Dragos Bratasanu– Lightman Consulting

Modern Tokyo Times

Organizations prefer to invest more into building hard skills, technical knowledge, project management skills rather than in what has become known today as soft-skills, leadership wisdom, proficient communication and team building. Technical people focus so intently on their tasks that they fail to notice, much less manage their team’s social context.

However, the term ‘soft’ is unfair, since this expertise is so important yet so difficult to be developed. Unfortunately, failure to recognize the importance of team social context leads to severe problems in the organization, high financial losses and devastating effects on personal health and relationships. Unnoticed social shortfalls destroy even the best-managed programs and projects.

Tragic consequences follow when companies and organizations do not reach balance in their team and do not properly manage their social contexts. Now corporations have the opportunity to learn from world’s renowned space programs tools and techniques to manage and enhance their social contexts and performance.

Dr. Pellerin, former Director of Astrophysics at NASA and Professor of Leadership at the University of Colorado developed a successful system for measuring and enhancing the performance of teams by improving social context management. The examples were chosen from the aerospace industry because when accidents happen in this environment, investigations are extremely detailed, not limited by time and resources and they reach the root causes of the failure. What powerful lessons are for us to learn from the history of aerospace?

In 1986, NASA’s Space Shuttle Challenger exploded immediately after launch, taking the lives of six astronauts and a high-school teacher under the eyes of their families and friends. Authorities investigated the technical causes of this tragedy and the conclusions were startling.

“Frequently we find that failure effects and proximate causes are technical, but the root causes are social and psychological. My sense from experience is that 80-95% of failures are ultimately due to human error and miscommunication” declared Stephen Johnson from NASA in 2008.

The people involved in this project were world-renowned experts, Nobel Prize winners, and very smart and incredibly talented engineers. They knew how to build a spacecraft, how to send it into orbit and bring it back safely since they have done it several times before. However, the pressures from management and the leadership styles were so psychologically violent that engineers and scientists decided to launch the spacecraft although these technical problems were known in advance.

“More than 50% of the cost of a project is socially determined” – Dr. John Mather, Nobel Prize Winner and NASA Scientist

In the 1990s NASA launched the Hubble Telescope, a masterpiece of technology and innovation. This 1.7$ billion satellite was built to take images of universe’s distant objects. After many years of research and engineering, the satellite was sent into orbit with a flawed mirror – an error that could have been committed only by an amateur with no engineering experience. Extended investigations revealed that NASA’s management of its contractor had been so hostile that they would not report technical problems. They were simply worn out due to frustration, anger, threats and beatings. Many people have lost their careers because of these leadership failures, many graduating students have placed their futures on the data provided by Hubble, many have lost their reputations and some of them even lost their lives. Dr. Doug Broome, the brilliant manager of Hubble and Apollo missions took the public humiliation that followed very personally, fell ill with cancer and died within a few months.

In Any Project, What Creates the Biggest, Most Expensive Problems?

Technology or People?

The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission released a few days ago a report on the Fukushima Crisis. Kiyoshi Kurokawa, the commission’s chairman declared that “it was a profoundly man-made disaster that could and should have been foreseen and prevented. Its effects could have been mitigated by a more effective human response”. In any project, the biggest, most expensive and dangerous problems are created by unmanaged, flawed social contexts.

Cutting Edge Space Technology For Building Teams, Reducing Risk of Failure and Enhancing Performance in Teams

Lightman Consulting is official provider of world-renowned 4-D system developed to deliver measurable capability and behavioral change in technical teams and organizations. To improve communication, performance, and morale among NASA’s technical teams, former NASA Director of Astrophysics Dr. Charles Pellerin developed the team building process described in “How NASA Builds Teams”— an approach that is proven on over 1500 teams, quantitative, and requires only a fraction of the time and resources of traditional training methods.

The 4-D process has boosted team performance in hundreds of NASA project teams, engineering teams, and management teams, including the people responsible for NASA’s most complex systems — the Space Shuttle, space telescopes, robots on Mars, and space missions.

