It’s amazing to me, but looking back over nearly a decade of writing I find posts that still impress, with information that is as useful now as when it was written. Golden Oldies is a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time. Read other Golden Oldies here

When you evaluate a task or project to you see the whole or the hole?

Most people are adept at seeing the hole, i.e., what needs to be added in order to succeed. What’s missing can include scope, skills, resources, etc.

Unlike donuts, holes don’t enhance your projects. Being sure the hole is filled is important, but it’s also difficult to fill it if you don’t also see the whole.

The whole is the overview of how that particular project fits into the larger picture. Understanding that helps you to identify and address the entire hole, so you don’t end up having to go back and fix the part of the hole you missed or, worse, move on leaving an unnoticeable hole that turns into a sinkhole down the road.

Seeing the whole means taking time to understand not just your own position/area, but the functions of those around you and how they all interact, your company’s competitors and trends in your market.

More work? Yes.

A pain in the wazoo? Yes.

The benefits to you, your team and your company? Priceless.

 image credit: sxc.hu

I’ve always had a sneaking suspicion that as important as hard work, good planning, etc., are, there was something else at work in my life. Something outside of my control and I wanted to know what it was.

I finally decided it was luck—definitely outside my control.

I wrote recently abut how the luck of right time/right place luck played a role in the early success of a startup and also touched on Malcolm Gladwell’s research as described in Outliers: The Story of Success.

A few days ago I read a brief article about University of Chicago researchers Susan Goldin-Meadow and Meredith Rowe, who have been studying the effects of gesturing on toddler language development.

“Higher-income parents did gesture more and, more importantly, their children on average produced 25 meanings in gesture during that 90-minute session, compared with an average of 13 among poorer children, they reported in the journal Science. … Gesturing also seems to be an important precursor to forming sentences, as children start combining one word plus a gesture for a second word. … In fact, kindergarten vocabulary is a predicter of how well youngsters ultimately fare in school.”

Such a little thing, but with such potentially enormous impact.

I don’t remember my mother gesturing, but I do know that she talked to my sister and I using the exact same vocabulary that she used with her peers and that became our vocabulary. Fortunately for us, she had a large vocabulary between having gone to college and being an avid reader, but I wonder where I would be if that had been different.

Plus, researchers are finding that children start learning long before it was originally thought.

The problem is that from zero to six kids dependent on what they get from home; from 6 or so to18 or so they look to their peers, which is the blind leading the blind, and then it’s on to adulthood where changes are far more difficult and, if the research is at all accurate, limited.

No one can control when they’re are born, who their parents are or the economic strata into which they’re born, but you can reach out and help change the people’s luck.

And for all those who look at me and say that they’re busy or that they have donated all they can or it’s just not their problem and there are schools/social services/etc., to deal with it I have a news flash for you.

Unless you plan to die tomorrow, it’s your problem.

It’s your problem because of a little thing called demographics.

This recession will eventually turn around, even if it takes longer than our instant gratification culture likes, and when it does the US is going to need every warm body if it plans to retain/regain its success and influence.

No one is expecting you to solve the problems, but you can reach out and touch just one life. If everyone over 21 did that we would be well on the way to change.

Your choice is whether to be part of the good luck or the bad.

Your comments—priceless

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Image credit: flickr