Who Packs your Parachutes?
Captain Charles Plumb, a veteran in the Vietnam War, was having dinner with his wife at a restaurant. They noticed one of the patrons kept staring at them. After some time, a man approached their table and asked, ‘are you Captain Plumb?’ The captain responded and said ‘yes’. The man continued, ‘you flew the F-4 Phantom Jet […]
What we can learn from Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen is well known for his energetic live performances. At one of his tours where they were doing a series of back to back shows, a reporter was following him to do a story about him. After the fifth day of continuous shows, before Bruce was about to start another show, the reporter asked […]
We have always done it this way
A gentleman went to dinner at his future mother-in-law’s house. While she was preparing dinner, he noticed that she cut off a piece of the lamb shank and threw it in the bin. Out of curiosity, he respectfully asked her why she had done that. Her response was that she has always done it this […]
The Unusual Relationship Between Food Carts and Riots
During the second Iraq War, American generals were placed in different towns in Iraq to maintain law and order. One of these towns was called Tikrit, and the biggest problem in this town was riots. One day, the general had an idea. He called the mayor of the town and requested that if he ever […]
The Styrofoam and Ceremic Cup, Which one is truly meant for us?
This story is often shared by Simon Sinek, an English-born American author and inspirational speaker on business leadership. It is about a retired US Undersecretary of defence who was invited to speak at a large conference. There were over a thousand delegates in attendance. During his presentation, he paused, took a sip of his coffee, and […]
The Power of Tiny gains
This story highlights the power or incremental improvements. James Clear covers this concept extensively in his book called Atomic Habits. In 2003, Dave Brailsford, a British cyclist and performance coach, was hired by the British Cycling Association to assist with improving performance in British Cycling. Dave believed that if you take their entire cycling process […]
The obvious is not always the answer
During World War 2, several planes came back from battle with bullet holes, while equally as many planes did not return at all because they had been shot down. The Air Force decided to put together a task team of Air Force officers, mathematicians, scientists, and engineers to investigate what they could do to protect […]
The importance of setting objectives
A college professor tasked a group of students to investigate and improve the jury deliberation process. The students interviewed several stakeholders and discovered that the shape of the table in the jury room had an impact. In courtrooms where there was a rectangular table, the juror sitting at the head of the table often dominated the […]
The 5$ Stanford experiment
In 2005, Tina Seelig, an author, entrepreneur, and professor at Stanford University conducted an experiment. Tina divided students into different groups and handed each group an envelope with $5. The challenge was for the students to use the 5$ and generate as much profit as they can in two hours. They would have three minutes […]
Linux Software and Gold Mines, what is the connection?
In the 2000, Goldcorp, a Canadian gold mining company, encountered a problem when their main mine in Ontario started drying up and the gold market was shrinking. The direction from the board of directors was to cut down explorations and save resources. Rob McEwen, Founder and CEO of Goldcorp at the time, decided to increase […]