of the
debt collector, whom they promptly held up and robbed.
Of course robbing anyone is bad, but if you've got to rob someone...

the gorilla story (negotiating, understanding communications,

agreeing clear objectives and responsibilities)
A zoo had among its animals a female gorilla, whose mood was becoming
increasingly difficult. The vet concluded that she was on heat and that a mate
should be found. The vet contacted some other nearby zoos to find a partner for the
broody female, but to no avail. The female gorilla's behaviour continued to worsen,
but the vet noticed that she grew calmer, and strangely responsive, whenever a
particularly well-built and none-too-handsome keeper entered the enclosure. Being
an unprincipled and adventurous fellow, the vet put an outrageous proposition to
the keeper: For a fee of five hundred pounds would the keeper consider spending a
little 'quality time' with the gorilla, purely in the interests of research of course?....
The keeper, also an unprincipled and adventurous fellow, pondered the suggestion,
and after a few minutes agreed to the offer, subject to three conditions. The vet,
intrigued, listened to the keeper's demands:
"First," the keeper said, "No kissing."
"Fine," said the vet.
"Second, no-one must ever know - if this gets out I'll kill you."
"You have my word," said the vet, "And your final condition?"
"It's just," said the keeper a little awkwardly, "Can I have a couple of weeks to raise
the five hundred quid?"
(With acknowledgements to Shane and apologies to vets and zoo-keepers
everywhere.)

the priest and the politician story (time management, being late,
public speaking)
After twenty-five years in the same parish, Father O'Shaunessey was saying his
farewells at his retirement dinner. An eminent member of the congregation - a
leading politician - had been asked to make a presentation and a short speech, but
was late arriving.
So the priest took it upon himself to fill the time, and stood up to the microphone:
"I remember the first confession I heard here twenty-five years ago and it worried
me as to what sort of place I'd come to... That first confession remains the worst
I've ever heard. The chap confessed that he'd stolen a TV set from a neighbour and
lied to the police when questioned, successfully blaming it on a local scallywag. He
said that he'd stolen money from his parents and from his employer; that he'd had
affairs with several of his friends' wives; that he'd taken hard drugs, and had slept
with his sister and given her VD. You can imagine what I thought... However I'm
pleased to say that as the days passed I soon realised that this sad fellow was a
frightful exception and that this parish was indeed a wonderful place full of kind and
decent people..."
At this point the politician arrived and apologised for being late, and keen to take the
stage, he immediately stepped up to the microphone and pulled his speech from his
pocket:
"I'll always remember when Father O'Shaunessey first came to our parish," said the
politician, "In fact, I'm pretty certain that I was the first person in the parish that he
heard in confession.."
(Ack Stephen Hart)

lipstick kisses on the mirror story (creative thinking, creative

problem-solving, creative management techniques, avoiding
confrontation)
A school head was alerted by the caretaker to a persistent problem in the girls
lavatories: some of the girl students were leaving lipstick kisses on the mirrors. The
caretaker had left notices on the toilet walls asking for the practice to cease, but to
no avail; every evening the caretaker would wipe away the kisses, and the next day
lots more kisses would be planted on the mirror. It had become a bit of a game. The
head teacher usually took a creative approach to problem solving, and so the next
day she asked a few girl representatives from each class to meet with her in the
lavatory.
"Thank you for coming," said the head, "You will see there are several lipstick kisses
in the mirrors in this washroom.."
Some of the girls grinned at each other.
"As you will understand, modern lipstick is cleverly designed to stay on the lips, and
so the lipstick is not easy at all to clean from the mirrors. We have therefore had to
develop a special cleaning regime, and my hope is that when you see the effort
involved you will help spread the word that we'd all be better off if those responsible
for the kisses use tissue paper instead of the mirrors in future.."
At this point the caretaker stepped forward with a sponge squeegee, which he took
into one of the toilet cubicles, dipped into the toilet bowl, and then used to clean
one of the lipstick-covered mirrors.
The caretaker smiled. The girls departed. And there were no more lipstick kisses on
the mirrors.
(Thanks H)
measuring by averages story (analysis, measurement, statistics, etc)
Three statisticians went hunting in the woods. Before long, one of them pointed to a
plump pigeon in a tree, and the three of them stopped and took aim. The first fired,
missing the bird by a couple of inches to the left. Immediately afterwards the second
fired, but also missed, a couple of inches to the right. The third put down his gun
exclaiming, "Great shooting lads, on average I reckon we got it..."
(ack K Hutchinson)

the blind golfers story (an ironic example of lack of empathy, and
different people's perspectives)
Warning: This story contains language and a potentially 'offensive
stereotype' of visually impaired person that certain audiences may find
objectionable. At the same time, the main message and purpose of the
story is to highlight tendencies of some people to show poor or no regard
for the misfortunes or disabilities of others, and in this context the story
has a value if used carefully. Neverthess be very cautious how you use this
story. Alter the language appropriately where warranted, and if in doubt
do not use the story at all.
A clergyman, a doctor and a business consultant were playing golf together one day
and were waiting for a particularly slow group ahead. The business consultant
exclaimed, "What's with these people? We've been waiting over half and hour! It's a
complete disgrace." The doctor agreed, "They're hopeless, I've never seen such a
rabble on a golf course." The clergyman spotted the approaching greenkeeper and
asked him what was going on, "What's happening with that group ahead of us?
They're surely too slow and useless to be playing, aren't they?" The greenkeeper
replied, "Oh, yes, that's a group of blind (visually impaired) fire-fighters. They lost
their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for
free anytime." The three golfers fell silent for a moment. The clergyman said, "Oh
dear, that's so sad. I shall say some special prayers for them tonight." The doctor
added, rather meekly, "That's a good thought. I'll get in touch with an ophthalmic
surgeon friend of mine to see if there's anything that can be done for them." After
pondering the situation for a few seconds, the business consultant turned to the
greenkeeper and asked, "Why can't they play at night?"
(Other job-titles can be substituted instead of business consultant to suit the
purpose of the story, for example, government advisor, venture capitalist, engineer,
project manager, accountant, finance director, quality manager, etc)

the sales and marketing rugby analogy story (for teams, motivation,
team-building, departmental cooperation, training, public speaking)
I am assured this is a true story. A consultant was asked to give a talk at a sales
conference. The CEO asks him to focus on the importance of cooperation and
teamwork between the sales and marketing teams, since neither group has a
particularly high regard for the other, and the lack of cohesion and goodwill is
hampering effectiveness and morale. The marketing staff constantly moan about the
sales people 'doing their own thing' and 'failing to follow central strategy'; and the
sales people say that the marketing people are all 'idle theorists who waste their
time at exhibitions and agency lunches' and have 'never done a decent day's work in
their lives'.
Being a lover of rugby, the consultant decides to use the analogy of a rugby team's
forwards and backs working together to achieve the best team performance:
"......So, just as in the game of rugby, the forwards, like the marketing
department, do the initial work to create the platform and to make the
opportunities, and then pass the ball out to the backs, the sales department,
who then use their skills and energy to score the tries. The forwards and the
backs, just like marketing and sales, are each good at what they do: and they
work together so that the team wins..." said the consultant, finishing his talk.
The audience seemed to respond positively, and the conference broke for lunch. At
the bar the consultant asked one of the top sales-people what he'd thought of the
analogy - had it given him food for thought?
"Yes, I see what you mean," said the salesman, "It does make sense. The sales
people - the backs, yes? - the backs need the marketing department - the forwards,
yes? - to make the opportunities for us, so that we, the backs, can go and score the
tries - to win the business. We work together as a team - each playing our own part
- working as a team."
The consultant beamed and nodded enthusiastically, only to be utterly dashed when
the salesman added as an afterthought, "I still think our forwards are a bunch of
wankers..."
(with thanks to Martin Deighton)

the lock and key story (kindness and generosity, 'good pebble
ripples', memorable customer service experiences)
A British family were on holiday in a rented motor-home in the USA. Travelling
through California they visited the Magic Mountain amusement park close by Los
Angeles. Mid-afternoon, halfway through what was turning out to be a most
enjoyable day at the park, Mum, Dad and the three kids came upon a particularly
steep plummeting ride. In the queue, the ride attendants strongly warned everyone
about the risks of losing hats, spectacles, coins and keys, etc., and these warnings
were echoed by large signs around the ride. During the ride, Dad lost the keys.
Due to the fact that the motor-home was a replacement vehicle resulting from a
breakdown earlier in the holiday, there were no spare keys. And there were six keys
on the lost bunch: ignition, front doors, side door, fuel tank, propane tank, and
storage cupboards.
The park attendants drove the family back to the motor-home, suggesting the least
damaging ways to break into it.
Fortunately a window had been left slightly open, enabling the middle son to be put
in and to open the doors from the inside.
Inside the motor-home Mum and Dad discussed what to do. They were stranded.
Middle son (all of six years old) said he'd got a key - said he'd found it - but no-one
was listening properly. "Perhaps it will fit, I'll get it." (The optimism of young children
of course knows no bounds.)
Not thinking for one second that little lad's key would fit, Dad tried it. Incredibly the
key fitted the ignition - and the driver's door. Middle son is a hero. It seems he'd
found the key in a cupboard when packing his clothes soon after the motor-homes
were swapped after the first vehicle broke down.
The next day back at the camp site, Dad called a local locksmith to see what could
be done.
"I might be able to make new keys from the locks, if you bring the vehicle to me,"
said the locksmith, so the family drove to the locksmith, whose business was in a
small shopping centre in the California countryside.
The locksmith looked at the motor-home, and said he'd try. "If you come back in an
hour I'll know better what I can do for you."
The family went to the nearby shops and a coffee bar to pass the time. Dad
returned to the locksmith to see how things were going. The locksmith says he
thought he could make new keys for all the locks, but it would be a long job.
In fact the job took the locksmith most of the day. The family hung around the
locksmiths, visited the shops again, and generally made a day of being at the little
shopping centre. While working on the locks and the keys, the locksmith talked with
the family about England, about America, about the rides at Las Vegas, about
motor-homes, about business, about locks, about families and kids, about lots of
things.
Late on in the afternoon the locksmith said that he'd nearly done - "But you have
time to go get something to eat if you want. When you come back I'll be done." So
the family went to a burger bar for something to eat.
An hour later the family returned to the locksmith's shop. It was 4pm and they'd
been at the shopping centre since 10.00 in the morning.
When Dad entered the locksmith's shop the locksmith was smiling. He put two new
gleaming bunches of keys on the counter. "Here you go - a new set of keys for all
the locks, and a spare set too," said the locksmith, "And I tell you what I'm going to
do..."
Dad offered his credit card, gratefully.
"You know, I've had such a great time with you guys today," says the locksmith,
"You can have these for free."
 
This is a true story. It happened over ten years ago. I still tell people about it now,
like I'm telling you. The company is Newhall Valencia Lock & Key, in the El Centro
Shopping Center, Canyon Country, California. This little company gave me and my
family an experience that transcended customer service, and I was delighted when I
found their business card in my kitchen drawer the other day, because it prompted
me to share this story and to properly express my thanks.
Just a final note - I'm not suggesting that great customer service is about giving
your products and services away. Obviously that's not a particularly sustainable
business model. What I'm saying though, is that there are times when you'll see
opportunity to do something really special for a customer, or for another human
being, and when you do it, the ripples of your 'good pebble' can stretch around the
world, and last for years and years. So, within the boundaries of what's possible and
viable for you, drop in a good pebble whenever you can and make some ripples of
your own.

the stranger and the gingernuts story (making assumptions, think

before you act, different perspectives)
At the airport after a tiring business trip a lady's return flight was delayed. She went
to the airport shop, bought a book, a coffee and a small packet containing five
gingernut biscuits. The airport was crowded and she found a seat in the lounge,
next to a stranger. After a few minutes' reading she became absorbed in her book.
She took a biscuit from the packet and began to drink her coffee. To her great
surprise, the stranger in the next seat calmly took one of the biscuits and ate it.
Stunned, she couldn't bring herself to say anything, nor even to look at the stranger.
Nervously she continued reading. After a few minutes she slowly picked up and ate
the third biscuit. Incredibly, the stranger took the fourth gingernut and ate it, then
to the woman's amazement, he picked up the packet and offered her the last biscuit.
This being too much to tolerate, the lady angrily picked up her belongings, gave the
stranger an indignant scowl and marched off to the boarding gate, where her flight
was now ready. Flustered and enraged, she reached inside her bag for her boarding
ticket, and found her unopened packet of gingernuts...
(Adapted from a suggestion submitted by S Frost. Apparently the story appears in a
variety of urban legends dating from at least 30 years ago, and is also described in
Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, book four, 1984, 'So Long, and
Thanks for All the Fish'. Ack L Baldock.)

the england football story (cause and effect, foundations of failure,

fundamental strategy, structure, planning and philosophy, strategic
analysis)
When a business fails or struggles in some other way people commonly look for
recent tactical or incidental causes, but the roots of failure are usually far deeper in
foundational strategies, structures and philosophies.
The poor performance of the England football team at the FIFA 2010 World Cup
offers an example of a venture inflicted with fundamental problems, and therefore
likely to fail.
Here are some indicators (as at FIFA World Cup 2010) of foundational weakness and
vulnerability in the basic organization and ethos of the England national football
effort. Think of it like a business. Success is difficult when foundations are flaky and
misaligned. With a little imagination it is easy to relate these lessons/examples to
the business world.
The English Premiership (England's top domestic league and effectively the pool
from which the national team is selected) is dominated by clubs which are:
 Mostly owned, and the teams managed/coached, by people/companies from outside
of the UK, who have little interest in the success of the England national team, and in
many cases have very strong national football loyalties overseas.
 Mostly staffed by players from outside of England (two-thirds are from overseas),
which restricts the pool of available English national talent, and also the opportunities
for English home-grown talent to develop and become experienced.
 Clubs are very strongly profit-driven, and are so debt-ridden as to be effectively
bankrupt.
 As a consequence of these commercial pressures, players are forced to play too
many games in a season (generally far more than their international counterparts),
without break, and so that when the World Cup happens it is during the one month in
the year when players would normally be resting and recovering.

The leadership of the Football Association, guardian of England's national game, has
for some years been chaotic and disjointed, indicators being:
 Recent resignations of Chief Executive and Chairman.
 Regular scandals and infighting.
 Lack of control over domestic game and clubs.

Other 'foundations of failure' indicators:

 England has approximately 10% of the number of FIFA qualified coaches compared
to European countries like Spain, Germany, Italy, and France (about 2,700 compared to
about 20,000 or 30,000 in these other countries).
 The coach of the national team is not English and cannot speak English properly. It
is not ideal to have coach who cannot communicate effectively, and by virtue of his
foreign nationality cannot possibly have English national pride in the truest sense.
Would an Englishman ever coach the Italian or German national team? This is not
xenophobia (dislike of foreigners) or discrimination, it is practicality and common sense.
 The coach is paid £5 million (or £6m, depending on interpretation) per year,
regardless of performance; moreover failure and early departure is effectively rewarded
because of a contracted fixed two-year term termination payment (although the effect
of this is probably to maintain a failed situation - because the cost of change is
prohibitive).
 England players are paid around £100,000 per week; for doing another job (playing
for their clubs). Failure at national level may be slightly upsetting for a day or two, but
it does not really hurt or matter.
 At least one England squad member had to be asked by the coach to make himself
available for his country. Another could not be persuaded. National representation is a
peak sporting achievement. It's worrying when candidates reject this notion, and just as
worrying when such candidates are pursued and recruited.
 Culturally the integrity and ethos of football - especially what it means to be a
footballer - has been lost to the corporate world. The focus (of the role-models and
therefore the kids) is no longer on ball skills and being the best - it's on the brands, the
 replica shirts, the day-glo boots and the millionaire celebrity lifestyles. Not much works
well when hype dominates substance.

