Practical ideas through reading

Tom Peters has an unusual way of putting his thoughts into words. Sometimes he rants, more time he raves – that’s his public speaking style.

He may look intimidating on stage, but off-stage he really is a very wonderful, kind and gentle person. He’s very wise too. Here are some of the practical things I have learned from his book Little Big Things that have helped me tremendously in my everyday life:

People whose offices are more than 100 feet apart might as well be 100 miles apart in terms of frequency of direct communication.

Walmart increases shopping cart size, and sales of big items (like microwave ovens) go up by 50 percent!

Use a round table instead of a square one, and the percentage of people contributing to a conversation leaps up!

If the serving plate is more than 6.5 feet from the dining room table, the number of “seconds” goes down 63 percent, compared when serving plates are left on the table.

Want to make a program “strategic”? Put it at the top of every agenda. Make asking about “it” your first question in every conversation.

Want to save lives? Issue everyone who checks into the hospital compression stockings to reduce the risk of deep vein thrombosis. Doing so could save 10,000 lives in the United Kingdom alone.

Want to save lives? One survivor of 9/11 had walked downstairs from a top floor about once a month. Such “trivial” “drills” could have saved innumerable lives.

Get rid of wastebaskets under desks, and recycling leaps up.

Simply put hand-sanitizer dispensers all over a dorm, with no signs asking students to use them, and the number of sick days and missed classes per student falls 20 percent. (University of Colorado/Boulder.)

Let patients see greenery through their windows, and their average post-op stay duration drops 20 percent.

Go white (that is, paint roofs, roads, etc., white), and reduce CO₂ emissions by 44 billion tons.

Clean up trash, fix broken win­dows, stop miscreants for trivial offenses such as loitering or having pen alcohol containers – and increase neighborhood safety dra­matically. (Using this approach, Chief Bratton and Mayor Giuliani had spectacular success on a pretty big stage – New York City.)

It’s just plain common sense and very practical isn’t it?

We come across simple but great ideas like these when we take the time and effort to read. In my seminars and workshops, I would ask participants what books they read or how frequent they read, and the sad fact is that most people do not read. As a result, these people lack fresh and new ideas. They end up talking in clichés and mimicking others.

Read. Read, and then read some more.

Five years from now, you and I will be exactly the same as the person we are today except for two things: the people we meet and the books we read.

There is little difference between an illiterate and one who does not read. And those who do not read Scriptures are ignorant of the good things God has designed for them.

Take time to read. You will never regret this.

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