Category: Humor

I am honored to be on Jeremy Nulik's list of Best Business Bobs, but troubled to listed right below Bob Knight — yes, he is the most winning college coach ever (in terms of number of games), but he seems to qualify as a certified asshole (see Pam Slim's post).  Read Season in the Brink if you don't believe me — also look at this tape, it sure looks like he is choking a player to me (If you choked a subordinate, would they let you keep your job?) 

Back to the Bobs, it is such a meaningless name that I often don't turn my head when I hear the name. And one of the weirdest Bob things that ever happened to me was when, a long time ago, I was at a think tank (pre-Internet!) called The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, a lovely place where we didn't even have phones in our offices. In my little building, there were six offices, a telephone room, and a bathroom. When a call came in,you would be buzzed to go to the phone room.  One day I as buzzed, and asked to give a talk at something called The Food Research Institute at Stanford (now defunct).  The day I got there to give the talk, I noticed that there was someone else's name on the door — another Bob! They had meant to invite one of the other Bob's (four of the six of us in this little building were named some variation of Robert).  I can't recall the right Bob's name, but he studied food production and consumption in developing countries. They suggested I give my talk anyway (which was on the stigma of bankruptcy), but within about 10 minutes, the 30 or so people in the room dwindled to 8 or 10.

It is easy to be the wrong Bob.

P.S. Check out the Mistake Bank, following John's comment below. It funny and apparently devoted to the notion that failure sucks but instructs!

My family just got back from a wonderful vacation in Panama, at a little resort (six cabins or "cabanas") called Tranquilo Bay. I will put up an extended post about it, as it is one of the best vacations my family ever had. And the story of the two lovely families that run the place is among the most inspiring I have ever heard.  The sacrifices that entrepreneurs make here in Silicon Valley seem trivial by comparison.  For example, Jay and Jim, two guys who had a dream to have a Caribbean resort, quit their jobs at big companies and CAMPED for 5 years while they built Tranquilo Bay in on an island in the middle of a rain forest.  People talk about working "24/7" here to get their start-ups off the ground, but these guys took it to an entirely different level.

Meanwhile, while we were gone, it rained like hell in Northern California. The picture of the guy sailing a Laser down the flooded street was taken about three blocks from our house in Menlo Park, California.  The power was out at our house a lot, but all is fine. Check out the rest of the story in the Almanac. Apparently, we chose a good week to get out of town.

I got a charming email from K.P. Springfield about his book "The Five Habits of Highly Successful Slackers."  K.P. wrote approvingly of my suggestion that "Indifference is as important as passion."  I made the suggestion on a serious note, as there are times when a bit of emotional detachment can help people cope with stressful situations.  K.P.s book and his website take the idea of not caring — and goofing-off — much further.  And do it in a much funnier way (well, at least the website is funny, I actually haven’t read the book).  I especially recommend the Slacker Quiz on his website.  Consider a sample question:

3. If you are in a situation where either a co-worker or a
manager is trying to blame you for the failure of a project or other
assignment, and you have proof that you are not to blame, do you:
A) Go over that person’s head and prove with the information that you are innocent.
B) Send the accuser an email with a subject line that says “Herpes Test
Results” while they are in a large meeting with their computer screen
on a projector.
C) Sit down with the individual and try to work out the conflict.
D) Take the evidence, throw it up in the air and say “Whatever!”

K.P. tells us that the right answer is "D" because "Successful slackers never stand-up for for what they think is right, because in the corporate world, it doesn’t matter who is right."

Alas, this strikes me as too true in too many organizations that I know.  There are far too many organizations where speaking-up just gets you in trouble, and has little effect on the organization.  This isn’t just an opinion, research on whistle blowers and people who "speak-up" documents the dangers — see Fred Alford’s book Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational Power for an example.

As for the slacker book, I feel obligated to order it, even though KP wrote me that: "I had The 5 Habits printed with the absolute highest quality paper, giving it exceptional burn qualities. So at a minimum, if the book fails to entertain, I can assure you that it won’t fail as effective fireplace kindling this holiday season."

Frankly, in a world where too many people take themselves entirely too seriously (I plead guilty), K.P.’s attitude is refreshing.  Perhaps my reaction is fueled by the two days that I spent at a creativity conference at Harvard Business School last week.  It was a splendid conference (Diego blogged a bit about it), but HBS is a VERY serious place. Everyone always seems too earnest about things there, and I find myself acting that way there as well. K.P.’s book reminded me that I need to lighten-up a bit.