(Source: likeneelyohara)

delicatelittleflower:

In an interview with CBS, Nishimatsu said that he does this because “If management is distant, up in the clouds, people just wait for orders. I want my people to think for themselves.” And what if an employee comes up with an idea? No trying to schedule a hard to come by appointment here, simply approach him in the cafeteria where he eats with the rest of the company.

He says, a CEO doesn’t motivate by how many millions he makes, but by convincing employees that you’re all together in the same boat.”

From an HR perspective, Nishimatsu provides a great example of someone who will not only run a company, but motivate employees to take the initiative giving them a feeling of job ownership.

One of my lecturer in college ever mentioned this story in “Plant Layout Design” class. We were discussing about designing a company office, as part of our assignment. Then when we moved on to the design of the cafeteria, there was an  interesting discussion whether we wanted to separate the ‘executives’ with ‘major employees’ cafeteria, or we wanted to make it became one. There are always some advantages and disadvantages on both choices.

Then my lecturer came up with Haruka Nishimatsu, that after the class, I concluded one thing: “Exclusiveness in not one important aspect of leadership, because most of the time, it’s what makes the subordinates keep on distance from their leader.” People will only open to someone who they are comfortable with. How can a leader know the potential problems in his organization if his subordinates can’t barely talk to him? My conclusion at that time was proven by myself after I taste the life of what people call, worker. Yup, self noted then!

(Source: slaytanica)

chivalrous:

How To Turn Your Hoody Into a Laptop Sleeve

(Source: gueamu)

(Source: daily-disney)

nayasa:

Finland’s experience shows that it is possible to achieve excellence by focusing not on competition, but on cooperation, and not on choice, but on equity.

dstod:

A lot of people think this is a photograph of Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. It’s not. This is Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong’s crew-mate and the second man to walk on the moon. No photograph exists of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. Why? Nobody knows. For some reason that he has never fully explained, astronaut Buzz Aldrin failed to take a single picture of Neil Armstrong while the two astronauts were together on the surface of the moon. Commander Armstrong was unaware of the error until the mission was complete and Armstrong, Aldrin and Michael Collins were all safely back on earth.

How would you feel if you were the first man to walk on the moon and you didn’t have a single photograph to show for it?

(Source: idealisticlove)

(Source: esymone789)

"As we acquire more knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible but more mysterious"
— Albert Schweitzer

Clipped from this blog http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/05/33-rules-to-boost-your-productivity/ - All so true! Tips to boost productivity, especially after holiday: 

