Category Archives: Helpful Hints

April 1, 2014 · 8:48 am

11 Minutes Of Revolution

This week’s TunesDay special comes from the most influential band of the last century and maybe of all time – The Beatles.

The Beatles

The Beatles

Unless you’ve had your head in the sand for the last 50 years you’ve heard their music and specifically today’s song – “Revolution“. However, you’ve probably never heard this version. It’s take 20 and extends the version that runs around 4 minutes into nearly 11.  This version surfaced in 2009 and is fascinating.  Have a listen:

This cut has been dubbed “Take Your Knickers Off” from Lennon‘s comment to the engineer at the start of the track.  Eventually it was split in two and became “Revolution” numbers 1 and 9 although in this form it’s really neither.  It’s sort of self-indulgent although the last several minutes contain moments of brilliance.  Even Yoko sounds interesting!  After much back and forth about the song, the band decided to re-cut it – faster, louder, and with what are now its signature distorted guitars for the single.  Which is the business point today.

Everyone needs an editor.  Great artists can self-edit up to a point and in the case of The Beatles that editing by committee served them well.  Most of us in business aren’t quite so smart.  We generally try to accomplish things on our own – creating products, ads, reports, or whatever.  That’s a mistake.  No matter how good we think our first drafts are, they need editing.

The best form comes when we give our draft to someone who is most like the intended audience and get a response.  It’s also important to build time into a project timetable to be able to step away from the work for a period and approach it having rested and lost the emotional attachment we all get to birthing a new work.  It’s much easier to cut away material that isn’t right or that might not be your best.

Every great author – even Shakespeare – had an editor.  If their work, as well as Lennon and McCartney‘s, can stand some editing, odds are ours can too.  Heck, you can get an example of that every day right here in this space!  Got it?

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March 28, 2014 · 10:01 am

What Amateurs Can Teach Professionals

I saw something last evening that provides the inspiration for our Foodie Friday Fun this week.  If you’ve been reading the screed for any length of time you know that I’m a fan of Hell’s Kitchen.  The contestants are professional cooks (I hesitate to say “chef” since very few of them seem to have the qualities needed to be a team leader in the kitchen).  I believe all of them have been to culinary school but all do work in professional kitchens.  One would think that a work environment that’s filled with opportunities to do damage to one’s self would prompt a pro to make safety an intrinsic part of how they work.  As last night showed, not so much, which also prompted a business thought.

Photo: flickr user abdelazer

One of the cooks was using a mandoline to slice a potato.  As you can tell from the photo, a mandoline is a fabulous way to cut off the tip of a finger or two if you’re dumb enough to hold whatever is being sliced in your hand instead of using the guard/holder.  In a pinch you can hold the veggie against the blade with the palm of your hand pushing it down, but you never expose your finger tips to the blade just as you don’t dice with your fingers straight out.  Needless to say, the professional cook took a trip to urgent care to replace the piece of his finger.

Here is the business thought.  The cook has probably used this tool hundreds of times in just this way and without harm.  Most professionals do things over and over and at some point those things become second nature.  Unfortunately, that routine may incorporate bad habits. Amateur cooks like me have to think carefully when we use dangerous tools.  I’ll admit I think less when using a chef’s knife than when I use a mandoline, but I do pay attention in both cases since I don’t use either tool for hours at a time every day.

The same holds true with our business activities.  Reports become routine.  We do fill-in-the-blank analyses.  That’s when someone – the business! – gets badly hurt.  Business professionals need to learn from amateurs, or at least learn to approach the tasks they do daily with the same care as the person who rarely does those tasks.  Think to when you were given an assignment which involved something new.  You double and triple checked everything and were super careful.  That’s the amateur mindset.

And now it’s off to pull out my mandoline to remind me to be careful today.  Care to join me?

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March 21, 2014 · 9:12 am

Caul Fat And Management

Foodie Friday, and today the topic is caul fat. “Never heard of it” you say?

Photo by Holly A. Heyser

Caul fat is one of those ingredients that is rarely used by the home cook and sort of falls into the “secret ingredient” category along with duck fat.   It’s the web of fatty membrane that encases the internal organs of various animals.  Pork caul fat is the one most cooks prefer but cooks use that of cows and sheep as well.

The cook wraps whatever he’s cooking in the fat before cooking it and it adds moisture and flavor. Most of the time, you see caul fat being used as natural sausage casings in crepinettes (fegatelli for my Italian friends) or to wrap items that lack a great deal of their own fat such as game birds.  It’s also used as an outer shell of sorts for patés when they’re being cooked.

What does this have to do with business?  I think good managers are like caul fat.  They bring things to the business that aren’t always readily apparent unless you dig down into the recipe.  It may be how they set the tone for the business.  It may be how they hold the team together, much as caul fat holds the sausage patties that are crepinettes together.  Caul fat is one of those ingredients for which you have to search.  You probably won’t find it in your supermarket.  Great managers are the same way, and like caul fat, when you first come across a great manager you might be surprised by it.

Secret ingredients are what make any dish really memorable.  After all, if every restaurant cooked the same dish the same way, why would we try new places?  Those ingredients are things that help a dish, a restaurant, or your business stand out in a crowd.  Caul fat’s why one cook’s roasted chicken breast is moist and flavorful and another’s, who cooked it the same time at the same temp with most of the same seasonings turned out a dry, flavorless product.  Great managers are a secret ingredient which, like caul fat, make a huge difference in the finished product even if it’s not clear who that fabulous final product came to be.  They make the difference between a good business and a great business.  That’s my take – what’s yours?

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