Bridges and Thumbnails

Reading The Pursuit Of Wow! by Tom Peters. An older book, but still some great thoughts.

One of his points is:
“Build bridges with friends, instead of burning them with enemies.

Forget your enemies. Work around them. Work instead on developing friends, turning people who agree with you (a little bit or a lot) into passionate advocates and adherents.”

It made me think of my cousin who was working on the roof of his house. He slammed the hammer down on his thumb. Thumbnail – Popped off. (gross) Blood and thumbnail on the ground. Purple thumb. That’s what I remember.

It made no difference though. Swollen and busted up thumb, he still had to finish the roof. 4 fingers were fine. 1 that was busted. Yet, he still had to complete the project.

This example is not quite related to the point above – but in a way it is. How easy is it to let one sore thumb totally screw up the project you are working on. What if there is one sore thumb in your organization?

Are we going to let that one sore thumb torpedo the project? Or are we going to gather the four fingers (plus the other five on the other hand) that can still do the job and get it done?

Hmm. Maybe it’s completely two different points. But still. It made me think.

Thinking is good.