“Great projects demand great leadership. The 4-D process has tools, attitudes and habits that will help make you a great project leader. It is really for any group that is tackling a challenging project, not just for NASA or space projects. When I developed and ran GPS, I wish it had been available to me”

Brad Parkinson, Chief Architect of the Global Positioning System GPS, Professor Emeritus Astronautics, Stanford University

Used by organizations across the world, the 4-D system has been shown to improve project and programme delivery and is especially useful for large scale or multiple projects and mission critical environments. Organizations around the world in many industries, notably aerospace, defense, engineering, energy, health and finance are successfully using the system today to evaluate and enhance performance. Moreover, these simple, logical processes appeal strongly to technical teams who eschew “touchy-feely” training. Some of the proven benefits of using this system are:

•            Assess the performance risk of a project team, as part of a health check

•          Help improve engagement between divisions

•          Enhance operational teams to generate creative, new ways of working

•          Change the context of a relationship with a important client

•          Improve performance and return

•          Identify key factors that limit high performance across your organization

•          Baseline current leadership behaviors

Lightman Consulting (www.lightman-consulting.com) is official provider of the renowned 4-D system used by technical teams around the world. 4-D measures four dimensions and eight key behaviors necessary and sufficient to create performing teams and individuals.

The eight behaviors that strengthen each of the four dimensions have been empirically proven to drive high performance, while their absence has been shown to result in major operational and project failures. It’s not only about increasing performance, but also about preventing failures and disasters.

A 15-minute online assessment of the team or the individuals supports straightforward, practical actions to be used to develop strength in every leadership dimension. Workshops and specific consulting can be provided as required, to help leaders take accountability and raise their performance and overall wellbeing.

‘Charlie Pellerin invented a way for team members to achieve superior business performance and in the process live richer and more compassionate lives. By teaching us how to understand our customer’s mindset and then to authentically shape our offering in response, he helped us win three major competitive proposals worth $9 billion.’

Greg Davidson, Director of Capture and Proposal Operations, Northrop Grumman Space Technology

Regardless of the nature of the team, whether operational, project or functional, a team development assessment (TDA) provides powerful insights into the behavioral norms with specific actions to drive required behavioral change. The power of this tool lies in the combination of general human behaviors with culturally driven actions required for the change. A TDA highlights the context in which the team is performing, and is used as the basis for team members to understand, take ownership and be responsible for improving team security and performance.

‘During my 45-year career, I found it crucial to have a high performing team in order to be a successful in the unforgiving business of space. I was frequently astounded at the effectiveness of Charlie’s process for building better teams. This book will be invaluable to anyone who is faced with the non-uncommon challenge of trying to get dissimilar people to work well together.’

Bill Townsend, Vice President & General Manager, Ball Aerospace. 

During the past 15 years, over 1500 NASA teams and corporations such as China Aerospace, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Ernst & Young, Ball Aerospace, Northrop Grumann, Canadian Space Agency and many others have benefited from the advanced capabilities of this system. It takes 15 minutes to evaluate the performance of the technical team, discover the key problems that need to be addressed and to find out what measures are needed to immediately make the required changes to drive performance and reduce risk. The cost of the program is lower than the industry average and the return of investment is guaranteed and proven to be manifold.

Dragos Bratasanu　

dragos@lightman-consulting.com　

www.lightman-consulting.com　

All images supplied by Lightman Consulting

Vojin Joksimovich, PhD

Modern Tokyo Times

In a series of my earlier writings published by Modern Tokyo Times, such as Chancellor Merkel and arrogance: is she really committed to save the Euro, I have expressed skepticism about the leadership qualities of Chancellor Merkel, built up in the German media as an “Iron Chancellor”—like Bismarck. Some 30 years ago Henry Kissinger complained that he could not believe in Europe until he had a single phone number to call. The German’s Stern magazine suggested that he would be happy now as he would have call only “Madame Europa,” alias Angela Merkel, who says that “If the Euro fails, Europe fails” and ultimately the “European ideal for peace.” The newly elected French President Francois Hollande rushed straight from his inauguration to visit Merkel in Berlin, which illustrates that she is indeed “Madame Europa.” Merkel is the unquestioned EU leader, but does she know how to be a leader? My answer is absolutely not.