A national football team is in many ways like a business. It needs solid strategic and
philosophical foundations. Misalignment at a basic level eventually produces
problems at the level of tactical or operational implementation. Like a national
football team, if a business fails at a tactical or operational level, the causes - and
therefore the solutions - are generally much deeper than they seem.
This story can be useful in demonstrating/exploring the strategic business analysis
tools such as SWOT, PEST and Porter's Five Forces model, and in researching
fundamental drivers/indicators of strategic viability.

the new employee stories (importance of induction training for new

starters, initiative and lateral thinking, interpretation, delegation,
rules, checking and monitoring)
These (allegedly true) short stories provide amusing examples of lateral thinking and
initiative, and staff training (or lack of) at the workplace. It is better to train people
properly rather than assume that new starters have the necessary initiative to work
out for themselves what they should be doing..

the new bus driver story

While transporting some unfortunate mental patients from one secure place to
another, the newly appointed bus driver stopped at a roadside restaurant for natural
break. On his return to the bus, all twenty patients were gone. Being a resourceful
fellow and fearing the consequences of his negligence, he drove to the next bus
stop, where he claimed to be a replacement for the usual service. Allowing twenty
people aboard, the driver made straight for his destination, where he warned staff at
the gates that the 'patients' were deluded and extremely volatile. The angry
'patients' were duly removed, sedated and incarcerated, and remained in detention
for three days, until staff were able to check the records and confirm their true
identities. The actual patients were never found.

the new elevator cleaner story

A new hotel employee was asked to clean the elevators and report back to the
supervisor when the task was completed. When the employee failed to appear at the
end of the day the supervisor assumed that like many others he had simply not liked
the job and left. However, after four days the supervisor bumped into the new
employee. He was cleaning in one of the elevators. "You surely haven't been
cleaning these elevators for four days, have you?" asked the supervisor, accusingly.
"Yes sir," said the employee, "This is a big job and I've not finished yet - do you
realise there are over forty of them, two on each floor, and sometimes they are not
even there.."
the bedtime story (communications, men and women,
communications methods, relationships)
A man and his wife had been arguing all night, and as bedtime approached neither
was speaking to the other. It was not unusual for the pair to continue this war of
silence for two or three days, however, on this occasion the man was concerned; he
needed to be awake at 4:30am the next morning to catch an important flight, and
being a very heavy sleeper he normally relied on his wife to wake him. Cleverly, so
he thought, while his wife was in the bathroom, he wrote on a piece of paper:
'Please wake me at 4:30am - I have an important flight to catch'. He put the note on
his wife's pillow, then turned over and went to sleep.
The man awoke the next morning and looked at the clock. It was 8:00am. Enraged
that he'd missed his flight, he was about to go in search of his errant wife to give
her a piece of his mind, when he spotted a hand-written note on his bedside
cabinet.
The note said: 'It's 4:30am - get up.'

the sergeant major's rude parrot story (examples of management

styles)
A retired sergeant major inherited a talking parrot from a recently departed relative
who had run a busy dockside pub. For the first few days in his new home the
normally talkative parrot was distinctly shy. The old major, despite his stern and
disciplined ways, felt sorry for the bird, and gently encouraged it with soft words and
pieces of fruit. After a week or so the parrot began to find its voice - a little at first -
and then more so. Responding to the kind treatment, the parrot's vocabulary
continued to recover, including particularly the many colourful expressions it had
been taught in the dockside pub. The old sergeant major began to be quite irritated
by the parrot's incessant rudeness, and after a few more days of worsening
profanities, decided action was required to bring the bird under control. The
sergeant major tried at first to incentivise the parrot with the promise of reward for
good behaviour, but to no avail. He next tried to teach the bird a lesson by
withdrawing its privileges, again to no avail; the parrot remained stubbornly rude.
Finally the old major flipped into battleground management mode; he grabbed the
bird, clamped his hands around its beak, and thrust the struggling, swearing parrot,
into the top drawer of the freezer, slamming the door tightly shut. The swearing and
struggling noises continued inside the freezer for a few seconds and then abruptly
stopped. The sergeant major listened for a while and then, concerned that the
parrot's shock might have been terminal, carefully opened the freezer door and
opened the drawer to look. The parrot slowly clambered out of the drawer and
perched on its edge.
"I must apologise for my rude and disrespectful behaviour," said the parrot, "I
promise never to use bad language again. And by the way, what did the turkey do?"
the farmer and the boy in the bog story (helping others, inspiration,
gratitude and appreciation, good comes from doing good)
This widely used story is often told as if it's a true story. It is most certainly not. It is
an urban legend, but even as such, the story contains great lessons and is very
inspirational.
Fleming was a poor Scottish farmer. One day at work in a field he heard a cry for
help. Following the sound, Fleming came to a deep bog, in which a boy was stuck up
to his chest, screaming and sinking. Farmer Fleming tied a rope around his own
waist and the other end to a tree, and waded into the bog. After a mighty struggle
in which it seemed they would both perish, the exhausted farmer pulled himself and
the boy to safety. He took the lad back to the farmhouse, where Mrs Fleming fed
him, dried his clothes, and when satisfied he had recovered, sent him on his way
home.
The next day a carriage arrived at the Fleming's humble farmhouse. An well-dressed
man stepped out and introduced himself as the father of the boy whom Fleming had
saved. "You saved my son's life," said the man to Fleming, "How can I repay you?"
"I don't want payment," Fleming replied, "Anyone would have done the same."
At that moment, Fleming's own young son appeared at the farmhouse door.
"Is he your son?" the man asked.
"Yes," said Fleming proudly.
"I have an idea. Let me pay for his education. If he's like his father, he'll grow to be
a man we'll both be proud of."
And so he did. The farmer's son attended the very best schools, graduated medical
college, and later became the world-renowned nobel prize-winning scientist and
discoverer of penicillin, Sir Alexander Fleming.
It is said that many years later, the grown man who'd been saved from the bog as a
boy, was stricken with pneumonia.
Penicillin saved his life. His name? Sir Winston Churchill.
(I repeat this is an urban legend - it is not a true story - so I recommend you
present it as such when you tell it. Ack B McFarlane)

the brewery story (to challenge belief systems and assumptions, and
the need for questioning pointless routine or policy)
It has been suggested to me that this is a true story: A very old traditional brewery
decided to install a new canning line, so as to enable its beer products to be
marketed through the supermarket sector. This represented a major change for the
little company, and local dignitaries and past employees were invited to witness the
first running of the new canning line, which was followed by an buffet and drinks.
After the new line had been switched on successfully, and the formalities completed,
the guests relaxed in small groups to chat and enjoy the buffet. In a quiet corner
stood three men discussing trucks and transport and distribution, since one was the
present distribution manager, and the other two were past holders of the post,
having retired many years ago. The three men represented three generations of
company distribution management, spanning over sixty years.
The present distribution manager confessed that his job was becoming more
stressful because company policy required long deliveries be made on Monday and
Tuesday, short deliveries on Fridays, and all other deliveries mid-week.
"It's so difficult to schedule things efficiently - heaven knows what we'll do with
these new cans and the tight demands of the supermarkets..."
The other two men nodded in agreement.
"It was the same in my day," sympathised the present manager's predecessor, "It
always seemed strange to me that trucks returning early on Mondays and Tuesdays
couldn't be used for little local runs, because the local deliveries had to be left until
Friday.."
The third man nodded, and was thinking hard, struggling to recall the policy's roots
many years ago when he'd have been a junior in the despatch department. After a
pause, the third man smiled and then ventured a suggestion.
"I think I remember now," he said, "It was the horses..... During the Second World
War fuel rationing was introduced. So we mothballed the trucks and went back to
using the horses. On Mondays the horses were well-rested after the weekend -
hence the long deliveries. By Friday the horses so tired they could only handle the
short local drops..."
Soon after the opening of the new canning line the company changed its delivery
policy.
(Ack R Chagar)
See also the 'we've always done it that way' story and the fish baking story and the
monkey story.

the rowing competition story (identifying and managing

performance improvement, establishing cause and accountability,
theory x vs theory y, daft executive judgements)
The boards of the two fiercely competitive companies decided to organize a rowing
match to challenge each other's organisational and sporting abilities. The first
company was strongly 'theory X': ruthless, autocratic, zero staff empowerment, etc.
The second company was more 'theory y': a culture of developing people, devolved
responsibility and decision-making.
Race day arrived. The Y company's boat appeared from the boat-house first, with its
crew: eight rowers and a helmsman (the cox). Next followed the X company boat
and its crew - eight helmsmen and a single rower.
Not surprisingly the Y company's boat won an easy victory.
The next day the X company board of directors held an inquest with the crew, to
review what had been learned from the embarrassing defeat, which might be of
benefit to the organization as a whole, and any future re-match.
After a long and wearing meeting the X company board finally came came to their
decision. They concluded that the rower should be replaced immediately because
clearly he had not listened well enough to the instructions he'd been given.
(Ack JJ Lasseur)

the performance evaluation story (theory x shortcomings,

management myopia)
Following a poor first-half year performance the board of Company X tasked a senior
manager to investigate what was happening on the factory floor, since the directors
believed poor productivity was at the root of the problem. While walking around the
plant, the investigating manager came upon a large warehouse area where a man
stood next to a pillar. The manager introduced himself as the person investigating
performance on the factory floor, appointed by the board, and then asked the man
by the pillar what he was doing. "It's my job," replied the man, "I was told to stand
by this pillar."
The investigator thanked the man for his cooperation and encouraged him to keep
up the good work. The investigator next walked into a large packing area, where he
saw another man standing next to a pillar. The investigator again introduced himself
and asked the man what he was doing. "I've been told to stand by this pillar, so
that's what I do." said the man.
Two weeks later the investigator completed his report and duly presented his
findings to the board, who held a brief meeting to decide remedial action. The board
called the investigator back into the room, thanked him for his work, and then
instructed him to sack one of the men he'd found standing by pillars, since obviously
this was a duplication of effort.
(Ac JJL)

no exit story (different perspectives, viewpoints, how different

perspectives cause one thing to appear as two different things)
A man checked into a hotel for the first time in his life, and goes up to his room.
Five minutes later he called the reception desk and said: "You've given me a room
with no exit. How do I leave?"
The desk clerk said, "Sir, that's absurd. Have you looked for the door?"
The man said, "Well, there's one door that leads to the bathroom. There's a second
door that goes into the closet. And there's a door I haven't tried, but it has a 'do not
disturb' sign on it."
(Ack B McFarlane)
See also the blind men and the elephant story below.
the old couple story (positive/negative outlook, blame, attitude)
An elderly couple, married for sixty years, took a rare vacation. They were not well-
off but were in good health, perhaps because the wife had insisted on a strict diet of
healthy foods, no alcohol, no smoking, and lots of gym exercise for most of their
lives. Sadly their plane crashed however, and duly they both entered heaven, where
St Peter escorted them through the Pearly Gates, and into a waiting limousine.
Driving through beautiful countryside they drew up at a beautiful mansion and were
shown inside. It was furnished in gold and fine silks, with a splendid kitchen and a
sumptuous lounge stocked with wonderful food and drink - there was even a
waterfall in the master bathroom. A maid was hanging beautiful designer clothes in
the walk-in wardrobes. They gasped in astonishment when St Peter said, "Welcome
to heaven. This will be your home now."
The old man asked Peter how much all this was going to cost. "Nothing," Peter
replied, "this is your heavenly reward."
The old man looked out of the window and saw a magnificent championship golf
course.
"What are the green fees?" he asked suspiciously.
"This is heaven," St Peter replied, "You can play for free whenever you wish."
Next they went to the clubhouse and saw the lavish buffet lunch, with every
imaginable cuisine laid out before them.
Anticipating the old man's next question, St Peter said, "Don't ask, this is heaven, it
is all free for you to enjoy."
The old man looked around and glanced nervously at his wife. "Well, where are the
low fat and low cholesterol foods, and the decaffeinated tea?" he asked.
"This is heaven. You can eat and drink as much as you like, and you will never get
fat or sick."
"I don't need to go to the gym?" the old man pressed.
"Not unless you want to," St Peter replied.
"No testing my sugar or blood pressure or..."
"Never again. All you do here is enjoy yourself."
The old man glared at his wife, "You and your bloody bran muffins. We could have
been here ten years ago!"
(Ack CB)

two brothers and the geese story (initiative, responsibility, thinking

outside the box, anticipating, strategic anticipation, adding value to
service, value and reward)
Two sons work for their father on the family's farm. The younger brother had for
some years been given more responsibility and reward, and one day the older
brother asks his father to explain why.
The father says, "First, go to the Kelly's farm and see if they have any geese for sale
- we need to add to our stock."
The brother soon returns with the answer, "Yes they have five geese they can sell to
us."
That father then says, "Good, please ask them the price."
The son returns with the answer, "The geese are £10 each."
The father says, "Good, now ask if they can deliver the geese tomorrow."
And duly the sone returns with the answer, "Yes, they can deliver the geese them
tomorrow."
The father asks the older brother to wait and listen, and then calls to the younger
brother in a nearby field, "Go to the Davidson's Farm and see if they have any geese
for sale - we need to add to our stock."
The younger brother soon returns with the answer, "Yes, they have five geese for
£10 each, or ten geese for £8 each; and they can deliver them tomorrow - I asked
them to deliver the five unless they heard otherwise from us in the next hour. And I
agreed that if we want the extra five geese we could buy them at £6 each."
The father turned to the older son, who nodded his head in appreciation - he now
realised why his brother was given more responsibility and reward.
(adapted from a suggestion - thanks PI)

the piano story (mentoring, coaching, understanding the other

person's development needs)
A mother wished to encourage her small girl's interest in the piano and so took her a
local concert featuring an excellent pianist. In the entrance foyer the mother met an
old friend and the two stopped to talk. The little girl was keen to see inside the hall
and so wandered off, unnoticed by her mother. The girl's mother became concerned
when she entered the hall and could see no sign of her daughter. Staff were notified
and an announcement was made asking the audience to look out for the little lost
girl. With the concert due to start, the little girl had still not been found. In
preparation for the pianist's entrance, the curtains drew aside, to reveal the little girl
sitting at the great piano, focused in concentration, quietly picking out the notes of
'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'.
The audience's amusement turned to curiosity when the pianist entered the stage,
walked up to the little girl, and said "Keep playing."
The pianist sat down beside her, listened for a few seconds, and whispered some
more words of encouragement. He then began quietly to play a bass
accompaniment, and then a few bars later reached around the little girl to add more
accompaniment. At the end of the impromptu performance the audience applauded
loudly as the pianist took the little girl back to her seat to be reunited with her
mother. The experience was inspirational for everyone, not least the small girl.
It takes just a few moments to make somebody's day, to help someone with their
own personal aims and dreams - especially someone who looks up to you for
encouragement and support. (Ack PC)

the angry customer story (funny customer service example)

Allegedly a true story from the old airport in Denver: a major airline had cancelled a
very busy flight and a lone check-in agent is busy trying to sort out all the displaced
passengers. A very angry and aggressive man barges his way to the front of the
queue to confront her. He says says that he is flying first class and demands to go
on the flight. The agent politely explains the situation and asks that people take their
place in the queue. The man bellows at her, "Do you know who I am?" - at which
the agent calmly picks up the microphone for the PA system, and announces to the
airport, "This is (airline name) desk 64; we have a gentleman here who does not
know who he is. If anyone can come and identify him please do so." The man, now
purple with rage, yells at her, "Well f**k you.." - to which the agent replies, "And
you'll have to stand in line for that as well, Sir.."
(Ack MS)

the clap and cheer story (positive attitude, taking pride in whatever
you do)
A small boy was auditioning with his classmates for a school play. His mother knew
that he'd set his heart on being in the play - just like all the other children hoped too
- and she feared how he would react if he was not chosen. On the day the parts
were awarded, the little boy's mother went to the school gates to collect her son.
The little lad rushed up to her, eyes shining with pride and excitement. "Guess what
Mum," he shouted, and then said the words that provide a lesson to us all, "I've
been chosen to clap and cheer."
(Ack F Laufs)

the bank story (a lesson in customer service, how bad policy

encourages poor service)
I am assured this is a true story from a UK bank. The bank concerned had
introduced a charge to be levied when people paid in money to be credited to an
account held by a different bank. The charge was 50p and had been in force for
about 6 months or so. A well to do, upper-class lady enters the bank and presents
the cashier a cheque (check) which she asks to be paid into an account held by a
different bank. The cashier duly tells the lady that there will be a charge of 50p.
Indignantly, she tells him, "I wasn't charged the last time."
To which the cashier immediately replies, "Well that will be a pound then..."
(Ack MS)
the fish baking story (to challenge belief systems and assumptions,
and illustrate pointless routine and the need for questioning)
A little girl was watching her mother prepare a fish for dinner. Her mother cut the
head and tail off the fish and then placed it into a baking pan. The little girl asked
her mother why she cut the head and tail off the fish. Her mother thought for a
while and then said, "I've always done it that way - that's how babicka (Czech for
grandma) did it."
Not satisfied with the answer, the little girl went to visit her grandma to find out why
she cut the head and tail off the fish before baking it.
Grandma thought for a while and replied, "I don't know. My mother always did it
that way."
So the little girl and the grandma went to visit great grandma to find ask if she knew
the answer.
Great grandma thought for a while and said, “Because my baking pan was too small
to fit in the whole fish”.
(Ack M Hamanova)
See also: the we've always done it that way story and the monkey story and the
brewery story.

