I’ve written many times about my love of history and the role it takes in our lives. Just this month, we lost an American who had played a pivotal role in our recent history and had an impact across the world, George Shultz.
George Shultz was an American government official, economist, and businessman. He served in two different administrations as Secretary of State, Secretary of Labor, Secretary of the Treasury, and Director of The Office of Management and Budget. In his free time, he worked in academia and commercial business.
As I read about him after his death, I discovered that some of his core values are similar to my own. In a recent WSJ article about his life, they shared a story from a 1971 speech he made to the Economic Club in Chicago regarding goals and direction.
“Those of you familiar with sailing know what a telltale is — a strip of cloth tied to a mast to show which way the wind is blowing,” he explained. “A captain has the choice of steering his ship by the telltale, following the prevailing winds, or to steer by the compass. In a democracy, you must keep your eye on the telltale, but you must set your course by the compass.”
What struck me about this statement was:
- Always begin by defining your goal – Destination
- Know the direction you need to travel – Compass
- Adjust your course based on facts – Telltale
I didn’t realize before now that our team is a purveyor of George Shultz’s philosophy.
I appreciate the role we play in enabling the availability of factual data to help teams move in the direction of their goals. The purpose of our mobilePLUS unique item inventory solution is to ease the effort and time needed to ensure the best information available for making critical decisions. We are your telltale!
“The goal is to turn data into information and information into insight.” – Carly Fiorina, former chief executive officer, Hewlett Packard
Whether you’re a Workday, PeopleSoft, DPAS, government, commercial, or higher education organization, we may have an opportunity for you to improve your data. We have helped countless organizations for more than two decades, both big and small, with a single location or hundreds worldwide, improve their operations. We welcome the opportunity to talk with you about the “telltale” role we may provide your organization.
