Showing posts with label Harry Potter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Harry Potter. Show all posts

Monday, October 8, 2012

Thank Goodness It's Monday #377

DISCOVERING LESSONS FROM 1492
THAT COULD STILL CHANGE THE WORLD TODAY

Goodbye Columbus? Today we’re commemorating -- and maybe celebrating -- the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the New World.
 
File:Christopher Columbus Face.jpg
Hello ...
Columbus?

Even the image we have of Chris
may be inaccurate,
unless it’s this one,
a detail from the painting
Virgin of the Navigators,
done by Alejo Fernández (1475 -1545)
between 1505 and 1536.
 
The state-sponsored painting was commissioned
for a chapel in Seville's Casa de Contratación
(House of Trade) and remains there to this day,
as the earliest known painting
about the discovery of the Americas.
But why? These days we know that much of the simplistic “everyone thought the world was flat” stuff we learned in Grammar School about “The Admiral of the Ocean Sea” is far from historically authentic.

These days we recognize there’s a lot more to the story. For starters --

·        Christopher Columbus didn’t actually accomplish what he intended (reach China and India by sailing West from Europe).
·        In 4 voyages he barely touched the continental landmass (and never North America).
·        It took a long time to realize that. (His refusal to accept that the lands he had visited and claimed for Spain were not part of Asia might explain, in part, why the American continent was named after the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci and not after Columbus.)
·        He did some hard-to-justify things to the locals as well as crew members and individuals who represented him.
·        He wasn’t exactly a master of team management, modern style. Almost immediately he faced mutinies and folks conspiring to undermine his royal relationships.
·        He certainly didn’t produce the ROI his underwriters expected on his initial voyages.
·        And more. Much, much more.

Still … 

Chris was a persistent guy, no doubt. And he did do what no one before him had knowingly done. (In the 11th Century Leif Ericson and those “northern” sailors who stumbled on the “New World” were just kinda knocking around the neighborhood and weren’t on an all-out quest to get to the East by sailing West.)
 
When all is said and done –

Quirky Christopher Columbus
changed the world’s perception of,
well,
THE WORLD!
 
TGIM ACTION IDEA: Not many folks do that. So on this 2012 Columbus Day, let’s quit knocking the guy long enough to see what we can find to emulate.

TGIM IDEA IN ACTION: To start the process, here are some thoughts grounded in historic Columbus-circa-1492 precedent that we can all apply, even in this modern age: 

►Think big. CC wasn’t just a guy with crazy ideas; he was a persistent, quirky guy with the courage of his convictions and the intent of executing his ideas at a grand scale. He had a plan. And when he presented it, he backed it up with convincing evidence. And, in the aggregate, he executed the key parts of his plan successfully.

Connect with the right people. And persist. Ferdinand and Isabella weren’t the first monarchs that Columbus asked for support. He pitched his plan to many including Henry VII of England, Charles VIII of France, John II of Portugal, and twice to Ferdinand II & Isabella I, Monarchs of Aragon, Castile, and Leon in Spain, before they were convinced. It took him years, but he finally got royal backing for his endeavors. 

►Play the game. He told the powers that be what they wanted to hear in order to get the job done. In addition to the enticement of a fast-track to the riches of the East, he had a strong, lets-go-convert-the-heathen-natives pitch that appealed to the Catholic monarchs of Spain.

Provide value. Know what you’re bringing to the negotiation. Columbus was convincing enough that the monarchs gave him an allowance, and gave him a letter ordering all cities and towns under their domain to provide him food and lodging at no cost. They didn’t want him to go elsewhere with his ideas. 

►Know your value. Ferdinand & Isabella promised Columbus that, if he succeeded, he would be given the rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and appointed Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands he could claim for Spain. He would be entitled to 10% of all the revenues from the New Lands in perpetuity. In addition he would also have the option of buying one-eighth interest in any commercial venture with the New Lands and receive one-eighth of the profits. And he also had the right to nominate three persons (from whom the sovereigns would choose one) for any office in the New Lands.

Concentrate on your strengths. Hire the skills you need. CC was NOT first and foremost a mariner. He began his career path in 1473 as a business agent. So he hired sailors and experienced sea captains. He ran the expedition and navigated as an executive, not the guy hoisting sails and steering.

Communicate with confidence. Columbus knew he would be commanding a team that spoke different languages. In order to communicate well, he spoke the language of his people. Although his first language was a rough Genoese dialect of Lingurian, he was ambitious enough to learn Latin, Portuguese, and Castilian. 

Chart your own course with confidence. A self-educated, independent thinker, Columbus had the courage of his convictions. On his first voyage this helped him successfully return to Spain. Instead of going back the way they came, he used his knowledge of Trade Winds going East (the “Easterlies”) which convinced him to sail Northeast to the middle latitudes to catch the “Westerlies,” thereby avoiding putting unnecessary strain on his ships and crew.

►Share your special knowledge. When in 1503, his crew was beached for a year in Jamaica, the natives helped get water and food. That relationship kept them alive. Columbus balanced the equation by predicting a lunar eclipse, thus impressing the natives with his unique talent. Street cred, baby.

Stay alert for unexpected opportunities. When Columbus met the New World natives and noted how fast they were learning the language his crew spoke, he wrote, "I believe that people from the mainland come here to take them as slaves. They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them." 

Build your brand. All in all, despite being vilified and imprisoned by his sponsors between his third and fourth voyages, Chris and his family (brothers and children) remained prominent and somewhat recognized for their accomplishments in their day. 

And, hey! Five centuries+ later, it’s Christopher Columbus -- not name-on-a-map Amerigo Vespucci -- who reigns in the history books and has monuments and holidays and cities and countries around the New World named for him.

TGIM Takeaway: The world is not flat. There’s always something new to discover for those who make the effort. And even a deeply flawed man like Christopher Columbus has life lessons to teach us.

Smooth sailing to you this Columbus Day -- and in all the days ahead.

Geoff Steck   
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing
8 Depot Square
Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373
tgimguy@gmail.com
 
P. S. A nautical aside for Harry Potter fans: A corresponding efficient-Trade-Winds-travelling-technique to the one employed by Columbus (see "Chart your own course ..." above) appears to have been discovered first by the Portuguese, who referred to it as the Volta do mar ("Turn of the sea.") What do you think?