Management Discussion Questions

1. The best way to incorporate eastern philosophy into everyday decision making is to follow the advice of the Lao Tzu quote from this weeks’ article at the beginning of the reading:

When the time is not yet ripe to act, and you are waiting on the fringes of the situation, you will not go wrong if you remain steady and avoid giving in to impulse.

Patience is indeed a virtue, and yet in the western business world, the trend is toward expedience. The middle ground between the quick and the patient is the hardest to find, however, excessive caution can often create as many issues as excessive haste.

We often make expedient decisions because we want to be first, because many view first as best. Being first to get to market with your product, being first bidder, being first to acquire something in order to beat out your competitor, etc. There are also issues of pressures from bosses and clients, time constraints, or project checkpoints or deadlines.

Every decision I make, I question whether or not I was too hasty or too slow. Recently, in the effort to secure an apartment, I have run into several problems based on my hesitance or haste in making decisions. For example: I didn’t call the realtor fast enough and missed the property. Or, I acquired this property, but a better property is now on the market for a better price. There are several things I could have done in order to make a different decision, but often, outside factors effect our decision making in unexpected ways. I could have saved longer and had a better cash reserve to enable a quick decision on the property, and establish a deposit or down payment before my competitors. I could have made the decision not to settle on price or location, but had the patience to wait for the right location AND the right price.

2. 1) A large portion of my lead data is out of date or unusable.

2) Many of the leads I have started with are old and have not been properly maintained.

3) Determine what...