Dogs are animals of integrity. We have much to learn from them.
Category: Core thought
In a reversal of business models which are all too common, Ten UK sets out to help customers: what a novel idea!!
The following video describes the need to recruit and train staff who understand the real value and expectation behind asking:
What do you want in the context of … ?
Alex Cheatle describes what they do and how they do it.
Read the article on Real Business here.
By John Lewis
Continuing the theme that extraordinary people are just ….. ordinary.
Another explorer …. who began polar exploration a little later than most of them, has a staggering story of “mind over matter”.
Ann Daniels is the only woman to have become a polar guide for groups walking to both the North and the South Poles. The stories on her web site are quite extraordinary and are told in such a disarmingly easy style that one needs to think 
carefully about what she is actually saying when recounting stories of:
In praise of thoughtful, articulate people who reason their way through life.
Let me say that I know no more about the person who is Neptunus Lex than anyone else who takes the time to read his Blog. And after I justify the sub-heading of this Post I will give you those links to Mariner Lex.
If you have come into the topic just now, then you may want to read the two Posts on fate.
The first Post was published on October 6th, the second Post the next day. In a sense, these Posts connect with the Carrier series by PBS that you can link to here.
The introduction to this Post was published yesterday. The rest of this Post is Lex’s words and published with his written permission.
I don’t tell this story very often. Although the events inside it happened almost 12 years ago, the memory is still fresh, and still painful.
Over the years I’ve told it to two ready rooms, both by way of instruction – a kind of “been there, seen that,” in order to prevent anything like it from ever happening again. But it’s not one of those sea stories you tell over a beer, among friends. It’s a sad story. Maybe I post this one. Maybe I don’t.
Mary King, another example of quiet achievement.
More on people who add up to something …
Through my young son’s school, we meet some of the other parents, as you might expect. As with any individuals, we are frequently learning of interesting aspects to their life stories. No doubt, there are many more private achievement and challenges which they have overcome; but then there are the public achievements.
A theme about flying, pilots and fate.
Many, many pilots whether civil or military or private, have read the book by Ernest K. Gann entitled Fate is the Hunter. Ernest Gann was born a little under a hundred years ago, on October 13th 1910 and died, aged 81, in 1991. He
is known, in the main, as an aviation writer and airline pilot pioneer but achieved much more besides.
Fate is the Hunter is a book about the workings of fate. And this Post is more than a reminder of Ernest Gann’s book and the message it carries, it is also about fate, as Part Two published tomorrow reveals.
Fate or serendipity has happened along to cause a number of recent Posts to be about flying. We had the Post about low-level RAF flight training in North Wales – Mach Loop. Then we had three Posts about air carrier operations prompted by the PBS Series, the first one being published on the 2nd October. Today, circumstance brought me to the Blog of another naval aviator, published by Neptunus Lex. More about him and links to the Blog later.
I want to set the scene by using the words of Ernest K Gann as he starts the preface to his book.
Sir Ranulph Fiennes, a British explorer.
How do we complete a journey? The easy answer is one step at a time; it turns out that that is also the hard answer!
The aspect of integrity that is related to “wholeness” is well illustrated by individuals who show a dedication to something over a long period. By continually taking small steps, the contributions of those steps accumulate to create substantial achievements.
Explorers seem to know a lot about this. They perform some extraordinary feats; and among explorers, one of the
most outstanding is Sir Ranulph Fiennes.
When asked about his approach to climbing Everest at the third attempt in May 2009 and, at age 65, the oldest Briton to do so, he captured the full spirit of separating actions from goals when he said:
Plod forever! Don’t expect to get there. Don’t think there is going to be a top to this mountain. Just plod forever!
His record of exploration is quite staggering, and he also the man who ran seven marathons on seven continents in seven days, shortly after having a heart bypass operation!
Oh, and as there is a faint geographical thread on this blog, he lives in the south west of England. [not far from John, Ed]
By John Lewis
Integrity as an idea that can deliver more than the sum of the parts
People who add up to something are remarkable, while at the same time being more common than we might think.
As I’ve discussed elsewhere, integrity is also about “wholeness”. The “adding up” aspect is relevant, because it links the parts to the whole. Many people achieve extreme and, sometimes, amazing feats; these are typically formed from many steps. But then to do that repeatedly, and continually exceeding one’s earlier achievements, has the effect of generating an overall record of achievement which is much greater than the sum of its parts.
A personal reflection on the emotions stirred by the PBS series on the USS Nimitz
The last three days have seen Posts on the USS Nimitz. On the 2nd there was the first part of air carrier operations specifically looking at the challenges of a pitching deck. On the 3rd came the second part as the pilots and crew operated into night, still with the deck of the USS Nimitz pitching significantly. Yesterday, the Post carried links to background information including the excellent web site that PBS have on the USS Nimitz series.
So why raise the question of integrity?
Baseline Scenario publishes an interesting post and triggers a wise comment.
Regular readers of Learning from Dogs will know that we greatly admire the job done by Simon Johnson, James Kwak and others over at Baseline Scenario in debating this global economic crisis.
The comments that flow in are fascinating and often deeply educational. Not surprising! Baseline Scenario has nearly 12,000 readers! But many of them show the level of anger and frustration felt by so many.
Anyway, a Post published by them on September 24th reminded me that hope is so much a more profitable emotion than anger. The Post starts like this,
Learning from Dogs 