My skepticism has applied not only to her role as dooming rather than saving the eurozone but with regard to dooming the German electric utility industry as well. Salient events which took place since have not only enhanced my skepticism but have cemented my assertions. I seem to be on the same page with billionaire George Soros, who in an interview titled “Save EU from the straight-jacket” argued that Merkel was leading Europe in the wrong direction, that which caused the 1929 depression in the US.

Merkel’s Swabian Housewife Model

Merkel’s Swabian Housewife model means: “In the long-run you can’t live beyond your means.” It postulates that debt problems are the sole responsibility of the debtor and that severe austerity measures are the answer. The consequences of this strict austerity model are now abundantly obvious: higher taxes, draconian spending cuts, severe unemployment, impoverishment, political upheavals. They undermine the capacity to service debts and credibility in capital markets.

Many are wondering whether Greece is an extreme example or just the first. Greece has been in deep recession for five years with no recovery on the horizon. It has lost almost a quarter of its GDP in these five years. Unemployment soared from 7% in 2008 to 22% in 2012, while unemployment rate for youth under 25 jumped from 21% to 51%. Despite fiscal austerity and debt restructuring, the IMF estimates that gross public debt will be 160% of the GDP in 2013, 50 points higher than in 2008. Moreover, the current account deficit—the balance of trade on goods and services—will be more than 7% of GDP this year. According to www.ekathimerini.com “in Athens, the homeless are on the streets in growing numbers, soup kitchens feed twice as many people as a year ago, and the poor are diving into garbage bins in search of scrap they can sell.” Greece is close to a breaking point living the nightmare of unrest, hunger and even anarchy.

Rioters in Greek anti-austerity protests burn German flags. A Greek newspaper depicted Merkel in a Nazi uniform above the headline “Memorandum macht frei’—an allusion to the memorandum in which Greece’s creditors demand more austerity measures and hinting at the strong slogan during the war time period. A well-known 63-yr old Greek journalist Yiorgos Trangas resents being told that he is a typical Balkan southerner, who is lazy and a schemer. “I’ve worked night and day for a half century. So we are told we’re lazy and crooks? He asked on a morning TV. He was fined $33,000 for calling Merkel by using strong language. He also accused Berlin of making Greece “a German protectorate of the Fourth Reich in southern Europe.” These types of feelings draw on sufferings endured during the war time period under German occupation.

Keynes vs. Merkel

Professors Marcus Miller and Robert Skidelsky, writing in the Financial Times (May 16 issue), on how Keynes would solve the eurozone crisis pointed out that John Maynard Keynes, in contrast to Merkel, held that both creditors and debtors should share the task of getting economies out of holes they had jointly dug. “The absolutists of contract are the real parents of revolution,” Keynes wrote in 1923 when Germany was suffering under unsustainable sovereign debt burden. While Germany vividly remembers the 1920-23 hyperinflation of this period, it was deflation and the Great Depression that brought Adolf Hitler to power in 1933.

This writer asserts that once Germany permitted Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland to join the eurozone, they implicitly agreed to fiscal transfers to support economies of these countries. However, Germany and some other creditor countries refuse to issue the eurobonds. The EU would allocate funds to support the debtor nations, which would no longer seek funds individually from the capital markets. Their debts would be rescheduled with appropriate grace periods. Merkel should understand that in a democracy, you cannot relegate member countries to the Third World status.

Elections in France and Greece: Grexit

With the election returns from France and Greece the trends are obvious, ominous for the EU. Hollande campaigned on the “growth pact” to complement the fiscal pact pitting him against Merkel. Hollande has strongly backed the eurobonds in conjunction with Italy and Brussels. Two of the most influential international economic bodies, the IMF and the OECD, offered their support to Paris, Rome and Brussels. Nonetheless, Madame Europa remains defiant arguing that any co-mingling of eurozone debt would remove incentives for southern economies to adopt structural reforms. De facto she is defending the German banks.

