90% Utilization Problem

Some ideas fit in a headline. 90% Utilization Problem is one of them. A number, a line, and a whole lesson hiding behind it.

Strip away the number and the idea is this: life punishes vagueness. A figure forces you to say exactly how much, exactly when, exactly who. Once you have said it, the work is half done, because the argument is now with reality and not with your mood.

The idea is simple, and like most simple ideas it is easy to nod at and hard to use. The nod is free. The use costs attention, every day, in small change.

The best school principal is visible at the gate in the morning and invisible during the teachers' period. Presence at the right hour, absence at the right hour — that is the whole craft.

An organisation is only a group of people who have agreed, for now, to pull in roughly the same direction. Carry it lightly. Ideas, like umbrellas, are useful only when actually opened.