Concept of the Week - Willingness vs. Ability

Recently I've had some issues with someone who is very able, but unwilling to accept certain responsibilities. This reminded me of another concept learned long ago call the Willingness vs. Ability matrix. Traditionally we see high achievers, and settle for something less, while struggling to get the to move up or over into the desired upper right hand quadrant. This also made me realize that sometimes it's better to have someone will high willingness and low ability, than someone with high ability and low willingness.

Word of the Week - Conatus

Conatus (Latin for effort; endeavor; impulse, inclination, tendency; undertaking; striving) is a term used in early philosophies of psychology and metaphysics to refer to an innate inclination of a thing to continue to exist and enhance itself.^[1] This "thing" may be mind, matter or a combination of both. Over the millennia, many different definitions and treatments have been formulated by philosophers. Seventeenth-century philosophers René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried Leibniz, and their Empiricist contemporary Thomas Hobbes made important contributions.^[2] The conatus may refer to the instinctive "will to live" of living organisms or to various metaphysical theories of motion and inertia.^[3] Often the concept is associated with God's will in a pantheist view of Nature.^[2][4] The concept may be broken up into separate definitions for the mind and body and split when discussing centrifugal force and inertia.^[5] 


In my case I was facing several business decisions where I was failing to find a conatus or impetus for the client (or my management) to endeavor to move from current state to an improved future state (i.e. enhance itself). Creating the inertia or momentum to move from present state in business is, at times, is a conundrum.

Answerthink's Industrial Machinery and Components Solution Receives SAP Qualification | The Hackett Group

MIAMI, June 8, 2010 - Answerthink, a division of The Hackett Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: HCKT) and a premier developer, provider, and supporter of SAP® solutions, today announced that its EzIMC™ offering for the industrial machinery and components industry is now a qualified SAP Business All-in-One partner solution. The solution includes functionality specifically for growing and mid-market companies within this industry.

Answerthink's Industrial Machinery and Components Solution Receives SAP Qualification | The Hackett Group

The 4-Hour Workweek: Is it really possible?

I'm halfway through listening to the audio book version of The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris. While many of his strategies for reducing non-productive (i.e. non-profitable) time and increasing leisure time and achieving goals sound great, do they really work? Well, he's done it himself, though not without challenges. I don't know that I can do them all, but I will be putting several of his strategies into practice and reporting back here whether they worked for me (e.g. blogging from Tahiti) or not (e.g. get fired). This should be interesting.

Word of the week - Spectrum

A spectrum (plural spectra or spectrums) is a condition that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary infinitely within a continuum. In my case I was considering how to understand the relationship between where a new employee fell within a 3D spectrum of people (x) , process (y) , and technology (z) skills based on where we expected him to be and were he was observed in order to develop an action plan to close any expectation gaps.