Alexis Tsipras, the Syriza party leader that surged in popularity in Greece called for the ripping up of a “barbarous” austerity program underpinning its bailout imposed by the EU, ECB and the IMF. During his trip to Germany he appealed to German taxpayers to help his country. “Until when should German taxpayers pay into a bottomless pit? It apparently flows to the Greek economy, but in reality only the banks and bankers are being financed.” The Greek exit, or “Grexit,” from the eurozone, which was unthinkable, has become a distinct possibility. Many distinguished economists, such as Nouriel Roubini, have been suggesting for some time an amicable divorce settlement arguing that splitting up may be hard to do but it can be better than sticking to a bad marriage. Roubini argues that the whole eurozone idea has been flawed and thus is unsustainable. Five distressed peripherals—Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain—would exit, negotiating bridge financing. However, ~80% of Greeks are in favor of staying in the eurozone but then fail to vote for politicians prepared to implement “barbarous” austerity terms.

Bank of Greece Governor George Provopoulos warned that a return to drachma would be “real hell” with Greeks forced to resort to barter during the transition period between the two currencies, “trading a kilo of olive oil for three kilos of flour.” Greece imports 40% of food it consumes, all of its oil and gas and much of its medicine. Hence, there would be shortages of basic supplies. Greece wouldn’t be able to support its 11 million people. Without fuel, the army and the police wouldn’t be able to function. Social disruptions could lead to anarchy. How Greece would manage a transition from euro to drachma is totally unclear. A number of experts predict that the new drachma would fall by 50% or more against the euro. So the Greeks would pull their euros out of their bank accounts before they could be converted. Owners of Greek stocks would do the same. As markets and deposits flee, banks would collapse. The big question is what would stop the Portuguese and Spaniards from doing the same? Drachmageddon, on Radio Arvyla TV told how the drachma, kicked into outer space in 2001, crashed backed to earth as a meteor and destroyed everything.

In order to avoid this “real hell” scenario, this writer suggests that a due consideration be given to a transition from the euro to the US dollar rather than to new drachma. A bank run in several countries could force the eurozone collapse.

Merkel’s Nuclear Phase-out

Geologically stable Germany reacted as if the Fukushima nuclear accident happened in the heart of Germany rather than thousands of miles away. Obviously there is no potential for huge tsunamis in Germany. This writer, once he had an opportunity to analyze the worst accident in the 55-year history of commercial nuclear power, had characterized it as tsunami induced but man-made disaster. A number of now available Fukushima accident investigations like those by the Japanese Investigation Committee, Institute for Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) and the American Nuclear Society (ANS) support my initial assertion.  It is insulting to postulate that the German nuclear utilities, with their excellent safety record with no serious accident over the last 40 years, would respond as incompetently as the management of the Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) and the Japanese government agencies—not the plant operating staff which performed admirably in very difficult circumstances including no lights in the control room.

Blatant Political Opportunism

Nonetheless, only four days into the accident when it was unclear what exactly happened, Chancellor Merkel declared a three-month moratorium on nuclear power, in which eight nuclear power plants had to be shutdown immediately. An indiscriminate rationale was used: those that began operation in 1980 or earlier irrespective whether they were boiling water reactors (BWRs), like Fukushima reactors, or pressurized water reactors (PWRs). There was no evidence that age of reactors played part in the accident. Chernobyl Unit 4, which experienced the accident with highest release of radioactivity ever, was the youngest of the four units. 8336 MW of generating capacity was removed from the German grid overnight amounting to 41% of total nuclear generation and 4.6% of total German generating capacity. Merkel’s overreaction was politically motivated because Germany’s anti-nuclear Green party made strong headway at state elections, so she blamed the nuclear power for her defeat. After her recent disastrous election defeat in North Rhine-Westphalia (her party slumped from 35 to 26% in this most populous state) she sacked Norbert Rottgen, her environment minister and once seen as a rising star in her party. Instead she has appointed Peter Altmaier, a CDU heavyweight, as minister of energy, environment and nuclear safety.

