Apr
22
Indian Land
Filed Under Miscellaneous, Entrepreneurism, Management, Leadership, Sales
My wife and I recently took the kids on a two week driving trip through California. Along the way I decided to try and find something noteworthy to write about, along the key topics on which I dispense alleged wisdom (sales, leadership, management, & entrepreneurism). So..although I am fashionably late in crafting this prose, what follows are interesting posts and tidbits that I outlined on my blackberry while on our journey. Today’s topic… Indian Land.
In 1969 a group of Native American Indians relocated to the San Francisco Bay area. Shortly after arriving they decided to claim Alcatraz Island was automatically ceded to the Native American community based on an 1868 treaty that all abandoned, retired or out of use Federal land would be ceded back to the Native American people. They stayed on the island, in defiance of the US Government, for 18 months only to be forced off the island due to…lack of food, water and sanitation. You see, they seem to have forgotten to study their target and as a result did not realize that Alcatraz was partially abandoned by the US Government due to the enormous costs of bringing fresh water to the island and taking bathroom effluence off the island.
As in the above picture, where the excited and enthusiastic graffiti artist has written INDIAN LAND in defiance of the US Government (probably while pumping his fist in the air)…he failed to recognize there wasn’t enough room to write the entire word on the plaque (note: the bold / large INDIAN and the smaller squished-together LAND). I used to do that when I was in 2nd grade myself. The graffiti artist and the occupiers all failed to recognize and study their goals and opportunities before acting. Much like Sun Tzu said, “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” These fine young men and women with an otherwise noble cause, simply didn’t hear the noise before their defeat because they were too busy whooping and hollering about their perceived short-term victory.
How does that relate in business? ~ Study your goals, your targets, your agenda, your enemy before you take action. Forethought and foresight. In your business or entrepreneurial endeavor…do you think before you act? Is there enough room on your sign? And of course, do you know what to do with all the crap you create while you are fighting the good fight?
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Confederate sympathizers, lifer felons, roll-call for Alcatraz dwellers (and graffiti artists) with ill-conceived plans reads lengthy. Failed ventures…equally so.
You really like that word effluent. Nice closing question, easily overlooked.