the donkey story (positive attitudes, turning problems into

opportunities)
One day a farmer's donkey fell into a well. The farmer frantically thought what to do
as the stricken animal cried out to be rescued. With no obvious solution, the farmer
regretfully concluded that as the donkey was old, and as the well needed to be filled
in anyway, he should give up the idea of rescuing the beast, and simply fill in the
well. Hopefully the poor animal would not suffer too much, he tried to persuade
himself.
The farmer asked his neighbours help, and before long they all began to shovel
earth quickly into the well. When the donkey realised what was happening he wailed
and struggled, but then, to everyone's relief, the noise stopped.
After a while the farmer looked down into the well and was astonished by what he
saw. The donkey was still alive, and progressing towards the top of the well. The
donkey had discovered that by shaking off the dirt instead of letting it cover him, he
could keep stepping on top of the earth as the level rose. Soon the donkey was able
to step up over the edge of the well, and he happily trotted off.
Life tends to shovel dirt on top of each of us from time to time. The trick is to shake
it off and take a step up.
(Ack TB)
the shepherd story (IT consultants, business consultancy, knowing
your facts - ironic example)
A shepherd was tending his flock in a field, when a new sports car screeched to a
stop on the road nearby in a cloud of dust. The driver, a young man in expensive
designer clothes and sunglasses, leans out of the window and shouts over to the
shepherd, "If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have here, can I take one?"
The shepherd looks up slowly up at the young man, then looks at his peaceful flock,
and calmly answers, "Sure, why not?"
The young man steps out of his car holding a state-of-the-art palmtop pda, with
which he proceeds to connects to a series of websites, first calling up satellite
navigation system to pinpoint his location, then keying in the location to generate an
ultra-high resolution picture of the field. After emailing the photo to an image
processing facility, the processed data is returned, which he then feeds into an
online database, and enters the parameters for a report. Within another few seconds
a miniature printer in the car produces a full colour report containing several pages
of analysis and results. The young man studies the data for a few more seconds and
returns to the shepherd.
"You have exactly one-thousand five-hundred and eighty-six sheep, including three
rams, and seven-hundred and twenty-two lambs."
"That's right," says the shepherd, mildly impressed. "Well, I guess that means you
get to take one of my sheep."
The young man makes his choice and loads the animal onto the back seat of his car,
at which the shepherd says, almost as an afterthought, "Hey there, if I can tell you
what your business is, will you give me back my sheep?"
The young man, feeling confident, agrees.
"You're a consultant," says the shepherd.
"Wow, that's right," says the young man, taken aback, "How did you guess that?"
"No guessing required," answers the shepherd, "You showed up here even though
nobody called you. You took a fee for giving me an answer that already know, to a
question I never asked, and you know nothing about my business. Now give me
back my dog."
(Adapted from a version sent by S Faure. Thanks also T Curran.)

speed camera story (creative thinking, teamwork, understanding

and using modern technology - do not try this at home....)
This allegedly true story, supposedly leaked by the Australian Department of
Transport, concerns four Australian young men and a mobile speed camera police
van. Three of the four lads engaged the speed camera operators in conversation
about the camera equipment, and the number of cars caught, etc., while the fourth
unscrewed the van's front registration plate. Bidding the police farewell, the lads
returned home, screwed the registration plate to their own car and proceeded to
complete 17 very fast round trips through the speed camera's radar. The traffic
penalties department subsequently issued 17 speeding tickets to itself.

the three engineers story (different approaches to problem-solving,

modern IT, etc)
A mechanical engineer, a systems engineer, and a software engineer are in a car
driving down a steep mountain road when the brakes fail. The driver desperately
pumps the brake pedal, trying to control the speeding vehicle around cliff-edge
bends, while the passengers do their best not to panic. As the car hurtles towards an
impossible corner the driver spots an escape route into a hedge and a haystack
beyond, where the car eventually grinds to a surprisingly safe stop. The three
engineers all get out, shaken, relieved, and take turns to assess the situation.
'Hmm,' says the mechanical engineer, 'It looks like a brake line was leaking - let's
repair the split, bleed the brakes, and we should be able to get on our way..."
The systems engineer thinks for a while and says, 'Maybe we need to contact the
manufacturer and the dealer to confirm exactly what the problem is..."
The software engineer slowly climbs into the driver's seat and, gesturing for the
others to join him, says, 'How about we get back on the road and see if it happens
again?..'
 
(An alternative final line, suggested kindly and brilliantly by David Shiell, would be:
"How about if we close all the windows and try again..")

the sweet old couple story (dangers of making assumptions,

understand before you intervene)
A little old couple walked into a fast food restaurant. The little old man walked up to
the counter, ordered the food, paid, and took the tray back to the table where the
little old lady sat. On the tray was a hamburger, a small bag of fries and a drink.
Carefully the old man cut the hamburger in two, and divided the fries into two neat
piles. He sipped the drink and passed it to the little old lady, who took a sip and
passed it back. A young man on a nearby table had watched the old couple and felt
sorry for them. He offered to buy them another meal, but the old man politely
declined, saying that they were used to sharing everything. The old man began to
eat his food, but his wife sat still, not eating. The young continued to watch the
couple. He still felt he should be offering to help. As the little old man finished
eating, the old lady had still not started on her food. "Ma'am, why aren't you
eating?" asked the young man sympathetically.
The old lady looked up and said politely, "I'm waiting for the teeth.."
the men and women differences story (the other person's
perspective, gender empathy, for weddings, best-man speeches,
johari window, empathy, NLP, etc)
Not really a story, more of a silly list that circulates by email from time to time.
Some things that men generally take for granted, and fail to realize that women
cannot.
 Your last name stays put.
 The garage is all yours.
 Wedding plans take care of themselves.
 Chocolate is just another snack.
 You can never be pregnant.
 You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park.
 Car mechanics tell you the truth.
 The world is your urinal.
 You never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just 'too
icky'.
 You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt.
 Same work, more pay.
 Wrinkles add character.
 Wedding dress $5000. Tux rental - $100.
 People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them.
 The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected.
 New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet.
 One mood - all the time.
 Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.
 You know stuff about tanks.
 A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase.
 You can open all your own jars.
 You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.
 If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.
 Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack.
 Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.
 You almost never have strap problems in public.
 You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes.
 Everything on your face stays its original color.
 The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades.
 You only have to shave your face and neck.
 You can play with toys all your life.
 Your belly usually hides your big hips.
 One wallet and one pair of shoes one color for all seasons.
 You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look.
 You can 'do' your nails with a pocket-knife.
 You have freedom of choice concerning growing a moustache.
 You can do Christmas shopping for twenty-five relatives on 24th December in forty-
five minutes.

(Ack CB and Tom Robinson - please contact us if you know the author of the original
20 items to which Tom refers in his explanation of his own particular input: "... I
received the e-mail originally back in 2002, with around 20 reasons why it's good to
be a bloke... I spent most of the following 3 days making the number up to 50..." )

the aunt karen story (relevance and reliability of lessons, morals and
examples)
A teacher told her young class to ask their parents for a family story with a moral at
the end of it, and to return the next day to tell their stories.
In the classroom the next day, Joe gave his example first, "My dad is a farmer and
we have chickens. One day we were taking lots of eggs to market in a basket on the
front seat of the truck when we hit a big bump in the road; the basket fell off the
seat and all the eggs broke. The moral of the story is not to put all your eggs in one
basket.."
"Very good," said the teacher.
Next, Mary said, "We are farmers too. We had twenty eggs waiting to hatch, but
when they did we only got ten chicks. The moral of this story is not to count your
chickens before they're hatched.."
"Very good," said the teacher again, very pleased with the response so far.
Next it was Barney's turn to tell his story: "My dad told me this story about my Aunt
Karen.... Aunt Karen was a flight engineer in the war and her plane got hit. She had
to bail out over enemy territory and all she had was a bottle of whisky, a machine
gun and a machete."
"Go on," said the teacher, intrigued.
"Aunt Karen drank the whisky on the way down to prepare herself; then she landed
right in the middle of a hundred enemy soldiers. She killed seventy of them with the
machine gun until she ran out of bullets. Then she killed twenty more with the
machete till the blade broke. And then she killed the last ten with her bare hands."
"Good heavens," said the horrified teacher, "What did your father say was the moral
of that frightening story?"
"Stay away from Aunt Karen when she's been drinking..."
(Ack CB - if you know the origin please tell us)

the tickle me elmo story (induction training, communications, giving

instructions, delegation)
This allegedly took place in a factory in the USA which manufactured the 'Tickle Me
Elmo' toys, (a children's plush cuddly toy which laughs when tickled under the arm).
The legend has is it that a new employee was hired at the Tickle Me Elmo factory
and she duly reported for her first day's induction training, prior to being allocated a
job on the production line. At 08:45 the next day the personnel manager received a
visit from an excited assembly line foreman who was not best pleased about the
performance of the new recruit. The foreman explained that she was far too slow,
and that she was causing the entire line to back-up, delaying the whole production
schedule. The personnel manager asked to see what was happening, so both men
proceeded to the factory floor. On arrival they saw that the line was indeed badly
backed-up - there were hundreds of Tickle Me Elmos strewn all over the factory
floor, and they were still piling up. Virtually buried in a mountain of toys sat the new
employee earnestly focused on her work. She had a roll of red plush fabric and a
bag of marbles. The two men watched amazed as she cut a little piece of fabric,
wrapped it around a pair of marbles and carefully began sewing the little package
between Elmo's legs. The personnel manager began to laugh, and it was some while
before he could compose himself, at which he approached the trainee. "I'm sorry,"
he said to her, not able to disguise his amusement, "But I think you misunderstood
the instructions I gave you yesterday.... Your job is to give Elmo two test tickles."

the get in the wheelbarrow story (belief, trust, faith, commitment,

courage, conviction)
The story goes: upon completing a highly dangerous tightrope walk over Niagara
Falls in appalling wind and rain, 'The Great Zumbrati' was met by an enthusiastic
supporter, who urged him to make a return trip, this time pushing a wheelbarrow,
which the spectator had thoughtfully brought along.
The Great Zumbrati was reluctant, given the terrible conditions, but the supporter
pressed him, "You can do it - I know you can," he urged.
"You really believe I can do it?" asked Zumbrati.
"Yes - definitely - you can do it." the supporter gushed.
"Okay," said Zumbrati, "Get in the wheelbarrow..."

the charles plumb parachutes story (supporting others,

acknowledging others, saying thanks)
Charles Plumb was a navy jet pilot. On his seventy-sixth combat mission, he was
shot down and parachuted into enemy territory. He was captured and spent six
years in prison. He survived and now lectures on the lessons he learned from his
experiences.
One day, a man in approached Plumb and his wife in a restaurant, and said, "Are
you Plumb the navy pilot?"
"Yes, how did you know?" asked Plumb.
"I packed your parachute," the man replied.
Plumb was amazed - and grateful: "If the chute you packed hadn't worked I
wouldn't be here today..."
Plumb refers to this in his lectures: his realisation that the anonymous sailors who
packed the parachutes held the pilots' lives in their hands, and yet the pilots never
gave these sailors a second thought; never even said hello, let alone said thanks.
Now Plumb asks his audiences, "Who packs your parachutes?..... Who helps you
through your life?.... Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually?....... Think about
who helps you; recognise them and say thanks."
(Ack JK, and thanks to the person who wrote to confirm that Charles Plum still
speaks and lectures.)

the chickens story (communications, confusing instructions, testing,

research and development)
This is allegedly a true story. Engineers at a major aerospace company were
instructed to test the effects of bird-strikes (notably geese) on the windshields of
airliners and military jets. To simulate the effect of a goose colliding with an aircraft
travelling at high speed, the test engineers built a powerful gun, with which they
fired dead chickens at the windshields. The simulations using the gun and the dead
chickens worked extremely effectively, happily proving the suitability of the
windshields, and several articles about the project appeared in the testing industry
press.
It so happened that another test laboratory in a different part of the world was
involved in assessing bird-strikes - in this case on the windshields and drivers' cabs
of new very high speed trains. The train test engineers had read about the
pioneering test developed by the aerospace team, and so they approached them to
ask for specifications of the gun and the testing methods. The aerospace engineers
duly gave them details, and the train engineers set about building their own
simulation.
The simulated bird-strike tests on the train windshields and cabs produced shocking
results. The supposed state-of-the-art shatter-proof high speed train windshields
offered little resistance to the high-speed chickens; in fact every single windshield
that was submitted for testing was smashed to pieces, along with a number of train
cabs and much of the test booth itself.
The horrified train engineers were concerned that the new high speed trains
required a safety technology that was beyond their experience, so they contacted
the aerospace team for advice and suggestions, sending them an extensive report of
the tests and failures.
The brief reply came back from the aero-engineers: "You need to defrost the
chickens...."
(Ack S Money)

the chihuahua and the leopard story (creative thinking, quick

thinking, escaping, averting disaster, bluff and boldness)
Like most great stories, this one exists in different versions, although the meaning is
the same. Many feature a poodle, or another small breed of dog instead of a
chihuahua.
A lady takes her pet chihuahua with her on a safari holiday. Wandering too far one
day the chihuahua gets lost in the bush, and soon encounters a very hungry looking
leopard. The chihuahua realises he's in trouble, but, noticing some fresh bones on
the ground, he settles down to chew on them, with his back to the big cat. As the
leopard is about to leap, the chihuahua smacks his lips and exclaims loudly, "Boy,
that was one delicious leopard. I wonder if there are any more around here."
The leopard stops mid-stride, and slinks away into the trees.
"Phew," says the leopard, "that was close - that evil little dog nearly had me."
A monkey nearby sees everything and thinks he'll win a favour by putting the stupid
leopard straight. The chihuahua sees the monkey go after the leopard, and guesses
he might be up to no good.
When the leopard hears the monkey's story he feels angry at being made a fool, and
offers the monkey a ride back to see him exact his revenge.
The little dog sees them approaching and fears the worse.
Thinking quickly, the little dog turns his back, pretends not to notice them, and
when the pair are within earshot says aloud, "Now where's that monkey got to? I
sent him ages ago to bring me another leopard..."

the cannibals story (management, managers, secretaries, initiative,

habits, conforming, rules and rule-breaking)
A big corporation hired several cannibals. "You are all part of our team now," said
the HR manager during the welcome briefing. "You get all the usual benefits and
you can go to the cafeteria for something to eat, but please don't eat any of the
other employees." The cannibals promised they would not.
A few weeks later the cannibals' boss remarked, "You're all working very hard, and
I'm satisfied with you. However, one of our secretaries has disappeared. Do any of
you know what happened to her?" The cannibals all shook their heads, "No," they
said.
After the boss left, the leader of the cannibals said to the others angrily, "Right,
which one of you idiots ate the secretary?"
A hand rose hesitantly in admission. "You fool!" said the leader, "For weeks we've
been eating managers and no one noticed anything, but nooo, you had to go and
eat someone important!..."
(Ack A Fiorello)

the dog and the bone story (be content with what you have, greed
and envy seldom pay)
A dog held a juicy bone in his jaws as he crossed a bridge over a brook. When he
looked down into the water he saw a another dog below with what appeared to be a
bigger juicier bone. He jumped into the brook to snatch the bigger bone, letting go
his own bone, He quickly learned of course that the bigger bone was just a
reflection, and so he ended up with nothing.
More Aesop's fables
(Thanks J Phillips)

the "we've always done it that way.." story (time management,

challenging habits and questioning procedures, challenging
assumptions and belief systems)
Apparently this is based on a true incident. A quality management consultant was
visiting a small and somewhat antiquated English manufacturing company, to advise
on improving general operating efficiency. The advisor was reviewing a particular
daily report which dealt with aspects of productivity, absentee rates, machine failure,
down-time, etc. The report was completed manually onto a photocopied proforma
that was several generations away from the original master-copy, so its headings
and descriptions were quite difficult to understand. The photocopied forms were
particularly fuzzy at the top-right corner, where a small box had a heading that was
not clear at all. The advisor was interested to note that the figure '0' had been
written in every daily report for the past year. On questioning the members of staff
who completed the report, they told him that they always put a zero in that box, and
when he asked them why they looked at each other blankly. "Hmmm.., I'm not sure
about that," they each said, "I guess we've just always done it that way."
Intrigued, the consultant visited the archives to see if he could find a clearer form, to
discover what was originally being reported and whether it actually held any
significance. When he found the old reports, he saw that the zero return had
continued uninterrupted for as far back as the records extended - at least the past
thirty years - but none of the forms was any clearer than those presently in use. A
little frustrated, he packed away the old papers and turned to leave the room, but
something caught his eye. In another box he noticed a folder, promisingly titled
'master forms'. Sure enough inside it he found the original daily report proforma
master-copy, in pristine condition. In the top right corner was the mysterious box,
with the heading clearly shown ...... 'Number of Air Raids Today'.
See also the brewery story, the fish baking story and the monkey story.