In 2001 a Social Democrat/Green government red/green coalition limited nuclear power plant lives to an average of about 34 years. This phase-out policy was revised last year by the Merkel’s Christian Democrat/Free Democrat coalition with the effect of giving some reactors an extra eight years of operation and others extra 12. In return, the nuclear utilities were to pay a tax of 145 euro per gram of nuclear fuel which was utilized, a total of about 2.3bn per year. Merkel explained the U-turn with an absurd and irrational statement: “Japan, like Germany, is a developed nation with strict safety rules, but nevertheless there was a chain of events that wasn’t expected. While Germany isn’t prone to quakes and tsunamis, it could fall victim to events we didn’t previously view as likely or possible.” As a physicist, Merkel should have been able to understand that nuclear accidents, even as bad as Fukushima result in minimal public impact from radiation. This was demonstrated by the 1979 Three Mile Island (TMI) accident in the US. According to the UN Chernobyl Forum showed 50 victims of acute radiation but was confined to the plant workers. Chernobyl was designed as a dual purpose plant: plutonium producer for the Soviet nuclear weapons program and electricity generation. It was not built to satisfy the western nuclear safety standards and thus would not be licensable in the west like the TMI and Fukushima were.

Subsequently Merkel said that 2022 is a good time to completely phase out nuclear power in Germany based on so called “ethics” report. The government has since decided that none of those plants shutdown for three months may restart, while the remaining 15 will close progressively by 2022. Merkel said that the end date is fixed, and there will be no review clause in the legislation sent to the Federal Council of Germany’s 16 states, and that there was no need to go the parliament. The German Nuclear Society called the 2022 exit date a “sham” based on lack of clarity to replace nuclear power plants that provide 25% of nation’s electricity. The Nuclear Safety Commission had reviewed safety of German plants in light of the Fukushima accident and found them to be safe.

Fukushima Accident: No Health Effects

It is now known that the Fukushima accident resulted in no acute fatalities, no acute injuries, no extended hospitalizations due to radiation and unlikely cancer fatalities in 50 years, according to Professor Wade Allison testimony in the UK House of Commons. 210,000 Fukushima residents have undergone screening without any health effects. Prof. Allison based his testimony on the book he authored Radiation and Reason published in 2009 and thus available to Chancellor Merkel’s scientific advisers (probably not consulted).

Huge Financial Impact

Initially investments of more than $280bn were mentioned as needed to enter the age of renewables over the next decade to build wind turbines, coal and gas plants. Subsequently, the German Association of Energy and Water Industries estimated the cost of $79bn by 2020 to construct and modernize power plants mainly to compensate for the nuclear phase-out. 84 large power plants are planned: 23 offshore wind farms, 29 gas-fired plants, 17 coal-fired plants and 10 pumped- storage plants, amounting to 42 GW electric. It is not clear how Germany will cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 40% compared to 1990 levels when 19 fossil fuel plants remain under construction. 2011 carbon dioxide figures grew by 2-6% compared to the year before. Many U.S. utilities consider renewables as electrically and economically inefficient. The offshore wind farms require high voltage transmission and thus heavy expenditures. A study commissioned by the German Economic Ministry has estimated an E32bn household and industry price tag associated with the policy reversal.

Blackouts Were Close

Those on the frontline of the nuclear phase-out have been struggling to keep the lights on despite the government assertion that the conversion to renewables was on track. Tennet, the Dutch group that runs one of Germany’s four high-voltage regional networks, said: “We were lucky and are reaching the limits of what is doable.” They had to step in 1,024 times in 2011 to circumvent bottlenecks in cables, which stretch from the North Sea to the Alps. That was four times the number of interventions in the previous year. Blackouts were perilously close. Reserve power plants had to be used from Germany and Austria. Loss of a large coal plant would have necessitated load shedding or turning off the lights in certain areas across Europe. The high-voltage grid was not designed to accommodate supply surges from the south where most shutdown nuclear plant are located.

Electric Utility Losses

The principal electric utilities: RWE, E.ON, Vattenfall, and EnBW have announced major losses and write downs. Despite the enforced closure of nuclear plants, the utilities are still required to pay a tax on nuclear fuel. The German Constitutional Court and the European Court of Justice have not ruled yet on the fuel tax legality. The funds collected are intended to be used for a development of renewables.

