Posts Tagged With ‘ Alan Cay Culler ’

“I’m a consultant, not a coach!” He said this with a sneer dripping off the word coach that you could smell across the room. The problem was we were not really hired as consultants, at least not as he was defining a consultant. We were hired to teach a client coaches how to support continuous improvement (CI). Client coaches attended advanced  CI training  and coached projects run by the business units. Each client coach was assigned a “consultant coach” to help them with difficult problems. This “consultant,” an independent contractor, was ignoring his client coach and doing... Continue Reading

My haircutter history When a was a curly tow headed two-year-old my hair drew a lot of attention. I’m told I was not happy with my first haircut. I bawled uncontrollably when my father took me to his barber shop, which amused the barber.  They finally gave me a cookie to shut me up. No, I don’t remember it,. My father did what he always did; he took pictures. My father recounted my inauspicious beginning haircut story at family gatherings. Then my mother told another “heartwarming” tale about a young boy’s first trip to the barber with his grandfather whom he idolized. “The barber... Continue Reading

Croesus In 560 BCE the mighty King Croesus of Lydia issued a request for proposals (RFP) to the major oracles of ancient Greece. “Why should I choose you as my oracle of choice?” he asked. “I know the number of the sand and the measure of the sea,” began the Pythia, sybil, sorceress, lead consultant for Delphi. “I understand the speech of the dumb and hear the volcanoes. . . .” She went on as sybils do, but Croesus interrupted. “OK, OK, you had me at ‘the number of the sand,’ Delphi is the winner. You’re my new Oracle Pythia-baby, Here’s my question, I’m thinking of... Continue Reading

The Kerent and the Wisemen” rel=”nofollow”> A problem . . . It was the time before the coming of scribes, when history’s wisdom was held in memory and sung in rhyme. Then wisemen travelled the land trading their wisdom for food, lodging and coin. It was a time of tribes and small landholdings with crops and livestock and goods produced for trade. Each clanhold was ruled by a chieftain called king or caliph, khan or kerent. In one such kingdom, the Kerent was distraught. The harvest was weak and the lambs sickly. The pots made of clay from the river had sustained the tribe... Continue Reading

What’s in a Name?” rel=”nofollow”> “I’m going to be a big brother” My son and his bride are anticipating the birth of their second child. With their first, they wanted to be surprised, so they dove into the name selection ritual for two genders. “No not Louisa; I went to elementary school with a Louisa and she was definitely in the ‘mean girl’ contingent.” This time, their son, is also “expecting”, so they conceded to learn the gender and are playing the “Name Game,” with only one gender. “Shirley, Shirley, Bo-ber-ley, Banana-fanna fo fer-ley, Fee... Continue Reading