the dam story (how to write a good letter, making assumptions,

jumping to conclusions, and how to defend wrong accusations with
humour)
Here are two letters, according to the story both real, the first allegedly sent to a
man named Ryan DeVries by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality,
State of Michigan; the second is Mr DeVries' amusing response. The letters provide a
great example of the dangers of making assumptions and jumping to conclusions,
and also how to reply to a false accusation with humour and style.
the Michigan DOEQ letter

Subject: DEQ File No.97-59-0023;

T11N; R10W, Sec. 20;
Montcalm County
Dear Mr. DeVries,
It has come to the attention of the Department of Environmental Quality that there
has been recent unauthorized activity on the above referenced parcel of property.
You have been certified as the legal landowner and/or contractor who did the
following unauthorized activity:
Construction and maintenance of two wood debris dams across the outlet stream of
Spring Pond.
A permit must be issued prior to the start of this type of activity. A review of the
Department's files shows that no permits have been issued. Therefore, the
Department has determined that this activity is in violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes
and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of
the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Michigan
Compiled Laws, annotated.
The Department has been informed that one or both of the dams partially failed
during a recent rain event, causing debris and flooding at downstream locations. We
find that dams of this nature are inherently hazardous and cannot be permitted. The
Department therefore orders you to cease and desist all activities at this location,
and to restore the stream to a free-flow condition by removing all wood and brush
forming the dams from the stream channel. All restoration work shall be completed
no later than January 31, 2003. Please notify this office when the restoration has
been completed so that our staff may schedule a follow-up site inspection.
Failure to comply with this request or any further unauthorized activity on the site
may result in this case being referred for elevated enforcement action. We anticipate
and would appreciate your full cooperation in this matter. Please feel free to contact
me at this office if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
District Representative
Land and Water Management Division

Mr Devries' letter response

Dear Sirs,
Re: DEQ File No. 97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Montcalm County.
Your certified letter dated 12/17/02 has been handed to me to respond to. I am the
legal landowner but not the Contractor at 2088 Dagget, Pierson, Michigan. A couple
of beavers are in the process (State unauthorized) of constructing and maintaining
two wood "debris" dams across the outlet stream of my Spring Pond. While I did not
pay for, authorize, nor supervise their dam project, I think they would be highly
offended that you call their skillful use of natures building materials "debris".
I would like to challenge your department to attempt to emulate their dam project
any time and/or any place you choose. I believe I can safely state there is no way
you could ever match their dam skills, their dam resourcefulness, their dam
ingenuity, their dam persistence, their dam determination and/or their dam work
ethic. As to your request, I do not think the beavers are aware that they must first
fill out a dam permit prior to the start of this type of dam activity.
My first dam question to you is: (1) are you trying to discriminate against my Spring
Pond Beavers or (2) do you require all beavers throughout this State to conform to
said dam request? If you are not discriminating against these particular beavers,
through the Freedom of Information Act, I request completed copies of all those
other applicable beaver dam permits that have been issued. Perhaps we will see if
there really is a dam violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural
Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994,
being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Michigan Compiled Laws, annotated.
I have several concerns. My first concern is: aren't the beavers entitled to legal
representation? The Spring Pond Beavers are financially destitute and are unable to
pay for said representation, so the State will have to provide them with a dam
lawyer. The Department's dam concern that either one or both of the dams failed
during a recent rain event causing flooding is proof that this is a natural occurrence,
which the Department is required to protect. In other words, we should leave the
Spring Pond Beavers alone rather than harassing them and calling them dam names.
If you want the stream "restored" to a dam free-flow condition please contact the
beavers, but if you are going to arrest them, they obviously did not pay any
attention to your dam letter, they being unable to read English.
In my humble opinion, the Spring Pond Beavers have a right to build their
unauthorized dams as long as the sky is blue, the grass is green and water flows
downstream. They have more dam rights than I do to live and enjoy Spring Pond. If
the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection lives up to its
name, it should protect the natural resources (Beavers) and the environment
(Beavers' Dams). So, as far as the beavers and I are concerned, this dam case can
be referred for more elevated enforcement action right now. Why wait until
1/31/2003? The Spring Pond Beavers may be under the dam ice then and there will
be no way for you or your dam staff to contact/harass them then.
In conclusion, I would like to bring to your attention to a real environmental quality
(health) problem in the area. It is the bears! Bears are actually defecating in our
woods. I definitely believe you should be persecuting the defecating bears and leave
the beavers alone. If you are going to investigate the beaver dam, watch your step!
(The bears are not careful where they dump!) Being unable to comply with your
dam request, and being unable to contact you on your dam answering machine, I
am sending this response to your dam office.
Thank you
Ryan Devries and the Dam Beavers
 
Footnote: I'm grateful to J DeKorne for pointing out that these letters are in fact
based on real correspondence involving Stephen Tvedten of Marne, Michigan. The
original letters are here.
 

the blind men and the elephant (perception, truth, perspective,

empathy, communications and understanding)
Warning: This story contains language and a potentially 'offensive
stereotype' of a visually impaired person that certain audiences may find
objectionable. At the same time the story is historically significant and is
useful in debating equality/disability, aside from the obvious 'different
perceptions' theme. Nevertheless be careful how you use this story. Alter
the language appropriately where warranted, and if in doubt do not use
the story at all.
There are various versions of the story of the blind (visually impaired) men and the
elephant. The 'blind men and the elephant' is a legend that appears in different
cultures - notably China, Africa and India - and the tale dates back thousands of
years. Some versions of the story feature three blind men, others five or six, but the
message is always the same. Here's a story of the six blind men and the elephant:
Six blind men were discussing exactly what they believed an elephant to be, since
each had heard how strange the creature was, yet none had ever seen one before.
So the blind men agreed to find an elephant and discover what the animal was really
like.
It didn't take the blind men long to find an elephant at a nearby market. The first
blind man approached the beast and felt the animal's firm flat side. "It seems to me
that the elephant is just like a wall," he said to his friends.
The second blind man reached out and touched one of the elephant's tusks. "No,
this is round and smooth and sharp - the elephant is like a spear."
Intrigued, the third blind man stepped up to the elephant and touched its trunk.
"Well, I can't agree with either of you; I feel a squirming writhing thing - surely the
elephant is just like a snake."
The fourth blind man was of course by now quite puzzled. So he reached out, and
felt the elephant's leg. "You are all talking complete nonsense," he said, "because
clearly the elephant is just like a tree."
Utterly confused, the fifth blind man stepped forward and grabbed one of the
elephant's ears. "You must all be mad - an elephant is exactly like a fan."
Duly, the sixth man approached, and, holding the beast's tail, disagreed again. "It's
nothing like any of your descriptions - the elephant is just like a rope."
And all six blind men continued to argue, based on their own particular experiences,
as to what they thought an elephant was like. It was an argument that they were
never able to resolve. Each of them was concerned only with their own idea. None
of them had the full picture, and none could see any of the other's point of view.
Each man saw the elephant as something quite different, and while in part each
blind man was right, none was wholly correct.
There is never just one way to look at something - there are always different
perspectives, meanings, and perceptions, depending on who is looking.
 
See also the no exit story above for another analogy about different perspectives.

the owl and the field-mouse story (executive policy-making, theory

versus practice)
A little field-mouse was lost in a dense wood, unable to find his way out. He came
upon a wise old owl sitting in a tree. "Please help me, wise old owl, how can I get
out of this wood?" said the field-mouse.
"Easy," said the owl, "Grow wings and fly out, as I do."
"But how can I grow wings?" asked the mouse.
The owl looked at him haughtily, sniffed disdainfully, and said, "Don't bother me
with the details, I only decide the policy."
(Thanks P Boden)

aircraft engineering support (lessons in communications and support

service)
An updated version of this item appears on the pilots and airtraffic control quotes
page.
According to the story, after every Qantas Airlines flight (other airlines, and military
sources are suggested instead also) the pilots complete a a 'gripe sheet' report,
which conveys to the ground crew engineers any mechanical problems on the
aircraft during the flight. The engineer reads the form, corrects the problem, then
writes details of action taken on the lower section of the form for the pilot to review
before the next flight. It is clear from the examples below that ground crew
engineers have a keen sense of humour - these are supposedly real extracts from
gripe forms completed by pilots with the solution responses by the engineers.
Incidentally, Qantas has the best safety record of all the world's major airlines.
(1 = The problem logged by the pilot.) (2 = The solution and action taken by the
mechanics.)
1. Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
2. Almost replaced left inside main tire.

1. Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.

2. Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.

1. Something loose in cockpit.

2. Something tightened in cockpit.

1. Dead bugs on windshield.

2. Live bugs on back-order.

1. Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent.

2. Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

1. Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.

2. Evidence removed.

1. DME volume unbelievably loud.

2. DME volume set to more believable level.

1. Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.

2. That's what they're there for.

1. IFF inoperative.

2. IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.

1. Suspected crack in windshield.

2. Suspect you're right.

1. Number 3 engine missing.

2. Engine found on right wing after brief search.

1. Aircraft handles funny.

2. Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious.

1. Target radar hums.

2. Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.

1. Mouse in cockpit.

2. Cat installed.

1. Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on
something with a hammer.

2. Took hammer away from midget.

If you like stories and examples like these see also the tree swing pictures, which
also provide an amusing and useful comment on departmental relationships,
customer service and organizational communications.
(Ack. CB)

the rat and the lion story (do good, what goes around comes around,
karma)
One day a small rat surfaced from his nest to find himself between the paws of a
huge sleeping lion, which immediately awoke and seized the rat. The rat pleaded
with the fierce beast to be set free, and the lion, being very noble and wise, and in
no need of such small prey, agreed to let the relieved rat go on his way.
Some days later in the same part of the forest, a hunter had laid a trap for the lion,
and it duly caught him, so that the lion was trussed up in a strong net, helpless, with
nothing to do than wait for the hunter to return.
But it was the rat who came along next, and seeing the lion in need of help,
promptly set about biting and gnawing through the net, which soon began to
unravel, setting the great lion free.
The moral of the story is of course to make the world your debtor - even the
humblest of folk may one day be of use.

the two mules story (show off expensive things at your peril, the
more you have the more you have to lose)
Two mules travelled regularly together with their loads, from their town to the city.
The first mule, a humble beast, wore a tatty cloak, and carried sacks of oats for the
miller. The second mule was an arrogant animal, who wore a fine coat with jingling
bells. He carried gold and silver coins for the tax collector, and loved to brag about
his responsibility and importance. Running late one day, the second mule suggested
taking a short-cut, off the main road, despite his companion's warnings about the
risks of taking such a dangerous route. Sure enough, before too long, thieves
attacked the second mule, stealing his valuable load, and leaving him injured by the
roadside.
"But why me?" moaned the stricken animal, "I am attacked and robbed while the
vagabonds leave you untouched?"
"I think even in this desperate place no thief would be interested in a poor miller's
slave, or my humble load!" said the first mule, "But you ventured down this
dangerous track and made a show of yourself - you have only yourself to blame."

the travellers and the monk story (positive attitude, life outlook)
One day a traveller was walking along a road on his journey from one village to
another. As he walked he noticed a monk tending the ground in the fields beside the
road. The monk said "Good day" to the traveller, and the traveller nodded to the
monk. The traveller then turned to the monk and said "Excuse me, do you mind if I
ask you a question?".
"Not at all," replied the monk.
"I am travelling from the village in the mountains to the village in the valley and I
was wondering if you knew what it is like in the village in the valley?"
"Tell me," said the monk, "What was your experience of the village in the
mountains?"
"Dreadful," replied the traveller, "to be honest I am glad to be away from there. I
found the people most unwelcoming. When I first arrived I was greeted coldly. I was
never made to feel part of the village no matter how hard I tried. The villagers keep
very much to themselves, they don't take kindly to strangers. So tell me, what can I
expect in the village in the valley?"
"I am sorry to tell you," said the monk, "but I think your experience will be much the
same there".
The traveller hung his head despondently and walked on.
A while later another traveller was journeying down the same road and he also came
upon the monk.
"I'm going to the village in the valley," said the second traveller, "Do you know what
it is like?"
"I do," replied the monk "But first tell me - where have you come from?"
"I've come from the village in the mountains."
"And how was that?"
"It was a wonderful experience. I would have stayed if I could but I am committed
to travelling on. I felt as though I was a member of the family in the village. The
elders gave me much advice, the children laughed and joked with me and people
were generally kind and generous. I am sad to have left there. It will always hold
special memories for me. And what of the village in the valley?" he asked again.
"I think you will find it much the same" replied the monk, "Good day to you".
"Good day and thank you," the traveller replied, smiled, and journeyed on.
(Thanks Carrie Birmingham)

the human resources story (new starter induction, ironic reference

to human resources management, keeping promises, employment
standards)
A highly successful Human Resources Manager was tragically knocked down by a
bus and killed. Her soul arrived at the Pearly Gates, where St. Peter welcomed her:
"Before you get settled in," he said, "We have a little problem... you see, we've
never had a Human Resources Manager make it this far before and we're not really
sure what to do with you."
"Oh, I see," said the woman. "Can't you just let me in?"
"Well, I'd like to," said St Peter, "But I have higher orders. We're instructed to let
you have a day in hell and a day in heaven, and then you are to choose where you'd
like to go for all eternity."
"Actually, I think I'd prefer heaven", said the woman.
"Sorry, we have rules..." at which St. Peter put the HR Manager into the downward
bound elevator.
As the doors opened in hell she stepped out onto a beautiful golf course. In the
distance was a country club; around her were many friends - past fellow executives,
all smartly dressed, happy, and cheering for her. They ran up and kissed her on both
cheeks and they talked about old times. They played a perfect round of golf and
afterwards went to the country club where she enjoyed a superb steak and lobster
dinner. She met the Devil, who was actually rather nice, and she had a wonderful
night telling jokes and dancing. Before she knew it, it was time to leave; everyone
shook her hand and waved goodbye as she stepped into the elevator. The elevator
went back up to heaven where St. Peter was waiting for her.
"Now it's time to spend a day in heaven," he said.
So she spent the next 24 hours lounging around on clouds and playing the harp and
singing, which was almost as enjoyable as her day in hell. At the day's end St Peter
returned.
"So," he said, "You've spent a day in hell and you've spent a day in heaven. You
must choose between the two."
The woman thought for a second and replied, "Well, heaven is certainly lovely, but I
actually had a better time in hell. I choose hell."
Accordingly, St. Peter took her to the elevator again and she went back down to hell.
When the doors of the elevator opened she found herself standing in a desolate
wasteland covered in garbage and filth. She saw her friends dressed in rags, picking
up rubbish and putting it in old sacks. The Devil approached and put his arm around
her.
"I don't understand," stuttered the HR Manager, "Yesterday I was here, and there
was a golf course, and a country club, and we ate lobster, and we danced and had a
wonderful happy time. Now all there's just a dirty wasteland of garbage and all my
friends look miserable."
The Devil looked at her and smiled. "Yesterday we were recruiting you, today you're
staff."
(Thanks CB and CC)

the shoe box story (delusion, men and women, marriage,

relationships, secrets, weddings and best-man speeches)
There was once a man and woman who had been married for more than 60 years.
They had shared everything. They had talked about everything. They had kept no
secrets from each other except that the little old woman had a shoe box in the top
of her closet that she had cautioned her husband never to open or ask her about.
For all of these years, he had never thought about the box, but one day the little old
woman got very sick and the doctor said she would not recover. In trying to sort out
their affairs, the little old man took down the shoe box and took it to his wife's
bedside. She agreed that it was time that he should know what was in the box.
When he opened it, he found two crocheted doilies and a stack of money totaling
$25,000. He asked her about the contents. "When we were to be married," she said,
"My grandmother told me the secret of a happy marriage was to never argue. She
told me that if I ever got angry with you, I should just keep quiet and crochet a
doily." The little old man was so moved, he had to fight back tears. Only two
precious doilies were in the box. She had only been angry with him two times in all
those years of living and loving. He almost burst with happiness. "Honey," he said,
"that explains the doilies, but what about all of this money? Where did it come
from?" "Oh," she said, "that's the money I made from selling the doilies."
(Thanks C Byrd)