Essen-based RWE operating profits were 30% down year-on-year, while the E.ON’s were down 39%. E.ON (the name comes from the Greek word aeon which means eternity), which operates in over 30 countries and serves over 26 million customers, reported 2010 profit of E5.9bn but a net loss of E2.2bn in 2011. EO.N’s cost-cutting measures would shed up to 11.000 out of 80,000 workers. RWE has also reported a drop in profit for the first quarter in 2012. Like E.ON, RWE is in the middle of divestment program to reduce debt in addition to cost-cutting drive. It is selling its stake in Berlin Water to the city as well as its stake in the Horizon nuclear power venture in the UK. E.ON sold Open Grid Europe, its gas transmission grid in Germany. It is E.ON’s third big disposal in its push to sell E15bn of assets by the end of 2013 to reduce debt. Both utilities are renegotiating their long-term gas supply contracts with Russia’s Gazprom and Norway’s Statoil.

Aluminum Producer Files for Bankruptcy

Voerde Aluminium announced its insolvency due to lowering pricing of the metal combined with high electricity prices no longer internationally competitive. German users of over 20 GWh/yr pay 11.95 pay eurocents/kWh vs. 6.9 cents in France, where about 75% is nuclear generated electricity. The industry suffers because electricity price raises result from the government support for renewables, and especially photovoltaics. Subsidies have encouraged power companies and property owners to add about 25 GW of solar capacity, which produced 2.4% of Germany’s power. The remaining 12 GW of nuclear capacity produced 15.3%. About 71% comes from fossil fuels. Gas and coal replaced the capacity lost by 2011 closure of eight nuclear power plants. Merkel’s government now plans to slash subsidies for new small solar plants by as much as a third.

Vojin Joksimovich is the author of three books and over 100 articles

http://moderntokyotimes.com

PS – The image of Fukushima nuclear plant applies to the early period of the crisis and does not resemble the situation today.

Dragos Bratasanu, Lightman Consulting

Modern Tokyo Times

10 Strategic Paradigms for Advanced Corporate Efficiency and Success Intelligence (Part 2)

Part 2: On any given project, what gives you more problems, people or technology?

Is it possible to enhance (www.lightman-consulting.com) performance of a corporation, to increase profits, to skyrocket the sales, and in the same time remain in balance and keep a positive perspective? A large number of corporations believe this is a myth but recent studies show that actually the one cannot go without the other. You can achieve excellence in business as a leader, as a manager or entrepreneur by following one important rule: treat others, as you want to be treated by them. Especially, treat your employees, as you would want your supervisors to treat you. Napoleon Hill in his classic book “How To Sell Your Way Through Life” called it The Golden Rule. According to Hill, it is the only rule that can save companies, governmental organizations and even countries from collapse once they go down this path. It is very important to remember that Napoleon Hill wrote this principle after the economic crisis that hit America in the 1930s and it remained valid until this day, when history seems to be teaching us another powerful lesson.

“Of all the things I’ve done, the most vital is coordinating those who work with me, aiming their efforts at a certain goal” – Walt Disney

All business leaders openly recognize the importance of managing people within their organization but few go the extra mile of really understanding the psychological needs of their employees. Financial compensations are a good motivator to attract a person in your company, but are not enough to keep good people stay. Corporations today prefer to invest more into building hard skills, technical knowledge, project management skills rather than in what has become known today as soft-skills, leadership wisdom, proficient communication and team building. Unfortunately, failure to recognize the importance of soft skills leads to severe problems in the organization, high financial losses and devastating effects on personal health and relationships.

Let’s look over a few examples of how important it is for a business to balance the mind intelligence (IQ) with the emotional intelligence (EQ), to find the equilibrium between hard skills and soft skills and what are the consequences that follow when companies and organizations do not find this balance. These examples have been described in detail in Charlie Pellerin’s book, “How NASA Builds Teams”, a masterpiece of leadership wisdom and potential for corporations that want to thrive in the years to come. Dr. Pellerin, former Director of Astrophysics at NASA developed a successful system for measuring and enhancing the performance of teams by improving context management.