  1. Nuke it!  The most efficient way to get through a task is to delete it.  If it doesn’t need to be done, get it off your to do list.
  2. Daily goals.  Without a clear focus, it’s too easy to succumb to distractions.  Set targets for each day in advance.  Decide what you’ll do; then do it.
  3. Worst first.  To defeat procrastination learn to tackle your most unpleasant task first thing in the morning instead of delaying it until later in the day.  This small victory will set the tone for a very productive day.
  4. Peak times.  Identify your peak cycles of productivity, and schedule your most important tasks for those times.  Work on minor tasks during your non-peak times.
  5. No-comm zones.  Allocate uninterruptible blocks of time for solo work where you must concentrate.  Schedule light, interruptible tasks for your open-comm periods and more challenging projects for your no-comm periods.
  6. Mini-milestones.  When you begin a task, identify the target you must reach before you can stop working.  For example, when working on a book, you could decide not to get up until you’ve written at least 1000 words.  Hit your target no matter what.
  7. Timeboxing.  Give yourself a fixed time period, like 30 minutes, to make a dent in a task.  Don’t worry about how far you get.  Just put in the time.  SeeTimeboxing for more.
  8. Batching.  Batch similar tasks like phone calls or errands into a single chunk, and knock them off in a single session.
  9. Early bird.  Get up early in the morning, like at 5am, and go straight to work on your most important task.  You can often get more done before 8am than most people do in a day.
  10. Cone of silence.  Take a laptop with no network or WiFi access, and go to a place where you can work flat out without distractions, such as a library, park, coffee house, or your own backyard.  Leave your comm gadgets behind.
  11. Tempo.  Deliberately pick up the pace, and try to move a little faster than usual.  Speak faster.  Walk faster.  Type faster.  Read faster.  Go home sooner.
  12. Relaxify.  Reduce stress by cultivating a relaxing, clutter-free workspace.  See10 Ways to Relaxify Your Workspace.
  13. Agendas.  Provide clear written agendas to meeting participants in advance.  This greatly improves meeting focus and efficiency.  You can use it for phone calls too.
  14. Pareto.  The Pareto principle is the 80-20 rule, which states that 80% of the value of a task comes from 20% of the effort.  Focus your energy on that critical 20%, and don’t overengineer the non-critical 80%.
  15. Ready-fire-aim.  Bust procrastination by taking action immediately after setting a goal, even if the action isn’t perfectly planned.  You can always adjust course along the way.
  16. Minuteman.  Once you have the information you need to make a decision, start a timer and give yourself just 60 seconds to make the actual decision.  Take a whole minute to vacillate and second-guess yourself all you want, but come out the other end with a clear choice.  Once your decision is made, take some kind of action to set it in motion.
  17. Deadline.  Set a deadline for task completion, and use it as a focal point to stay on track.
  18. Promise.  Tell others of your commitments, since they’ll help hold you accountable.
  19. Punctuality.  Whatever it takes, show up on time.  Arrive early.
  20. Gap reading.  Use reading to fill in those odd periods like waiting for an appointment, standing in line, or while the coffee is brewing.  If you’re a male, you can even read an article while shaving (preferably with an electric razor).  That’s 365 articles a year.
  21. Resonance.  Visualize your goal as already accomplished.  Put yourself into a state of actually being there.  Make it real in your mind, and you’ll soon see it in your reality.
  22. Glittering prizes.  Give yourself frequent rewards for achievement.  See a movie, book a professional massage, or spend a day at an amusement park.
  23. Quad 2.  Separate the truly important tasks from the merely urgent.  Allocate blocks of time to work on the critical Quadrant 2 tasks, those which are important but rarely urgent, such as physical exercise, writing a book, and finding a relationship partner.
  24. Continuum.  At the end of your workday, identify the first task you’ll work on the next day, and set out the materials in advance.  The next day begin working on that task immediately.
  25. Slice and dice.  Break complex projects into smaller, well-defined tasks.  Focus on completing just one of those tasks.
  26. Single-handling.  Once you begin a task, stick with it until it’s 100% complete.  Don’t switch tasks in the middle.  When distractions come up, jot them down to be dealt with later.
  27. Randomize.  Pick a totally random piece of a larger project, and complete it.  Pay one random bill.  Make one phone call.  Write page 42 of your book.
  28. Insanely bad.  Defeat perfectionism by completing your task in an intentionally terrible fashion, knowing you need never share the results with anyone.  Write a blog post about the taste of salt, design a hideously dysfunctional web site, or create a business plan that guarantees a first-year bankruptcy.  With a truly horrendous first draft, there’s nowhere to go but up.
  29. 30 days.  Identify a new habit you’d like to form, and commit to sticking with it for just 30 days.  A temporary commitment is much easier to keep than a permanent one.  See 30 Days to Success for details.
  30. Delegate.  Convince someone else to do it for you.
  31. Cross-pollination.  Sign up for martial arts, start a blog, or join an improv group.  You’ll often encounter ideas in one field that can boost your performance in another.
  32. Intuition.  Go with your gut instinct.  It’s probably right.
  33. Optimization.  Identify the processes you use most often, and write them down step-by-step.  Refactor them on paper for greater efficiency.  Then implement and test your improved processes.  Sometimes we just can’t see what’s right in front of us until we examine it under a microscope.

(Source: salsabeela)