the businessman and the fisherman story (ambition, wealth

creation, change for change's sake, purpose of life, work and
fulfilment - also featured on a 'Kit-Kat' snack-bar TV advert)
A management consultant, on holiday in a African fishing village, watched a little
fishing boat dock at the quayside. Noting the quality of the fish, the consultant
asked the fisherman how long it had taken to catch them.
"Not very long." answered the fisherman.
"Then, why didn't you stay out longer and catch more?" asked the consultant.
The fisherman explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and
those of his family.
The consultant asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"
"I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, have an afternoon's rest under a
coconut tree. In the evenings, I go into the community hall to see my friends, have
a few beers, play the drums, and sing a few songs..... I have a full and happy life."
replied the fisherman.
The consultant ventured, "I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you...... You
should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch.
With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat. With the extra money the larger
boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have a
large fleet. Instead of selling your fish to a middleman, you can negotiate directly
with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then
leave this little village and move to a city here or maybe even in the United
Kingdom, from where you can direct your huge enterprise."
"How long would that take?" asked the fisherman.
"Oh, ten, maybe twenty years." replied the consultant.
"And after that?" asked the fisherman.
"After that? That's when it gets really interesting," answered the consultant,
laughing, "When your business gets really big, you can start selling shares in your
company and make millions!"
"Millions? Really? And after that?" pressed the fisherman.
"After that you'll be able to retire, move out to a small village by the sea, sleep in
late every day, spend time with your family, go fishing, take afternoon naps under a
coconut tree, and spend relaxing evenings havings drinks with friends..."
(Ack Jean Kent)

the microsoft story (computers, WYSInotWYG, ironic reference to

computer software problems)
A different slant on the human resources tale above...
In 2050 A.D. Bill Gates dies in a car accident. He finds himself in the Purgatory
waiting room, when God enters...
"Well, Bill," says God, "I'm confused. I'm not sure whether to send you to Heaven or
Hell: you helped society enormously by putting a computer in almost every home in
the world, and yet you've also created some of the most unearthly frustrations
known to mankind. I'm going to do something I've never done before: I'm going to
let you choose where you want to go."
Bill replies, "Well, thanks, God. What's the difference between the two?"
God says, "I'm willing to let you visit both places briefly to help you make your
decision."
"Okay, where should I go first?" asks Bill.
God says, "That's up to you."
Bill says, "OK, let's try Hell first."
So Bill goes to Hell. It's a beautiful, clean, sandy beach with clear waters. There are
thousands of beautiful women running around, playing in the water, laughing and
frolicking about. The sun is shining, the temperature is just right. The whole thing
looks perfect, and Bill is very pleased.
"This is great!" he tells God, "If this is Hell, I REALLY want to see Heaven!"
"Fine," says God, and off they go.
Heaven is a high place in the clouds, with angels drifting about playing harps and
singing. It very nice but not as enticing as Hell. Bill thinks for a moment and
announces his decision.
"Hmm, I think I prefer Hell." he tells God.
"Fine," says God, "As you desire."
So Bill Gates is taken to Hell.
Two weeks later, God decides to check up on Bill to see how he's doing in Hell.
When God arrives in Hell, he finds Bill shackled to a wall, screaming amongst the hot
flames in a dark cave. He's being burned and tortured by demons.
"How's everything going, Bill?" God asks.
Bill replies, his voice full of anguish and disappointment, "This is awful, it's not what
I expected at all, I can't believe it. What happened to that other place with the
beaches and the beautiful women playing in the water?"
God smiles and says, "That was the screen saver."
(Ack CB and JM)

the "it will for that one" story (making a difference, compassion,
social responsibility)
A small boy was walking along a beach at low tide, where countless thousands of
small sea creatures, having been washed up, were stranded and doomed to perish.
A man watched as the boy picked up individual creatures and took them back into
the water.
"I can see you're being very kind," said the watching man, "But there must be a
million of them; it can't possibly make any difference."
Returning from the water's edge, the boy said, "It will for that one."

the negotiation story (negotiating, men and women, funny

responses)
A sales-woman is driving home in the rain when she sees a little old lady walking by
the roadside, heavily laden with shopping. Being a kindly soul, the sales-woman
stops the car and invites the old lady to climb in. During their small talk, the old lady
glances surreptitiously at a brown paper bag on the front seat between them. "If
you are wondering what's in the bag," offers the sales-woman, "It's a bottle of wine.
I got it for my husband." The little old lady is silent for a while, nods several times,
and says ........ "Good trade."

the mcclelland motivation story (david mcclelland's achievement

motivation experiment, motivation references and examples)
A pioneering thinker in the field of workplace motivation, David McClelland
developed his theories chiefly while at Harvard in the 1950-60's with experiments
such as this one.
Volunteers were asked to throw rings over pegs rather like the fairground game; no
distance was stipulated, and most people seemed to throw from arbitrary, random
distances, sometimes close, sometimes farther away. However a small group of
volunteers, whom McClelland suggested were strongly achievement-motivated, took
some care to measure and test distances that would produce an ideal challenge -
not too easy, and not impossible.
Interestingly a parallel exists in biology, known as the 'overload principle', which is
commony applied to fitness and exercising, ie., in order to develop fitness and/or
strength the exercise must be sufficiently demanding to increase existing levels, but
not so demanding as to cause damage or strain.
McClelland identified the same need for a 'balanced challenge' in the approach of
achievement-motivated people. People with a strong achievement-motivation need
set themselves challenging and realistic goals - they need the challenge, but they
also need to be sure they'll accomplish the aim.
More information about David McClelland's motivational theories.

the butterfly story (coaching, teaching, enabling, facilitating,

interventions)
A man found a cocoon for a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared, he sat and
watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through the
little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared stuck.
The man decided to help the butterfly and with a pair of scissors he cut open the
cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. Something was strange. The butterfly
had a swollen body and shrivelled wings. The man watched the butterfly expecting it
to take on its correct proportions. But nothing changed.
The butterfly stayed the same. It was never able to fly. In his kindness and haste
the man did not realise that the butterfly's struggle to get through the small opening
of the cocoon is nature's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its
wings so that it would be ready for flight.
Like the sapling which grows strong from being buffeted by the wind, in life we all
need to struggle sometimes to make us strong.
When we coach and teach others it is helpful to recognize when people need to do
things for themselves.
(Ack Paul Matthews)

the swimming pool story (reviews and asessments, assessing

people, things are not always what they seem)
Fred and Mabel were both patients in a mental hospital. One day as they both
walked beside the swimming pool, Mabel jumped into the deep end and sank to the
bottom. Without a thought for his own safety, Fred jumped in after her, brought her
to the surface, hauled her out, gave her the kiss of life and saved her.
The next day happened to be Fred's annual review. He was brought before the
hospital board, where the director told him, "Fred, I have some good news and
some bad news: the good news is that in light of your heroic act yesterday we
consider that you are sane and can be released from this home back into society.
The bad news is, I'm afraid, that Mabel, the patient you saved, shortly afterwards
hung herself in the bathroom with the belt from her bathrobe. I'm sorry but she's
dead."
"She didn't hang herself," Fred replied, "I put her there to dry."
the butcher story (business ethics, chickens come home to roost,
sins discovered, getting caught out, lying to customers)
A butcher, who had had a particularly good day, proudly flipped his last chicken on a
scale and weighed it. "That will be £6.35," he told the customer.
"That's a good price, but it really is a little too small," said the woman. "Don't you
have anything larger?"
Hesitating, but thinking fast, the clerk returned the chicken to the refrigerator,
paused a moment, then took it out again.
"This one," he said faintly, " will be £6.65."
The woman paused for a moment, then made her decision...
"I know what," she said, "I'll take both of them!"
(Thanks Doug Boit)

the pavlov's dogs story - 'pavlov's dog' (behaviour, conditioning,

fears and neuroses, embedded attitudes and responses)
Ivan Pavlov was a Russian physiologist who lived from 1849-1936. He founded the
Institute of Experimental Medicine in 1890, where his primary interest was digestion.
Pavlov's Dogs is the name given to Ivan Pavlov's seminal research in the early 20th
century which established some essential principles of Classical Conditioning in the
field of human psychology. Classical Conditioning concerns 'learned' or conditioned
behaviour, (which also forms the basis of behaviour therapy).
We all have behaviours that we might seek to change. The Pavlov's Dogs illustration
helps us to understand more about why we respond sometimes irrationally to certain
situations.
Pavlov's Dogs provides a wonderful and true example for anyone seeking to explain
or understand how our past experiences can prompt certain behaviours in the
future, for example, phobias (irrational fears), neurosis (severe nervous or emotional
responses to particular situations), and even mild feelings of concern or anxiety that
virtually all of us are prone to in one way or another (eg., public speaking, fear of
heights, flying, being reprimanded or tested, etc.)
The initial Pavlov's Dogs experiment was simply to place a dog in a sound-proof,
smell-proof cubicle, with no outside view - a controlled environment in other words.
A sound was made when food was given to the dog, and the amount of salivation
the dog produced was measured. After repeating this several times (called 'trials'),
the sound was made but no food was given. The dog still salivated.
This simple experiment established that the dog did not necessarily need the food in
order to respond to food. The dog was responding to a stimulus or 'trigger' that
produced the same response as the real thing. Pavlov could make the dog salivate
whenever the sound was made.
This is expressed technically: a 'Conditioned Stimulus' (the sound) can produce a
'Conditioned Response' (the salivation), which was the same 'Unconditioned
Response' (salivation in response to food) for the original 'Unconditioned Stimulus'
(the food).
Pavlov also proved that slightly different sounds to the original Conditioned Stimulus
produced a similar Conditioned Response, which he called 'Generalisation'. Pavlov
also obtained the same results by showing the dog a shape (a circle for food), and
then established a level of 'Discrimination' by showing an oval when there was no
food.
By continually repeating the Conditioned Stimulus, the Conditioned response was
seen to weaken, and then eventually to cease, which he called 'Extinction'.
Surprisingly though, after a day or two, when the Conditioned Stimulus (sound) was
started again the dog again produced the Conditioned Response (salivation), which
is called 'Spontaneous Recovery'. This showed that conditioned behaviours can
become very deeply embedded and well established.
Classical Conditioning is responsible for all behaviour that involves 'Reflexes' - heart-
rate, perspiration, muscle-tension, etc.
Think about your own anxieties that produce these reactions. They are probably
Conditioned Responses from something (a Conditioned Stimulus) that you
experienced in the past. Note also that if the original response is very strong, the
conditioning can result from a single event, technically referred to as 'One Trial
Learning'.

If you find this interesting see the Eric Erikson section, and look at
Transational Analysis theory. Dr Arthur Janov's book The Primal Scream is
also fascinating and relevant to this aspect of understanding personality and
behaviour.

the beans up the nose story (accentuate the positive, visualization,

auto-suggestion, negative suggestions and attitudes)
This lovely analogy illustrates how accentuating the negative can often produce the
very result you are seeking to avoid. The metaphor is so strong that it gave rise to
the expression 'Beans up the Nose', meaning to increase the likelihood of unwanted
result by highlighting the potential for it to happen.
Beans up the Nose is a great way to emphasise the need for managers to
accentuate the positive - not the negative - when communicating instructions to
their people.
A mother was preparing a meal for her young son. She emptied a tin of beans into a
saucepan and put them on the stove to cook. Just then the phone rang - she was
expecting a call and wanted to take it. Mindful that she'd be leaving her little boy
unsupervised for a minute or two, and wanting to prevent him doing anything daft
while she was out of the room, she firmly told him, "Stay here while I answer the
phone. I'll be back soon; don't misbehave, and whatever you do, don't go putting
those beans up your nose..."
See Nudge theory, to which this sort of suggestive language relates.

the hawthorne effect story (elton mayo's motivation experiments,

motivation)
The Hawthorne Effect: the proposition that workers are more motivated more by
emotional than economic factors (i.e., by being involved and feeling important,
rather than by an improvement in workplace conditions).
So called after workplace behavioural research by Elton Mayo at the Western Electric
Company's Hawthorne plant in Cicero, Chicago, 1927-32, which ran on without Mayo
until 1937. Mayo was a founding father of industrial psychology, attached to Harvard
University as professor of industrial research from 1926, laying the foundations for
later gurus, notably Herzberg (Motivation and Hygiene Factors), Maslow (Hierarchy
of Needs), McGregor (XY Theory), Peters and Waterman ('In Search of Excellence'
etc).
At a peak, 20,000 Western Electric employees were subject to research by a team of
Harvard scientists and up to 100 investigators. This massive ten year programme
grew from the initial experiment in which improved lighting was installed to assess
the effect on workers' motivation and productivity. Sure enough, productivity
increased, but productivity also increased in the 'control group' of workers where
conditions were unchanged, except that they were informed they were part of the
study. This was perhaps the earliest significant demonstration that people are not
actually motivated by improving their workplace conditions ('Taylorism' - after FW
Taylor - had been the common view, in which money and conditions were thought
to be the prime motivators). The Hawthorne Effect, and the experiments at the
Hawthorne plant, proved that people are mainly motivated not by economic factors,
but emotional factors, such as feeling involved and receiving attention.

the naval stand-off story (negotiation, do your research, know your

facts)
This story is an 'alleged' transcript of an actual radio conversation between a US
naval ship and Canadian maritime contact off the coast of Newfoundland in October
1995. The tale, in various versions and featuring different nationalities, has
circulated widely in emails and in books for many years, and has been used by
numerous speakers and writers to illustrate lessons relating to negotiation, making
assumptions, and related themes. Unfortunately it is not true, but it is nevertheless a
great story. If using this as a teaching analogy, you will probably be forgiven for not
revealing the truth of the matter until after telling the story.
Americans: Please divert your course 15 degrees North to avoid a collision.
Canadians: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees South to avoid collision.
Americans: This is the captain of a US navy ship; I say again divert your course.
Canadians: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.
Americans: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN, THE SECOND LARGEST
SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES' ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE
DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND
THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH, THAT'S ONE FIVE
DEGREES NORTH, OR COUNTER-MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE
THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.
Canadians: We are a lighthouse; your call.
(This story is a lesson in making wrong assumptions - especially where an obstacle is
misinterpreted to be movable, when in fact it is not. For a similar lesson see the
wonderful air traffic control story about assumptions.)

the room service story (understanding, communicating,

interpretation, empathy, meaning)
This story was widely circulated by email around 2001-2, within which it was alleged
to be the genuine transcript of a telephone conversation between a guest and room-
service in a hotel in Asia in the late 1990's, and it supposedly appeared in an item
published in the Far East Economic Review. This is all false however:
Room Service is in fact a chapter from US comedian Shelley Berman's book 'A Hotel
Is A Funny Place'. In truth the incident portrayed never happened in any hotel, in
Asia or otherwise. Shelley Berman wrote 'Room Service' as a piece of fictional
humour. Shelley Berman has kindly allowed this extract to appear on this site, and
this permission is gratefully acknowledged.
As well as being one of the best loved and funniest comedians and writers of his
generation, Shelly Berman is also a lecturer at the University of Southern California.
More information at: Shelley Berman.
The Room Service fictional exchange is a wonderful and amusing example of how
and why the effective understanding relies not only on language and
communication, but also on the abilities of the communicators to interpret meaning.

excerpt from "A Hotel is a Funny Place ..."

N.B. This material is a chapter from Shelley Berman's copyrighted book. It is

reproduced here with permission. Reading hints: You are on the phone. The other
party is also in the hotel:
Morny, rune sore-bees.
Oh sorry, I thought I dialed room service.
Rye. Rune sore-bees. Morny. Jewish to odor sunteen?
Yes, order something. This is room thirteen-on-five. I want…
Okay, torino-fie. Yes plea?
I'd like some bacon and eggs.
Ow July then?
What?
Aches.
Ow July then? Pry, boy, pooch…?
Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry. Scrambled, please.
Ow July thee baycome? Crease?
Crisp will be fine.
Okay. An Santos?
What?
Santos. July Santos?
Uh…I don't know…I don't think so.
No? Judo one toes?
Look. I really feel bad about this, but I just don't know what judo-one-toes means.
I'm sorry…
Toes! Toes! Why Jew Don Juan toes? Ow bow eenlish mopping we bother?
English muffin! I've got it! You were saying toast! Fine. An English muffin will be
fine. We bother? No. Just put the bother on the side.
Wad?
I'm sorry. I meant butter. Butter on the side.
Copy?
I feel terrible about this but… Copy.
Copy, tea, mill…
Coffee!! Yes, coffee please. And that's all.
One Minnie. Ass rune torino-fie, strangle-aches, crease baycome, tossy eenlish
mopping we bother honey sigh, and copy. Rye?
Whatever you say. Okay.
Tenjewberrymud.
You're welcome.
 