1.   During the period 1988-1998, a commercial Asian airliner had a crash rate of 17 times higher than the industry average. Investigators discovered that the root cause was the transference of the social hierarchy to the cockpit. The captain’s social status was so high in the minds of the co-pilots that nobody was able to communicate with him and the captain literally flew the plane by himself. No amount of individual training in flying skills would have helped. Now the company is safe because the relationships and the social environment have changed and there are two or three pilots with equal decision power. A typical plane crash involves seven consecutive human errors and these are rarely errors of knowledge of flying skills. These are errors of teamwork and communication.

2.   In 1986, NASA’s Space Shuttle Challenger exploded immediately after launch, taking the lives of seven astronauts right under the eyes of their families and friends. Authorities investigated the technical causes of this tragedy and the conclusions were startling. Stephen Johnson from NASA wrote in 2008: “Frequently we find that failure effects and proximate causes are technical, but the root causes are social and psychological. My sense from experience is that 80-95% of failures are ultimately due to human error and miscommunication”

“Teams do not go physically flat, they go mentally stale” – Vince Lombardi (1913-1970), football coach for the NFL

Remember that the people involved in this project were world-renowned experts, Nobel Prize winners, very smart and talented engineers. They knew how to build a spacecraft, how to send it into orbit and bring it back safely. They’ve done it before. However, the pressures from management, and the leadership styles were so psychologically violent that engineers and scientists decided to launch the spacecraft anyway, although these technical problems were known in advance.

3. The Hubble Telescope is a masterpiece of technology and innovation. This 1.7$ billion satellite was built to take images of universe’s distant objects. After many years of design and engineering, the satellite was sent into orbit with a flawed mirror – an error that could have been committed only by an amateur with no experience. Extended investigations revealed that NASA’s management of its contractor had been so hostile that they would not report technical problems. They were simply worn out due to frustration, anger, threats and beatings.

“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision…The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.” – Andrew Carnegie

Deficient leadership skills, combined with deficient communication and ineffectual emotional management leads to important losses. As Dr. John Mather, NASA Scientist and Project Manager said, “Half of the cost of a project is socially determined”.

If these tragedies happen in the most brilliant teams of scientists and engineers in the world, may we imagine how much money, how many projects are lost by corporations due to emotional and psychological factors without even knowing it? The good news is that we now have the tools available to recognize, understand and bring creative solutions to these problems.

Today’s business environments around the world are encountering new problems that can be successfully solved only by using a new way of thinking, a totally unique intelligence. According to Ikujiro Nonaka, Professor Emeritus at Hitotsubashi University of Tokyo and Hirotaka Takeuchi, Professor at Harvard Business School, the corporations in the western culture operate on the philosophy that if a theory is not working, then something must be wrong with reality.

TEAM = Together Everyone Achieves More – Unknown

Leaders that will thrive in the near future in our high-tech, fast-paced world will have to reach higher levels of understanding, communication and interpersonal reasoning. The corporations of the future will have to balance hard skills and soft skills, to balance the intelligence of the mind with the intelligence of the heart in order to be successful. Our current and future challenges require the discovery and application of new inner assets that will help leaders develop reliable, sustainable and balanced decisions and actions. As we will learn to develop the intelligence of our hearts and the equilibrium between thoughts and emotions, we will find the power to move beyond anxiety, worry and stress into a leadership style based on mutual respect, appreciation and friendship. We will learn how to deal with today’s business models in a healthy, balanced way, we will create successful leaders that will accelerate performance and will grow the company together with its people, not at the cost of its people.

“No one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it” – H.E. Luccock

Dr. David Pendleton, from the University of Oxford, one of the professors leading Oxford’s High Performance Leadership Program declared that “There is an increasing body of evidence that coherent organization do better than their misaligned counterparts. They outperform the market and bring out the best in their people. We believe they outperform the market because they bring the best in their people”

A recent study at Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management that involved interviews with executives at Fortune 1000 companies, found that compassion and building team-work will be two of the most important characteristics business leaders will need for success a decade from now.

The intelligence of your hearts can solve all these problems. Combine the intelligence of your mind with the power of your emotions through your heart and your health will rapidly improve, your performance will increase, your team will work together wonderfully towards fulfilling outstanding, out-of-this-world goals.

