Literature and insights
The human mind is amazing. Confronted with a problem, it can sometimes find unexpected solutions. Here is a device that can equally accommodate wonderful inspiration and lateral thinking that leads to life-saving discoveries, and yet it also has the ability to persevere with searching for that lost coin under the dresser long beyond the point where the effort was warranted. What a curious thing.
If we focus on the clever aspects for now, we might still ask what leads us to moments of epiphany? How do we suddenly see some things and yet fail to see others? There was a time in the recent history of the Harley Davidson motorcycle company when it seized an opportunity that it almost did not recognise:
Harley’s Custom Vehicles Operation (CVO) was set up in 1999 after the company’s accountants complained about the cost of a large, near-empty warehouse in Wisconsin! It had a few frames and various bits and pieces –some one-off parts and some production items – just lying around…CVO was formed so the inventory could be given a label in the books which the accountants would be happy with (Kevin Ash, 2006, “Heavy Metal”, Two Wheels, March, p. 61).
CVO thrives! Who were these people? I like to think that the accountants concerned in this instance actually had a generous and cunning plan to lead their non-accounting colleagues into just the right frame of mind to think that the idea was their own, and therefore to thoroughly commit to it.
For each occasion with it’s suddenly “obvious” solution,there are times when we plug away at the small things with no real prospect of suitable reward. Time can be frittered away in the pursuit of that last bit of improvement, the overcoming of that last niggling little error – or it can be spent wisely. In this issue’s Literature and Insights offerings we have a range of meditations on the life of accountants, on time and effort, and on gaining the right perspective on things.
Do not forget to send in your own writing. It may appear in a future issue of the AAAJ!
Steve EvansLiterary Editor