Next time someone sends you the email you can inform them: the above dialogue
never actually took place in any hotel anywhere in the world. The Room Service
dialogue is an intentionally composed humorous fiction and is entirely the creation of
Shelley Berman, written as a chapter in his book, A Hotel Is A Funny Place,
publishers Price/Sloan/Stern. Copyright 1972 and 1985. Any claim to the contrary is
utterly baseless and erroneous.
Room Service is © Shelley Berman. Used with Permission with grateful thanks to
Shelley Berman. Not to be sold or published.
the project story (project management, six phases of a project)
Not exactly a story, but a widely referred to ironic model detailing the six phases of
a project. Do you recognize this model?
1. Enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment

3. Panic

4. Search for the guilty

5. Punishment of the innocent

6. Praise and honours for the non-participants

See also the OSINTOT and SLAGIATT acronyms.

the mswindows car story (the power of PR, clever publicity, using
humour for publicity, don't get mad get even)
You may have seen this before as it's been widely circulated over the internet.
Whether it's true or not, it's a great example of the risks of arrogant PR, and then in
response, fantastic PR that's utterly in tune with the mood of the moment. Despite
all this though, a supremely powerful supplier can, while they remain supremely
powerful, re-write the rules of customer service.
At a computer expo (COMDEX) around 1997/98, Bill Gates of Microsoft was reported
to have compared the computer and automotive industries, saying that "If General
Motors had kept up with technology like the computer industry does, we would all
be driving around in twenty-five dollar cars that go 1,000 miles to the gallon."
In response to this alleged outburst, GM are supposed to have issued a press
release along the following lines, stating:
If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the
following characteristics -
1. For no reason at all your car would crash twice a day, and you would have not a
single clue as to the cause.
2. Every time they re-painted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just
accept this, re-start and drive on.

4. Occasionally, executing a manoeuvre such as a left turn would cause your car to
shut down and refuse to re-start, in which case you would have to re-install the
engine.

5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought 'Car95' or 'CarNT',
but then you'd have to buy more seats.

6. (Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable, five times as
fast, and twice as easy to drive, but it would only run on five percent of the roads.
 The Macintosh car owners would have to buy expensive GM upgrades for their cars
which would make them run much slower.)

7. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a
'general car default' warning light.

8. The car's new seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.

9. The airbag system would say 'Are you sure?' before activating.

10. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let
you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grabbed
hold of the radio antenna.

11. GM would require all car buyers to additionally purchase a deluxe set of Rand
McNally road maps (which would be a GM subsidiary) even though the customer
neither needed nor wanted them. Attempting to do without these extras would
immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by fifty percent or more.
Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation under the anti-trust laws by
the Justice Department.

12. Every time GM introduced a new model, car buyers would have to learn to drive all
over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as in the
previous car.

13. And you'd need to press the 'Start' button to shut off the engine.

the balloon story (business, IT, humour, funny business story)

A man in a hot air balloon is lost. He sees a man on the ground and reduces height
to speak to him.
"Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?"
"You're in a hot air balloon hovering thirty feet above this field," comes the reply.
"You must work in Information Technology," says the balloonist.
"I do," says the man, "How did you know?"
"Well," says the balloonist, "Everything you told me is technically correct, but it's no
use to anyone."
"You must be in business," says the man.
"I am," says the balloonist, "How did you know?"
"Well," says the man, "You don't know where you are, you don't know where you're
going, but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position you were
before we met, but now it's my fault."
(You can of course substitute other professions as appropriate.)
the monkey story (company policy, organizational development,
group behaviour, group beliefs, inertia and assumptions)
Start with a cage containing five monkeys.
Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it.
Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana.
As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the monkeys with cold water.
After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result - all the
monkeys are sprayed with cold water.
Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will
try to prevent it.
Now, turn off the cold water.
Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one.
The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs.
To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him.
After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will
be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one.
The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked.
The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm.
Again, replace a third original monkey with a new one.
The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well.
Two of the four monkeys that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted
to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest
monkey.
After replacing the fourth and fifth original monkeys, all the monkeys that have been
sprayed with cold water have been replaced.
Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs.
Why not?
Because as far as they know that's the way it's always been around here.
And that's how company policy begins ...

the creativity story (ten ways to murder creativity, leadership,

growth and development, innovation and motivation)
Again not a story, instead a sardonic view of the way that organizations typically
approach managing people and projects, which of course kills the creative incentive
and capabilities of creative people. Do you recognize the model?
1. Always pretend to know more than everybody around you.
2. Get employees to fill in time sheets.
 3. Run daily checks on progress of everyone's work.

4. Ensure that highly qualified people do mundane work for long periods.

5. Put barriers up between departments.

6. Don't speak personally to employees, except when announcing increased targets,

shortened deadlines and tightened cost restraints.

7. Ask for a 200-page document to justify every new idea.

8. Call lots of meetings.

9. Place the biggest emphasis on the budget.

10. Buy lots of computers.

the scorpion and the frog story (personality and type, inability to
change, expectations, personal responsibility, reality, acceptance,
delusion, blame)
Once upon a time a scorpion wanted to cross a brook. On the bank he saw a frog
and asked if the frog would give him a ride to the other side.
"Oh no," says the frog, "If I carry you on my back you will sting me."
"But why would I sting you when we would both surely perish," replied the scorpion.
The frog eventually conceded that the scorpion had a point, and agreed to the
request.
Half way across, the scorpion stang the frog, and they both began to drown.
"But why did you break your word and sting me, knowing it would be certain death
for us both?" cried the frog.
"Because it is in my nature." said the scorpion.

the rocks in bucket story (time management, personal change,

managing your activities and environment, project management)
This wonderful story can be used to help people understand time management.
It is also a lesson in prioritization, and illustrates the value of planning in time
management.
The 'story' goes..
Start with a bucket, some big rocks enough to fill it, some small stones or pebbles,
some sand, and water.
Put the big rocks in the bucket - is it full?
Put the small stones in around the big rocks - is it full?
Put the sand in and give it a shake - is it full?
Put the water in. Now it's full.
The point is: unless you put the big rocks in first, you won't get them in at all.
In other words: Plan time-slots for your big issues before anything else, or the
inevitable sand and water issues will fill up your days and you won't fit the big issues
in (a big issue doesn't necessarily have to be a work task - it could be your child's
sports-day, or a holiday).
The story, and the analogy contained within it, are also known as 'Big Rocks in First',
although this title rather gives the answer away if you intend using the story as a
puzzle.
The expression 'Big Rocks' has become a metaphor for big important jobs. The other
smaller and more fluid items represent less crucial tasks which typically interrupt or
distract us from scheduled work.
See the following amusing alternative version.
See also the time management page.

rocks in the bucket story (alternative funny version)

A lecturer at a university is giving a pre-exam lecture on time management. On his
desk is a bag of sand, a bag of pebbles, some big rocks and bucket. He asks for a
volunteer to put all three grades of stone into the bucket, and a keen student duly
steps up to carry out the task, starting with the sand, then the pebbles, then the
rocks, which do not all fit in the bucket.
"The is an analogy of poor time management," trills the lecturer, "If you'd have put
the rocks in first, then the pebbles, then the sand, all three would have fit. This is
much like time management, in that by completing your biggest tasks first, you
leave room to complete your medium tasks, then your smaller ones. By completing
your smallest tasks first you spend so much time on them you leave yourself unable
to complete either medium of large tasks satisfactorily. Let me show you.."
And the lecturer re-fills the bucket, big rocks first, then pebbles, then sand, shaking
the bucket between each so that everything fits.
"But Sir," says one student, slouched at the back of the theatre, "You've forgotten
one thing.."
At which the student approaches the bucket, produces a can of lager, opens it and
pours into the bucket. "No matter how busy you are," quips the student with a
smile, "There's always time for a quick beer."
(Ack Simon Dedman)
the murphy's plough story (positive thinking, negative thinking,
retaliating before being attacked, thinking the worst of people, tit-
for-tat, eye-for-an-eye)
Use this story to illustrate the risks of failing to use positive thinking. The story also
illustrates the common tendency for us all to retaliate before we are attacked, and
humankind's potential for tit-for-tat or 'eye-for-an-eye' behaviour, on which most
international politics has been based since the beginning of civilisation.
McGinty, a farmer, needed to plough his field before the dry spell set in, but his own
plough had broken.
"I know, I'll ask my neighbour, farmer Murphy, to borrow his plough. He's a good
man; I'm sure he'll have done his ploughing by now and he'll be glad to lend me his
machine."
So McGinty began to walk the three or four fields to Murphy's farm.
After a field of walking, McGinty says to himself, "I hope that Murphy has finished all
his own ploughing or he'll not be able to lend me his machine..."
Then after a few more minutes of worrying and walking, McGinty says to himself,
"And what if Murphy's plough is old and on it's last legs - he'll never be wanting to
lend it to me will he?.."
And after another field, McGinty says, "Murphy was never a very helpful fellow, I
reckon maybe he won't be too keen to lend me his plough even if it's in perfect
working order and he's finished all his own ploughing weeks ago...."
As McGinty arrives at Murphy's farm, McGinty is thinking, "That old Murphy can be a
mean old fellow. I reckon even if he's got all his ploughing done, and his own
machine is sitting there doing nothing, he'll not lend it to me just so watch me go to
ruin..."
McGinty walks up Murphy's front path, knocks on the door, and Murphy answers.
"Well good morning Mr McGinty, what can I do for you?" says Murphy.
And McGinty says, with eyes bulging, "You can take your bloody plough, and you
can stick it up your bloody arse!"

 
Send your favourite.
 

(supposed) answer to the 'stranded car dilemma'

There is no right or wrong answer to this, and it's a daft scenario anyway, but the
most creatively balanced solution is arguably: Ask your old friend to drive the old
lady to the town and raise the alarm, while you and your lost love keep each other
warm and wait for help to arrive. Return to Stranded Car Dilemma Story.
Cup Crisis and The lessons to Management
– Short Story Funny
English Short Story by blackbeauty84 published on Jun-7-2012

Cup Crisis and The Lessons to Management – Short Story Funny

Photo credit: godidwlr from morguefile.com

Let me start the article with disclaimer as the mention of word ‘Crisis’ sends shivers to many.
Cup Crisis is not something bad as Euro zone Crisis or related to it any way.  As per the
definition in my organization, the cup crisis is ‘The phenomenon where there is no coffee (or
tea) cups, when you want to have coffee”. Unless you are an avid coffee lover, you will never
know the seriousness of this problem.
Let me explain this with an example. You come to office with a splitting headache in
Chennai heat. You open the mail box and few mails in it have further intensified your
headache. All your body and soul wants is a hot coffee. You rush to pantry to have one. The
warm aromas of Coffee beans welcome you. But alas there are no cups to have a coffee and
relish it.
Before getting deep into Cup Crisis let’s understand what causes it.
1) Too much work in office:  Suddenly when you are bombarded with work all your mind
seeks is More and More of Coffee . Because only during such coffee breaks people form
strategy on how (not) to work. More such people in the same state, lesser are the coffee cups.
2) Very Less work: When there is very less work in the office and you have to mandatorily
manage to be in office for nine and half hours, all you do is take one hour coffee break every
two hours. My guess is more than half the population in office falls in this category.
Other reasons like higher number of broken cups, Inadequate number of staff to wash the
stained cups, no stock in purchase department etc also form a significant reason for cup crisis.
Thinking about the positives of Cup Crisis, a sudden thought occurred to me. Why not
management try to take critical decisions based on employee’s reaction to cup crisis. Let me
explain my thoughts further.
Employee decides not to have coffee anymore in office
According to me, this category of employee is bit low in motivation. For a small problem of
not finding a coffee cup, he is forsaking the goal of having coffee. How will the employee
react to challenging situations then? Management should keep an eye on this category and
consider the possibility of putting them in Performance Improvement Plan
Employee Decides to have coffee in other floor
This category of employee is highly flexible. He tries reaching to different floor and going to
different directions to have a cup of coffee. Management can make a note of this category
and use them effectively for a so called challenging assignment for which surprisingly there
are no takers.
Employee launches a complaint
Fight, fight till you achieve the goal seems to be the motto of this category. They will call the
admin department and explain the intensity of the problem. Inaction from the admin
department doesn’t deter them. They will make a complaint in writing and will not budge in
that till have a coffee cup in hand. Management can use this kind of people to send chaser
mails to others.
Employee washes the stained cup himself
This employee goes to any level to achieve his goal. He takes the responsibility of other staff
(cleaning staff) smoothly. Management should keep this people handy to deliver that ‘Critical
piece of work which should go to client by any chance on Monday morning’
Employee starts bringing his own coffee mug
This category of people are really smart and out of box thinkers. They are the ideal set of
people to work in a project which has ‘Very Less Clarity and highly critical deliverables’
 
Need any further inputs on this? Ping me, let’s discuss this over a cup of coffee.
__END__

Management Lesson #5

Management Lesson #5

A wealthy old lady decides to go on a photo safari in Africa, taking her faithful aged poodle named Cuddles, along for the company. One day the poodle starts chasing
butterflies and before long, Cuddles discovers that she's lost. Wandering about, she notices a leopard heading rapidly in her direction with the intention of having lunch.
The old poodle thinks, "Oh, oh! I'm in deep doo-doo now!"

Noticing some bones on the ground close by, she immediately settles down to chew on the bones with her back to the approaching cat. Just as the leopard is about to
leap, the old poodle exclaims loudly, "Boy, that was one delicious leopard! I wonder if there are any more around here" Hearing this, the young leopard halts his attack in
mid-strike, a look of terror comes over him and he slinks away into the trees. "Whew!", says the leopard, "That was close! That old poodle nearly had me!"

Meanwhile, a monkey who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree, figures he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the
leopard. So off he goes, but the old poodle sees him heading after the leopard with great speed, and figures that something must be up. The monkey soon catches up
with the leopard, spills the beans and strikes a deal for himself with the leopard. The young leopard is furious at being made a fool of and says, "Here, monkey, hop on my
back and see what's going to happen to that conniving canine!"
Now, the old poodle sees the leopard coming with the monkey on his back and thinks, "What am I going to do now", but instead of running, the dog sits down with her
back to her attackers, pretending she hasn't seen them yet, and just when they get close enough to hear, the old poodle says: "Where's that damn monkey? I sent him off
an hour ago to bring me another leopard!"

Moral of this story:

Don't mess with old farts...age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill!
Bullshit and brilliance only come with age and experience!

The Best Inspiring Anecdotes of All Times

This is a sample from the book "The 100 Top Inspirational Anecdotes and Stories" (see
above)

Visit our Facebook page to get a FREE copy of our new book: "How to Improve Your
Leadership and Management Skills"

"I Can Make It Happen"

History abounds with tales of experts who were convinced that the ideas, plans, and projects
of others could never be achieved. However, accomplishment came to those who said, "I can
make it happen."

The Italian sculptor Agostino d'Antonio worked diligently on a large piece of marble. Unable
to produce his desired masterpiece, he lamented, "I can do nothing with it." Other sculptors
also worked this difficult piece of marble, but to no avail. Michelangelo discovered the stone
and visualized the possibilities in it. His "I-can-make-it-happen" attitude resulted in one of
the world's masterpieces - David.

The experts of Spain concluded that Columbus's plans to discover a new and shorter route to
the West Indies was virtually impossible. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand ignored the
report of the experts. "I can make it happen," Columbus persisted. And he did. Everyone
knew the world was flat, but not Columbus. The Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria, along with
Columbus and his small band of followers, sailed to "impossible" new lands and thriving
resources.

Even the great Thomas Alva Edison discouraged his friend, Henry Ford, from pursuing his
fledgling idea of a motorcar. Convinced of the worthlessness of the idea, Edison invited Ford
to come and work for him. Ford remained committed and tirelessly pursued his dream.
Although his first attempt resulted in a vehicle without reverse gear, Henry Ford knew he
could make it happen. And, of course, he did.