Dragos Bratasanu, Lightman Consulting

dragos@lightman-consulting.com　

Images belong to Lightman Consulting

Please visit www.lightman-consulting.com

Contact at contact@lightman-consulting.com

http://moderntokyotimes.com/2012/05/08/10-strategic-paradigms-for-advanced-corporate-efficiency-and-success-intelligence/ Part 1 – Lightman Consulting

Rhiannon Thomas

Modern Tokyo Times

Yoshiro Nakamatsu is Japan’s very own mad scientist. Popularly known as “Dr. NakaMats,” Yoshiro Nakamutsu claims to hold the world record for inventions, with over 3,200 patents. Yet Dr. NakaMats role as a great Japanese inventor is disputed at best, and he capitalizes more on his image as a crazy inventor than from his inventions themselves.

Born on June 26th, 1928, Dr. NakaMats claims to have made his first great invention at the age of 5, when he created “automatic gravity adjustment equipment,” inventing, in his own words, the way that airplanes fly now. At 14, witnessing his mother’s difficulty in the kitchen, he invented a pump to refill soy sauce bottle, a device that is used to pump kerosene today. After attending the prestigious Tokyo University, Dr. NakaMats claims he went on to invent many famous and not-so-famous devices, including the floppy disk, the CD, the DVD, taxicab meters, the digital watch and the popular Japanese game Pachinko. He aims to have 6000 inventions to his name before he dies in 2072, at the planned age of 144.

Despite his claims, Dr. Nakamats has only been granted 14 U.S. patents and 345 international patents. In comparisons, the world’s actual most prolific inventor, Australian Kia Silverbrook, holds 4,072 US patents and 9,027 international patents. However, his claims about his inventions are nothing compared to the other wacky statements on his website, which suggest that he is either the greatest man that has ever lived or that he is more of a fun science personality than a serious inventor. According to his personal website, Dr Nakamats’ accolades include being selected by the U.S. Science Academy Society as one of the world’s five greatest scientists, along with Archimedes, Michael Faraday, Maria Curie and Nikola Tesla (the U.S. Science Academic Society does not exist) and receiving the Innovative Pioneer Prize at a dinner given by the U.S. president (the prize also does not exist). He also writes that he has been appointed U.S. Sheriff and is honored by annual “Dr. NakaMats Day” in Denver (March 25th), Seattle (April 21st), New Orleans (May 3rd), Los Angeles (June 26th), San Diego (September 8th), Maryland (November 13th) and New York State (November 25th), among other places. He has even been made a Knight of Malta, which is particularly impressive, as the Knights of Malta, or the Knights Hospitaller, were a Christian military order in the Middle Ages.

On top of the well-known technology that he claims to have invented, Dr NakaMats has several other intriguing patents to his name. These include a pillow that prevents drivers from falling asleep while driving, glasses in the shape of eyes so that they are not visible on the face, and a self-defense wig that can be swung at an attacker. As an invention does not need to actually work for a patent to be filed, many of these more wacky creations may not exist at all. If they do exist, they surely fall into the category of “chindogu”: inventions that seem like they provide an ideal solution to a problem, but which cause such significant problems or social embarrassment for the user that they are effectively useless.

Dr. NakaMats also claims that he has a unique approach to inventing. His “creativity process” includes listening to music, using a bathroom made entirely of gold, and diving underwater, as he claims that the best time to come up with new innovations is “0.5 seconds before death.” He sleeps four hours a night and uses the Cereberex Chair – a chair of his own invention – to improve his memory and creativity and lower his blood pressure. The chair works by cooling the head and heating the feet, and Dr NakaMats claims that an hour spent sitting in it is the equivalent of four hours of sleep.

Yet whether any of Dr NakaMats’ claims are true is almost irrelevant. He has gained fame in Japan for his eccentric attitude, playing the part of the quintessential “mad scientist” and capitalizing on Japanese television’s obsession with the weird and surprising. He has run for office in Japan several times (he never won), and has won an Ig Nobel Prize for nutrition after photographing and analyzing every meal he ate for 34 years. He estimates that he has made over $8 million from his inventions, but his most profitable invention perhaps is the character of Dr. NakaMats himself.

http://dr.nakamats.com/

http://moderntokyotimes.com