Trivia Question: Who was the first Notre Dame football coach who was not a Notre Dame alum?
Bonus Question: Which college football coach was responsible for introducing the huddle, shifts, motions, reverses, end arounds, fakes, trick plays and numbered uniforms?
Have you ever sat and watched a gently flowing river on its course to the sea or lake and noticed the movements of a fallen leaf on the river’s surface?
The leaf seems to dance to its own rhythm as is rides gently across the path of the river, avoiding rocks and other impediments, never making sudden, jerky moves, never backing up, but positioning itself to always take the most efficient path. In this case the course may have taken many years/decades/centuries to develop.
Also take the example of accomplished athletes. Watch a Jerry Rice as he runs his pass patterns and notice how smooth and subtle his moves are: no sudden, drastic moves, just a very subtle head, shoulder or hip twitch as he completes his routs in a manner that few can emulate. He is almost ghostly as he gets to a particular point just as the ball arrives. It took a lifetime of practice to get to that level.
I used to think former NHL defenseman Paul Coffey was the smoothest skater imaginable until I attended an ice hockey skills development school in Guelph, Ontario, Canada several years ago. One of our coaches was Terry Gregson, a former, now retired NHL referee and one of his responsibilities was as our Powerskating Instructor. He was able to do all the moves of Paul Coffey but with a major difference; you couldn’t hear Gregson’s skates on the ice because there was no skidding or scraping, just a silent, very efficient and powerful cutting into the ice. He could even accelerate while gliding with neither skate leaving the ice and he could do it going both forward and backwards.
In the course of a typical NHL game he would skate about 12 miles and have to make all the moves that a player would but Terry did it without make any jerky moves, just power, efficiency and skill that took a lifetime to develop. I can’t tell you how many times in our games I was skating as fast as possible only to have him silently sneak up on me.
Also, look at a multi-lane freeway that has heavy traffic yet is still moving at a fairly rapid pace. Every once in a while you’ll see someone, either in a car or on a motorcycle, moving smoothly through that traffic at a slightly higher speed than anyone else, making smooth transitions from lane to lane, never braking, just making subtle speed adjustments and never being unsafe. It’s almost like the driver sees a path that is invisible to others yet crystal clear to this driver as he glides through traffic. This is a skill that takes years to master and is really amazing to watch.
The point of all this is to show examples of smoothness, efficiency and skill at the highest level that is also demonstrated by some ISE power users. They are able to go about their scheduling tasks in an almost ethereal way, navigating through the various pages and screens without ever having to unintentionally back up or calling up the wrong screen.
But the big difference between the ISE user and the examples above is those examples take years, lifetimes, centuries or more to develop. The ISE users I’m referring to took only weeks or a few months to reach their enviable level of smoothness and efficiency. And we all know that increases in efficiency means dollars saved. All it takes is three things, practice, practice and more practice.
Also see John Desmond’s columns for more ways to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your scheduling and reporting in ISE. He is a master of ISE from a management perspective.
Be safe out there.
Trivia Answer: Ara Parseghian (Notre Dame coach 1964-1974)
Bonus Answer: Amos Alonzo Stagg (coached at the college level with 3 different colleges from 1890 through 1946)