"Forget it," the experts advised Madame Curie. They agreed radium was a scientifically
impossible idea. However, Marie Curie insisted, "I can make it happen."

Let's not forget our friends Orville and Wilbur Wright. Journalists, friends, armed forces
specialists, and even their father laughed at the idea of an airplane. "What a silly and insane
way to spend money. Leave flying to the birds," they jeered. "Sorry," the Wright brothers
responded. "We have a dream, and we can make it happen." As a result, a place called Kitty
Hawk, North Carolina, became the setting for the launching of their "ridiculous" idea.
Finally, as you read these accounts under the magnificent lighting of your environment,
consider the plight of Benjamin Franklin. He was admonished to stop the foolish
experimenting with lighting. What an absurdity and waste of time! Why, nothing could outdo
the fabulous oil lamp. Thank goodness Franklin knew he could make it happen. You too can
make it happen!

It Couldn't Be Done

Somebody said that it couldn't be done, But he with a chuckle replied That maybe it couldn't,
but he would be one Who wouldn't say so "till he tried." So he buckled right in with the trace
of a grin On his face. If he worried, he hid it. He started to sing as he tackled the thing That
couldn't be done, and he did it. Somebody scoffed: "Oh, you'll never do that; At least no one
ever has done it." But he took off his coat and took off his hat And the first thing he knew
he'd begun it. With the lift of his chin and a bit of a grin, Without any doubting or quiddit, He
started to sing as he tackled the thing That couldn't be done, and he did it. There are
thousands to tell you it cannot be done, There are thousands to prophesy failure; There are
thousands to point out to you, one by one, The dangers that wait to assail you. But just buckle
right in with a bit of a grin, Then take off your coat and go to it; Just start in to sing as you
tackle the thing That cannot be done, and you'll do it.

Edgar A. Guest

Keeper of the Spring

The late Peter Marshall was an eloquent speaker and for several years served as the chaplain
of the US Senate. He used to love to tell the story of the "Keeper of the Spring," a quiet forest
dweller who lived high above an Austrian village along the eastern slope of the Alps.

The old gentleman had been hired many years earlier by a young town councilman to clear
away the debris from the pools of water up in the mountain crevices that fed the lovely spring
flowing through their town. With faithful, silent regularity, he patrolled the hills, removed the
leaves and branches, and wiped away the silt that would otherwise have choked and
contaminated the fresh flow of water. The village soon became a popular attraction for
vacationers. Graceful swans floated along the crystal clear spring, the mill wheels of various
businesses located near the water turned day and night, farmlands were naturally irrigated,
and the view from restaurants was picturesque beyond description.

Years passed. One evening the town council met for its semiannual meeting. As they
reviewed the budget, one man's eye caught the salary figure being paid the obscure keeper of
the spring. Said the keeper of the purse, "Who is the old man? Why do we keep him on year
after year? No one ever sees him. For all we know, the strange ranger of the hills is doing us
no good. He isn't necessary any longer." By a unanimous vote, they dispensed with the old
man's services.

For several weeks, nothing changed.

By early autumn, the trees began to shed their leaves. Small branches snapped of and fell into
the pools, hindering the rushing flow of sparkling water. One afternoon someone noticed a
slight yellowish-brown tint in the spring. A few days later, the water was much darker.
Within another week, a slimy film covered sections of the water along the banks, and a foul
odor was soon detected. The mill wheels moved more slowly, some finally ground to a halt.
Swans left, as did the tourists. Clammy fingers of disease and sickness reached deeply into
the village.

Quickly, the embarrassed council called a special meeting. Realizing their gross error in
judgment, they rehired the old keeper of the spring, and within a few weeks, the veritable
river of life began to clear up. The wheels started to turn, and new life returned to the hamlet
in the Alps.

Never become discouraged with the seeming smallness of your task, job, or life. Cling fast to
the words of Edward Everett Hale: "I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything,
but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do
something I can do. " The key to accomplishment is believing that what you can do will make
a difference.

A Lesson From a Mad Hatter

One of the first steps to accomplishing great things in your life is to cease dwelling on the
negative things in your past. Carefully assess your present strengths, successes, and
achievements. Dwell on those positive events in your life, and quit limiting your potential by
constantly thinking about what you have done poorly. Alice and the Mad Hatter in
Wonderland had a conversation that illustrates this concept:

Alice: Where I come from, people study what they are not good at in order to be able to do
what they are good at.

Mad Hatter: We only go around in circles in Wonderland, but we always end up where we
started. Would you mind explaining yourself?

Alice: Well, grown-ups tell us to find out what we did wrong, and never do it again

Mad Hatter: That's odd! It seems to me that in order to find out about something, you have to
study it. And when you study it, you should become better at it. Why should you want to
become better at something and then never do it again? But please continue.

Alice: Nobody ever tells us to study the right things we do. We're only supposed to learn
from the wrong things. But we are permitted to study the right things other people do. And
sometimes we're even told to copy them.

Mad Hatter: That's cheating!

Alice: You're quite right, Mr. Hatter. I do live in a topsy-turvy world. It seems like I have to
do something wrong first, in order to learn from what not to do. And then, by not doing what
I'm not supposed to do, perhaps I'll be right. But I'd rather be right the first time, wouldn't
you?

A Tragedy Or a Blessing?

Years ago in Scotland, the Clark family had a dream. Clark and his wife worked and saved,
making plans for their nine children and themselves to travel to the United States. It had
taken years, but they had finally saved enough money and had gotten passports and
reservations for the whole family on a new liner to the United States.

The entire family was filled with anticipation and excitement about their new life. However,
seven days before their departure, the youngest son was bitten by a dog. The doctor sewed up
the boy but hung a yellow sheet on the Clarks' front door. Because of the possibility of rabies,
they were being quarantined for fourteen days.

The family's dreams were dashed. They would not be able to make the trip to America as
they had planned. The father, filled with disappointment and anger, stomped to the dock to
watch the ship leave - without the Clark family. The father shed tears of disappointment and
cursed both his son and God for their misfortune.

Five days later, the tragic news spread throughout Scotland - the mighty Tittanic had sunk.
The unsinkable ship had sunk, taking hundreds of lives with it. The Clark family was to have
been on that ship, but because the son had been bitten by a dog, they were left behind in
Scotland.

When Mr. Clark heard the news, he hugged his son and thanked him for saving the family.
He thanked God for saving their lives and turning what he had felt was a tragedy into a
blessing.

To Build a Bridge

The Brooklyn Bridge that spans the river tying Manhattan Island to Brooklyn is truly a
miracle bridge. In 1863, a creative engineer named John Roebling was inspired by an idea for
this spectacular bridge. However, bridge-building experts throughout the world told him to
forget it; it could not be done.

Roebling convinced his son, Washington, who was a young upand coming engineer, that the
bridge could be built. The two of them developed the concepts of how it could be
accomplished and how the obstacles could be overcome. With un harnessed excitement and
inspiration, they hired their crew and began to build their dream bridge.

The project was only a few months under construction when a tragic accident on the site took
the life of John Roebling and severely injured his son, Washington. Washington was left with
permanent brain damage and was unable to talk or walk. Everyone felt that the project would
have to be scrapped since the Roeblings were the only ones who knew how the bridge could
be built.
Even though Washington was unable to move or talk, his mind was as sharp as ever, and he
still had a burning desire to complete the bridge. An idea hit him as he lay in his hospital bed,
and he developed a code for communication. All he could move was one finger, so he
touched the arm of his wife with that finger, tapping out the code to communicate to her what
to tell the engineers who were building the bridge. For thirteen years, Washington tapped out
his instructions with his finger until the spectacular Brooklyn Bridge was finally completed.

Grind or Shine

Adversity is the grindstone of life. Intended to polish you up, adversity also has the ability to
grind you down. The impact and ultimate result depend on what you do with the difficulties
that come your way. Consider the phenomenal achievements of people experiencing
adversity.

Beethoven composed his greatest works after becoming deaf. Sir Walter Raleigh wrote the
History of the World during a thirteen year imprisonment. If Columbus had turned back, no
one could have blamed him, considering the constant adversity he endured. Of course, no one
would have remembered him either. Abraham Lincoln achieved greatness by his display of
wisdom and character during the devastation of the Civil War. Luther translated the Bible
while enduring confinement in the Castle of Wartburg. Under a sentence of death and during
twenty years in exile, Dante wrote the Divine Comedy. John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress
in a Bedford jail.

Finally, consider a more recent example. Mary Groda-Lewis endured sixteen years of
illiteracy because of unrecognized dyslexia, was committed to a reformatory on two different
occasions, and almost died of a stroke while bearing a child. Committed to going to college,
she worked at a variety of odd jobs to save money, graduated with her high school
equivalency at eighteen, was named Oregon's outstanding Upward Bound student, and finally
entered college. Determined to become a doctor, she faced fifteen medical school rejections
until Albany Medical College finally accepted her. In 1984, Dr. Mary Groda-Lewis, at thirty-
five, graduated with honors to fulfill her dream.

Adversity - the grindstone of life. Will it grind you down or polish you up?

Who's Counting?

Napoleon was involved in conversation with a colonel of a Hungarian battalion who had been
taken prisoner in Italy. The colonel mentioned he had fought in the army of Maria Theresa.
"You must have a few years under your belt!" exclaimed Napoleon. "I'm sure I've lived sixty
or seventy years," replied the colonel. "You mean to say," Napoleon continued, "you have not
kept track of the years you have lived?"

The colonel promptly replied, "Sir, I always count my money, my shirts, and my horses - but
as for my years, I know nobody who wants to steal them, and I shall surely never lose them."
 "If I Had My Life to Live Over"

If I had my life to live over, I'd dare to make more mistakes next time. I'd relax, I'd limber up.
I would be sillier than I've been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously, take more
chances, take more trips. I'd climb more mountains, and swim more rivers. I would eat more
ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I'd have fewer
imaginary ones. You see, I'm one of those people who lived seriously, sanely, hour after
hour, day after day. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had it to do over again, I'd have more
of them. I've been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a
hot-water bottle, a raincoat, and a parachute. If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter than
this trip. If I had my life to live over, I would start going barefoot earlier in the spring, and
stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances, I would ride more merry-go-rounds.
I would pick more daisies.

The Lion and The cougar

A pointed fable is told about a young lion and a cougar. Both thirsty, the animals arrived at
their usual water hole at the same time. They immediately began to argue about who should
satisfy their thirst first. The argument became heated, and each decided he would rather die
than give up the privilege of being first to quench his thirst. As they stubbornly confronted
each other, their emotions turned to rage. Their cruel attacks on each other were suddenly
interrupted. They both looked up. Circling overhead was a flock of vultures waiting for the
loser to fall. Quietly, the two beasts turned and walked away. The thought of being devoured
was all they needed to end their quarrel.

Complain! Complain! Complain!

It takes a disciplined spirit to endure the monastery on Mount Serat in Spain. One of the
fundamental requirements of this religious order is that the young men must maintain silence.
Opportunities to speak are scheduled once every two years, at which time they are allowed to
speak only two words.

One young initiate in this religious order, who had completed his first two years of training,
was invited by his superior to make his first two-word presentation. "Food terrible," he said.
Two years later the invitation was once again extended. The young man used this forum to
exclaim, "Bed lumpy." Arriving at his superior's office two years later he proclaimed, "I
quit." The superior looked at this young monk and said, "You know, it doesn't surprise me a
bit. All you've done since you arrived is complain, complain, complain.

Exaggerated? Maybe. What if you were asked to share two words that describe your Life?
would your focus be the lumps, bumps, and unfairness, or are you committed to dwell on
those things that are good, right, and lovely?

The Whole World Came Together

The young mother was ready for a few minutes of relaxation after a long and demanding day.
However, her young daughter had other plans for her mother's time.

"Read me a story, Mom," the little girl requested. "Give Mommy a few minutes to relax and
unwind. Then I'll be happy to read you a story," pleaded the mother.

The little girl was insistent that Mommy read to her now. With a stroke of genius, the mother
tore off the back page of the magazine she was reading. It contained a full-page picture of the
world. As she tore it into several pieces, Mom asked her daughter to put the picture together
and then she would read her a story. Surely this would buy her considerable relaxing
moments.

A short time later, the little girl announced the completion of her puzzle project. To her
astonishment, she found the world picture completely assembled. When she asked her
daughter how she managed to do it so quickly, the little girl explained that on the reverse side
of the page was the picture of a little girl. "You see, Mommy, when I got the little girl
together, the whole world came together."

Each of us has the responsibility to put our world together. It starts by getting ourselves put
together. We can become better parents, friends, spouses, employees, and employers. The
first step is changing our attitude.

The Whole World Stinks

Wise men and philosophers throughout the ages have disagreed on many things, but many are
in unanimous agreement on one point: "We become what we think about." Ralph Waldo
Emerson said, "A man is what he thinks about all day long." The Roman emperor Marcus
Aurelius put it this way: "A man's life is what his thoughts make of it." In the Bible we find:
"As a man thinks in his heart, so is he."

One Sunday afternoon, a cranky grandfather was visiting his family. As he lay down to take a
nap, his grandson decided to have a little fun by putting Limburger cheese on Grandfather's
mustache. Soon, grandpa awoke with a snort and charged out of the bedroom saying, "This
room stinks." Through the house he went, finding every room smelling the same. Desperately
he made his way outside only to find that "the whole world stinks!"

So it is when we fill our minds with negativism. Everything we experience and everybody we
encounter will carry the scent we hold in our mind.

Hang In There

Nicolo Paganini was a well-known and gifted nineteenth century violinist. He was also well
known as a great showman with a quick sense of humor. His most memorable concert was in
Italy with a full orchestra. He was performing before a packed house and his technique was
incredible, his tone was fantastic, and his audience dearly loved him. Toward the end of his
concert, Paganini was astounding his audience with an unbelievable composition when
suddenly one string on his violin snapped and hung limply from his instrument. Paganini
frowned briefly, shook his head, and continued to play, improvising beautifully.

Then to everyone's surprise, a second string broke. And shortly thereafter, a third. Almost
like a slapstick comedy, Paganini stood there with three strings dangling from his
Stradivarius. But instead of leaving the stage, Paganini stood his ground and calmly
completed the difficult number on the one remaining string.

Post-it Notes

The 3M Company encourages creativity from its employees. The company allows its
researchers to spend 15 percent of their time on any project that interests them. This attitude
has brought fantastic benefits not only to the employees but to the 3M Company itself Many
times, a spark of an idea turned into a successful product has boosted 3M's profits
tremendously.

Some years ago, a scientist in 3M's commercial office took advantage of this 15 percent
creative time. This scientist, Art Fry, came up with an idea for one of 3M's best-selling
products. It seems that Art Fry dealt with a small irritation every Sunday as he sang in the
church choir. After marking his pages in the hymnal with small bits of paper, the small pieces
would invariably fall out all over the floor.

Suddenly, an idea struck Fry. He remembered an adhesive developed by a colleague that

everyone thought was a failure because it did not stick very well. "I coated the adhesive on a
paper sample," Fry recalls, "and I found that it was not only a good bookmark, but it was
great for writing notes. It will stay in place as long as you want it to, and then you can remove
it without damage."

Yes, Art Fry hit the jackpot. The resulting product was called Post-it! and has become one of
3M's most successful office products.

From Candles to Soap

In 1879, Procter and Gamble's best seller was candles. But the company was in trouble.
Thomas Edison had invented the light bulb, and it looked as if candles would become
obsolete. Their fears became reality when the market for candles plummeted since they were
now sold only for-special occasions.

The outlook appeared to be bleak for Procter and Gamble. However, at this time, it seemed
that destiny played a dramatic part in pulling the struggling company from the clutches of
bankruptcy. A forgetful employee at a small factory in Cincinnati forgot to turn off his
machine when he went to lunch. The result? A frothing mass of lather filled with air bubbles.
He almost threw the stuff away but instead decided to make it into soap. The soap floated.
Thus, Ivory soap was born and became the mainstay of the Procter and Gamble Company.
Why was soap that floats such a hot item at that time? In Cincinnati, during that period, some
people bathed in the Ohio River. Floating soap would never sink and consequently never got
lost. So, Ivory soap became a best seller in Ohio and eventually across the country also.

Like Procter and Gamble, never give up when things go wrong or when seemingly
unsurmountable problems arise. Creativity put to work can change a problem and turn it into
a gold mine.

