Good morning, Team!  It’s Friday!

Second in the Sharpen the Saw series.

Our peer advisory board met again this week to discuss attention management.  The content was practical and worthy of implementing.  The concept of categorizing issues into easily recognizable groupings with imbedded ranges of urgency seems so obvious but rarely done well.  A very cool optimizing tool.

We also heard one of our members talk about customer stratification which was intriguing, innovative and sophisticated.  Separating core customers from opportunistic customers, service drain customers and marginal customers.  Details can’t be shared but it definitely has merit, if you’re courageous enough to implement.

The best part of Monday was the dinner I was blessed to be asked to be part of.  Great conversation with delightful friends (I never use the word delightful so you know it was good).  Food was delicious.  But topping it all off was the conversation.  Cerebral, at times, like the blogosphere and the junior high student debating Lao Tzu influence vs. Confucius.  Each had significant impact on modern society.  I didn’t read the junior high students blog but I was inspired to research the topic and can relate to wisdom from each:

Lao Tzu

•“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”

Confucius

•“Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall.”

The emerging theme from all of my interactions this past week was optimizing:

Time

Customers

Friends

Self

This week was a reminder for me that we are awash in high value information.  When we fail to take the time to reflect, meditate, or simply enjoy a good meal with good company…we lose much more than we gain.  Until we implement what we know, it’s as if we never learned anything at all.

Have a blessed weekend!