Have you ever wondered why peacocks developed such long, beautiful tails? It’s simple evolutionary biology. Peahens show a reference for large-tailed peacocks. In the earliest days, this made a lot of sense. A showy tail was a marker of a good, healthy male who knew how to feed himself — a good breeding partner, and […]
Author Archives: Dave Franzetta
Consequences and Accountability
Strategic Business Analysis is Messy Business
A while back I asked my son-in-law, who works for Cisco in San Jose, what kind of job he would pick if he were able to choose from anything available at his company. He told me that he’d really like to work on business strategy, maybe performing strategic business analysis. Everyone who has been subjected […]
Sometimes BS Isn’t All Bad, Especially When Dealing with SMAPs
No, I’m not writing about bulls**t. I’m writing about an approach to problem solving that my friend and colleague, Alan Engelstad, has dubbed “Benevolent Skepticism.” [Hence the somewhat misleading “BS” tag in the title of this post. I hope it worked to get your attention.] SMAPs are Solutions-Masquerading-as-Problems, but more on that later. Benevolent skepticism […]
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
Earlier this week at the Palm Springs International Film Festival we watched a new film, “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.” The film, adapted from the 2007 novel of the same name by Paul Torday, tells the story of feckless British fisheries expert Dr. Andrew Jones [played by Ewan McGregor], who is approached by consultant Harriet Chetwode-Talbot [played […]
Real Leaders
During the 2000 presidential campaign, David Foster Wallace, the novelist, essayist and humorist best known for his 1996 novel “Infinite Jest,” covered John McCain‘s unsuccessful bid to become the Republican Party’s nominee for President for Rolling Stone Magazine. He rode with McCain’s Straight Talk Express for a week in February of that year and wrote […]
Have You Stereotyped Yourself?
I had been planning to write an article about stereotypes, and recently started wondering about the word “stereotype.” I had this idea in mind that the concept was somehow warped, since when I think of stereo-anything, [e.g. stereophonic speakers, stereoscopic viewing] it implies to me that there is a duality or multiplicity of perspectives being […]
Growing Older or Getting Old?
Four months ago today we made the very difficult decision to euthanize King, our beloved canine companion for the past eight years. It’s taken me this long to steel myself sufficiently to write about him. The vet who examined King at the San Clemente Animal Shelter estimated that he was between five and seven years […]
Good Coach, Bad Coach
Except for those unfortunate few of us who, like moths attracted to a flame, find themselves drawn toward every new piece of reporting on the scandals at Penn State and Syracuse, most of us are sick and tired of hearing about so-called “coaches” who took advantage of their titles and positions to abuse young boys. […]
In God We Trust?
As the American populace waits to see whether the Congress’s supercommittee can agree on some kind of plan to avoid across the board cuts to all government programs — including the liberals’ “untouchables” [Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid] along with the conservatives’ sacred cow [Defense] — it looks as if our government of elected representatives has […]