A Ten-Cent Idea

When young F. W. Woolworth was a store clerk, he tried to convince his boss to have a ten-
cent sale to reduce inventory. The boss agreed, and the idea was a resounding success. This
inspired Woolworth to open his own store and price items at a nickel and a dime. He needed
capital for such a venture, so he asked his boss to supply the capital for part interest in the
store. His boss turned him down flat. "The idea is too risky," he told Woolworth. "There are
not enough items to sell for five and ten cents." Woolworth went ahead without his boss's
backing, and he not only was successful in his first store, but eventually he owned a chain of
F. W. Woolworth stores across the nation. Later, his former boss was heard to remark, "As
far as I can figure out, every word I used to turn Woolworth down cost me about a million
dollars."

Time To Think

Henry Ford hired an efficiency expert to go through his plant. He said, "Find the
nonproductive people. Tell me who they are, and I will fire them!"

The expert made the rounds with his clipboard in hand and finally returned to Henry Ford's
office with his report. "I've found a problem with one of your administrators," he said. "Every
time I walked by, he was sitting with his feet propped up on the desk. The man never does a
thing. I definitely think you should consider getting rid of him!" When Henry Ford learned
the name of the man the expert was referring to, Ford shook his head and said, "I can't fire
him. I pay that man to do nothing but think - and that's what he's doing."

Criticism

If an impulse comes to say

Some un-thoughtful word today
That may drive a friend away,
Don't say it!
If you've heard a word of blame
Cast upon your neighbor's name
That may injure his fair fame,
Don't tell it!
If malicious gossip's tongue
Some vile slander may have flung
On the head of old or young,
Don't repeat it!
Thoughtful, kind, helpful speech,
'Tis a gift promised to each--
This the lesson we would teach:
Don't abuse it!

Anonymous

A Quiet Scolding

The late John Wanamaker was the king of retail. One day while walking through his store in
Philadelphia, he noticed a customer waiting for assistance. No one was paying the least bit of
attention to her. Looking around, he saw his salespeople huddled together laughing and
talking among themselves. Without a word, he quietly slipped behind the counter and waited
on the customer himself. Then he quietly handed the purchase to the salespeople to be
wrapped as he went on his way. Later, Wanamaker was quoted as saying, "I learned thirty
years ago that it is foolish to scold. I have enough trouble overcoming my own limitations
without fretting over the fact that God has not seen fit to distribute evenly the gift of
intelligence."

Blurred Vision

A businessman was highly critical of his competitors' storefront windows. "Why, they are the
dirtiest windows in town," he claimed. Fellow business people grew tired of the man's
continual criticism and nitpicking comments about the windows. One day over coffee, the

businessman carried the subject just too far. Before leaving, a fellow store owner suggested
the man get his own windows washed. He followed the advice, and the next day at coffee, he
exclaimed, "I can't believe it. As soon as I washed my windows, my competitor must have
cleaned his too. You should see them shine."

Confucius once declared, "Don't complain about the snow on your neighbor's roof when your
own doorstep is unclean."

Quick Decisions

A game warden noticed how a particular fellow named Sam consistently caught more fish
than anyone else, whereas the other guys would only catch three or four a day. Sam would
come in off the lake with a boat full. Stringer after stringer was always packed with freshly
caught trout. The warden, curious, asked Sam his secret. The successful fisherman invited the
game warden to accompany him and observe. So the next morning the two met at the dock
and took off in Sam's boat. When they got to the middle of the lake, Sam stopped the boat,
and the warden sat back to see how it was done.

Sam's approach was simple. He took out a stick of dynamite, lit it, and threw it in the air. The
explosion rocked the lake with such a force that dead fish immediately began to surface. Sam
took out a net and started scooping them up.

Well you can imagine the reaction of the game warden. When he recovered from the shock of
it all, he began yelling at Sam. "You can't do this! I'll put you in jail, buddy! You will be
paying every fine there is in the book!" Sam, meanwhile, set his net down and took out
another stick of dynamite. He lit it and tossed it in the lap of the game warden with these
words, "Are you going to sit there all day complaining, or are you going to fish?"

The poor warden was left with a fast decision to make. He was yanked, in one second, from
an observer to a participant. A dynamite of a choice had to be made and be made quickly!
Life is like that. Few days go by without our coming face to face with an uninvited,
unanticipated, yet unavoidable decision. Like a crashing snow bank, these decisions tumble
upon us without warning. Quick. Immediate. Sudden. No council, no study, no advice. Pow!

A Short Course in Human Relations

The six most important words: I admit that I was wrong.

The five most important words: You did a great job.
The four most important words: What do you think?
The three most important words: Could you please. . .
The two most important words: Thank you.
The most important word: We.
The least important word: I.

Anonymous

You are Wonderful

The following true story captured our heart. It happened several years ago in the Paris opera
house. A famous singer had been contracted to sing, and ticket sales were booming. In fact,
the night of the concert found the house packed and every ticket sold. The feeling of
anticipation and excitement was in the air as the house manager took the stage and said,
"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your enthusiastic support. I am afraid that due to
illness, the man whom you've all come to hear will not be performing tonight. However, we
have found a suitable substitute we hope will provide you with comparable entertainment."
The crowd groaned in disappointment and failed to hear the announcer mention the stand-in's
name. The environment turned from excitement to frustration.

The stand-in performer gave the performance everything he had. When he had finished, there
was nothing but an uncomfortable silence. No one applauded. Suddenly, from the balcony, a
little boy stood up and shouted, "Daddy, I think you are wonderful!" The crowd broke into
thunderous applause.

We all need people in our Lives who are willing to stand up once in a while and say, "I think
you are wonderful. "

Two Kinds of People

There are only two kinds of people on earth today

Two kinds of people, no more I say.

Not the rich and the poor, for to know a man's wealth

You must first know the state of his conscience and health,

Not the happy and sad, for in life's passing years,

Each has his laughter and each has his tears.

No, the two kinds of people on earth I mean

Are the people who lift and the people who lean.

In which class are you? Are you lifting the load

Of some overtaxed lifter who's going down the road

Or are you a leaner who lets others share

Your portion of toil and labor and care?

Ella Wheeler Wikcox

Wranglers and Stranglers

Years ago there was a group of brilliant young men at the University of Wisconsin, who
seemed to have amazing creative literary talent. They were would-be poets, novelists, and
essayists. They were extraordinary in their ability to put the English language to its best use.
These promising young men met regularly to read and critique each other's work. And
critique it they did!

These men were merciless with one another. They dissected the most minute literary
expression into a hundred pieces. They were heartless, tough, even mean in their criticism.
The sessions became such arenas of literary criticism that the members of this exclusive club
called themselves the "Stranglers."
Not to be outdone, the women of literary talent in the university were determined to start a
club of their own, one comparable to the Stranglers. They called themselves the "Wranglers."
They, too, read their works to one another. But there was one great difference. The criticism
was much softer, more positive, more encouraging. Sometimes, there was almost no criticism
at all. Every effort, even the most feeble one, was encouraged.

Twenty years later an alumnus of the university was doing an exhaustive study of his
classmates' careers when he noticed a vast difference in the literary accomplishments of the
Stranglers as opposed to the Wranglers. Of all the bright young men in the Stranglers, not one
had made a significant literary accomplishment of any kind. From the Wranglers had come
six or more successful writers, some of national renown such as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings,
who wrote The Yearling.

Talent between the two? Probably the same. Level of education? Not much difference. But
the Stranglers strangled, while the Wranglers were determined to give each other a lift. The
Stranglers promoted an atmosphere of contention and self doubt. The Wranglers highlighted
the best, not the worst.

Never Mind!

Sometimes when nothing goes just right And worry reigns supreme, When heartache fills the
eyes with mist And all things useless seem, There's just one thing can drive away The tears
that scald and blind -- Someone to slip a strong arm 'round And whisper, "Never mind." No
one has ever told just why Those words such comfort bring; Nor why that whisper makes our
cares Depart on hurried wing. Yet troubles say a quick "Good-day," We leave them far
behind When someone slips an arm around, And whispers, "Never mind." But love must
prompt that soft caress- That love must, aye, be true Or at that tender, clinging touch No heart
ease come to you, But if the arm be moved by love, Sweet comfort you will find When
someone slips an arm around, And whispers, "Never mind!"

Murphy's Laws

Everyone has heard of Murphy's first law: "If anything can go wrong, invariably it will." But
hardly anybody has even a foggy idea of who Murphy was.

The search for Murphy's notebooks led to a garage in Toledo, Ohio; an inventor's junk loft in
Aliquippa, Pennsylvania; and the home of a retired female blackmailer in Sarasota, Florida. It
was learned that Murphy had no first name, that he never could hold a job, and that his
writings were returned by the post office for insufficient postage.

It seems everything Murphy wrote about had some explanation for why things go wrong.
Consider a few more Murphy classics:

 Nothing is ever as simple as it first seems.

 Everything you decide to do costs more than first estimated.
 Every activity takes more time than you have.
 It's easier to make a commitment or to get involved in something than to get out of it.
 Whatever you set out to do, something else must be done first.
 If you improve or tinker with something long enough, eventually it will break.
 By making something absolutely clear, somebody will be confused.
 You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time,
and that's sufficient.

Believe The Impossible

Every great achievement was once impossible until someone set a goal to make it a
reality.

Lewis Carroll's famous masterpiece Through the Looking Glass contains a story that
exemplifies the need to dream the impossible dream. There is a conversation between
Alice and the queen, which goes like this:

"I can't believe that!" said Alice.

"Can't you?" the queen said in a pitying tone. "Try again, draw a long breath, and shut
your eyes."

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said. "One can't believe impossible
things."

"I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the queen. "When I was your age, I
always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six
impossible things before breakfast."

When you dare to dream, many marvels can be accomplished. The trouble is, most
people never start dreaming their impossible dream.

How High Can You Jump?

Flea trainers have observed a predictable and strange habit of fleas while training
them. Fleas are trained by putting them in a cardboard box with a top on it. The fleas
will jump up and hit the top of the cardboard box over and over and over again. As
you watch them jump and hit the lid, something very interesting becomes obvious.
The fleas continue to jump, but they are no longer jumping high enough to hit the top.
Apparently, Excedrin headache 1738 forces them to limit the height of their jump.
 When you take off the lid, the fleas continue to jump, but they will not jump out of the
box. They won't jump out because they can't jump out. Why? The reason is simple.
They have conditioned themselves to jump just so high. Once they have conditioned
themselves to jump just so high, that's all they can do!

Many times, people do the same thing. They restrict themselves and never reach their
potential. Just like the fleas, they fail to jump higher, thinking they are doing all they
can do.

If You Think

If you think you are beaten, you are. If you think you dare not, you don't! If you want
to win, but think you can't, It's almost a cinch you won't. If you think you'll lose,
you're lost; For out in the world we find Success begins with a fellow's will; It's all in
the state of the mind. Life's battles don't always go To the stronger and faster man,
But sooner or later the man who wins Is the man who thinks he can.

Walter D. Wintle

The Emotional Boundaries You Need at Work

by Greg McKeown  |   8:00 AM July 24, 2014

← Comments (27)

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To develop meaningful and mature relationships at work or at home we need to develop two filters. The first filter protects you from other people. The second filter
protects other people from you.

Filter 1: protect yourself from others. I once worked with a manager who gave blunt feedback in perpetuity: “You’re not a grateful person!” and “You’re just not a great
writer!” and “Well, that was dumb!” My response, at first, was to listen as if everything she said was true. On the outside, I became defensive — but on the inside, I
returned home emotionally beaten up. Every night my wife, Anna, would listen to the details of the encounters and help me to discern truth from error. One day she just
said, “You’ve got to learn to consider the source!” My error was not that I didn’t listen, but that I listened too much. In other words, I needed to learn to filter the feedback.

Filter 2: Protect other people from you. On the other hand, I once worked with a leader with whom I felt I could be completely open. One day she said to me, “I value what
you have to say, but sometimes it feels like I’ve been punched in the solar plexus when we talk.” Clearly, I was not doing a good enough job at protecting this colleague
from me. I needed to increase the filter of what I shared and how I shared it. (For further reading see Pia Mellody’s work on boundaries).

Learning to apply enough of both filters — but not too much — is tough. Too much or too little can create relationship conflict as depicted in the matrix below (with a hat tip
to “The Relationship Grid” by Terrence Real)
Here’s how it works:

If both filters are low, you’re volatile.This is the worst position to be in: you don’t protect yourself from other people or protect other people from you. If you’re in this place
you will act like a wounded animal. You will feel hypersensitive to what someone is saying to you but you will speak defensively. You may feel like a victim but will act like
a bully.

When you find yourself feeling this way, ask, “Am I seeing the situation clearly?” and “Do I feel like I am overreacting here?” and “Does it seem like the other person is
overreacting here?” Apply a tax to what the other person is saying; assume he isn’t 100% accurate. Look for one thing you agree with and discard the rest. Hold back your
own words until you feel clearer. Write down what you feel like saying to him (and do it on paper so you can’t send an outraged email accidentally), then review it later.

If you have one high filter and one low filter, you’re either overbearing or vulnerable. If you’re overbearing, it’s is a tricky position to be in; you feel confident but may be
unknowingly causing offense. You’re saying what you believe, but may seem too outspoken. The problem is that you may not be adjusting well to other people because
you’re not really hearing them. You’re communicating like it’s a one-way street.

When you sense this situation, say, “Perhaps I am being a bit bombastic about this. Do you see this differently?” or “You know, I have been wrong before. What are your
thoughts?” Hold back more than you feel like doing.

When you are vulnerable, you protect other people from you, but you don’t protect yourself from other people. You take feedback personally but also struggle to push
back on others.

Remember you have the right to be treated kindly. When you find yourself in this situation, think of the words of Dr. Maya Angelou: “There’s a place in you that you must
keep inviolate. You must keep it pristine. Clean. So that nobody has a right to curse you or treat you badly. Nobody. No mother, father, no wife, no husband, no —
nobody. You have to have a place where you say: ‘Stop it. Back up. Don’t you know I’m a child of God?’”

And when both of your filters are too high, you’re walled off. In this position, you are basically withdrawn. You’re being overprotective of what you say and what you
absorb. You’re not going to give or take offence, but you can seem aloof and a bit cold.

Try opening up a bit. Say, “I want to share something with you, but I want you to be gentle with me on this.”

When we find the right balance with these two filters, we find the sweet spot, and become invincible. Here, we have the ability to know and be known. We can listen
without risk of permanent damage and speak without risk of offending. We can navigate complex relationships because we can adapt without losing sight of who we are.
The truth is that we can be in different places with different people. The challenge is to figure out where we are in any particular relationship and then to adjust towards the
sweet spot, where relationships thrive.

More blog posts by Greg McKeown

More on: Conflict, Difficult conversations, Managing yourself

Read this small story; Hope that makes a BIG change in YOU
.
The Professor began his class by holding up a glass with some water in it. He held it up for all to see & asked the students “How much
do you think this glass weighs?”
.
’50gms!’….. ’100gms!’ …..’125 gms’ …the students answered.
.
“I really don’t know unless I weigh it,” said the professor, “but, my question is:
What would happen if I held it up like this for a few minutes?”…. .
‘Nothing’ …..the students said.
.
‘Ok what would happen if I held it up like this for an hour?’ the professor asked.
‘Your arm would begin to ache’ said one of the student
.
“You’re right, now what would happen if I held it for a day?”
“Your arm could go numb; you might have severe muscle stress & paralysis & have to go to hospital for sure!”
….. Ventured another student & all the students laughed
.
“Very good.
But during all this, did the weight of the glass change?” Asked the professor.
‘No’…. Was the answer.
“Then what caused the arm ache & the muscle stress?”
.
The students were puzzled.
“What should I do now to come out of pain?” asked professor again.
“Put the glass down!” said one of the students
.
“Exactly!” said the professor.
Life’s problems are something like this.
.
Hold it for a few minutes in your head & they seem OK.
Think of them for a long time & they begin to ache.
.
Hold it even longer & they begin to paralyze you. You will not be able to do anything.
.
It’s important to think of the challenges or problems in your life, But EVEN MORE IMPORTANT is to ‘PUT THEM DOWN’ at the end
of every day before you go to sleep…
.
That way, you are not stressed, you wake up every day fresh &strong & can handle any issue, any challenge that comes your way!
.
Moral
So, when you start your day today, Remember friend to ‘PUT THE GLASS DOWN TODAY! ‘
.