Who Believes in Man Made Global Warming?
A leader goes first and invites others to follow. What are the leaders doing? When there is an obvious serious problem people band together to solve it. They put aside their differences and tackle the problem head on. They do the most they can to fix the problem. The exact opposite is happening regarding global warming.
Basic rule of systems: If you understand the design, you can predict the effect. If it doesn’t do what you think it will do, it was designed to do something else.
Supposedly Global Warming will harm all life on the entire planet. In other words we are all supposedly in the same building and its on fire. Can you imagine people in a burning building arguing about who will pay for dinner when the building is burning to the ground? No! Everyone would get out of the building as fast as possible. Some would volunteer to help those that can’t walk. Others would try to put out the flames once they were safely outside. No one would stand around inside and watch it burn. But that is exactly what the world leaders are doing. That is very strange. Read more
How to hire the best people and why its harder to find them in a downturn
In “Why hiring is paradoxically harder in a downturn” it was pointed out that A players can be 10 times more productive than C players. That big a difference can’t be from just being better.
A players are much more productive because they do things differently. You can’t be 10 times more productive by working harder or faster. Being 10 times better comes from not doing unneeded work, from doing required work in a different way, and from getting others to work in a way that creates an overall more productive result.
C players follow the rules and either lack skills or talent or just don’t try very hard. B players follow the rules and try hard. A players break the rules and change the game all together. A players are innovators.
You might feel you need B and C players until the A player figures out how to get the job done without anyone doing it. Since A players change the game you might not need anything except a few A players who work together. But since A players aren’t just more skilled they do things differently, if allowed they will show everyone how to raise productivity.
B players focus on skills. B players are better. B players are easy to spot. They have good grades, good references, and steady employment history. B players are what all the books on interviewing tell you to hire.
A players do things totally differently. A players might have top notch grades or they might have dropped out. But they do excellent work. A players might have horrible references but an amazing track record. A players tend to make B players jealous or frustrated. The B players TRY HARD but can never achieve the level of A players because the A players “cheat”, they play a different game.
Since B players fit the mold they tend to be mid level managers and many times will chase away A players. But if the B player can play the support role a B player can manage an excellent team of A players.
A players often do their job for the love of doing it well. That doesn’t mean they don’t want to be paid well, they do and deserve it. Allowing A players to reach the next level, that includes doing something totally different not just more of the same, is very important to A players. A players might seem like show-offs some times but probably are not motivated from the attention. They want to achieve the best possible. They don’t compete with others, they compete with themselves. In that way they often don’t even understand the idea of ranks of A, B, and C. They just want to do the best possible.
A players often don’t care about relative status. Paradoxically that makes them seem arrogant which is opposite from the truth. They just don’t care about meaningless ranking so they might not hide it (seeming boastful) or don’t honor it (seeming disrespectful). A players tend to be task focused so they don’t care about status, only results.
There are A players for everything so some of what I described does not exactly fit all roles. If the role requires tremendous empathy then the A player for that role will be hyper aware of ranking and status and play it to the best advantage.
If you want the best from A players, get out of their way and let them play.
How do you find and attract A players? Get rid of the Human Resource department. A players are not generic resources. A players are talented individuals. Since A players are often looking to achieve something spectacular, offer opportunities to do it. These types of roles won’t appeal to C or B players so they will weed themselves out. Highly performance based pay will attract A players and scare C & B players away.
Highly challenging tasks with real freedom to do chose how to accomplish the task will draw A players.
Compact Fluorescent Bulb Recycling
I volunteer at AllExperts.com. One of the questions I received makes an interesting example. This is not a complete OutCompete analysis, just a very fast list of suggestions.
Question:
Retailers have implemented programs for the safe disposal of compact fluorescent bulbs. However the current process requires the involvement of an store employee. I would like to design a system which does not require the involvement of an employee. My assumption right now is:
- The system is for compact fluorescent lamps, medium base type bulbs.
- The system that can accommodate at least 200 CFL’s before needing to be emptied.
- The system would reward the customer for their effort.
I would like your advice on this system, on how to design it and what reward I should consider. Could you also suggest a website which will provide me information for my design system.
Thank you.
Answer
The OutCompete Predictive Innovation Method works best if we can work with a subject matter expert to verify the technical aspects of ideas.
The Predictive Innovation Method follows these steps:
- Create “Desire Statement”
- Convert Desire Statement into on Outcome diagram
- Expand each of the Outcomes into their 7 elements types
- Using the Alternatives Grid to multiply those 7 types by the 15 alternatives to reveal a minimum of 105 potential innovations.
Since I am not exactly a subject matter expert on recycling mercury I’ll focus on one aspect that I was able to find information about.
The main problem with the mercury in a CFL is breathing in vapor or dust from broken bulbs. As long as they are not broken there isn’t any problem.
http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/change_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf
Video of mercury evaporating
http://www.michigan.gov/mdch/0,1607,7-132-2945_5105_47868-181553–,00.html
So the primary goal of collecting CFLs is making the mercury vapor safe to people. Here are a few approaches.
- Prevent the vapor from being released.
- Don’t break the bulbs
- Contain the vapor if broken
- Keep vapor away from people
- Make the vapor safe
Two ideas come to mind. Have a single container to hold many bulbs air tight
- pull air in and vent safely outside
- pull air in through and filter air inside container
- submerge the bulbs in a liquid that mercury vapor is heavier than so it collects on the bottom and is safely contained
- Contain each bulb, put each bulb in an airtight bag so it doesn’t matter if the bulb breaks. This material would have to be easy to recycle with the rest of the bulb
This company has a filter for the vapor, but you could probably be OK just venting it outside.
http://www.ohiolumex.com/product/vapor_filter.shtml
The basic problem with getting people to recycle is making the effort more valuable than throwing the item away in the regular garbage. You can do this by appealing to their emotions or by actually making it easier. You will likely need to do both.
Since CFL are suppose to last a long time the purchase is long removed from the disposal. However people usually replace a bulb the instant one stops working. If they have bulbs on hand it is probably in some type of safe container to prevent it from being broken. If this could serve as a safe recycling container it would be effective.
Alternatively the person will need to go to the store to get a new bulb. This is when to prompt for recycling the old bulb.
- give the consumers something for bringing bulbs in, such as a discount on new bulbs
- eliminate another problem by bringing the bulbs in
- provide a container to store the bulbs until returned
- have a deposit similar to the $0.10 bottle deposit in Michigan (this practically eliminated that type of pollution)
Summary
With this information it would be easy to find and affordable solution to the problem. You’ll also notice that there are several possibilities for future innovation or product improvements. For instance combining the ideas :
- provide a container to store the bulbs until returned
- Contain each bulb, put each bulb in an airtight bag so it doesn’t matter if the bulb breaks. This material would have to be easy to recycle with the rest of the bulb
These two outcomes can be achieved at the same time.
Predictive Innovation Training
Predictive Innovation: Core Skills Book
RoundSquareTriangle.com