I talk about Personal Growth, Management, Infrastructure and More | 👇JOIN +2k readers 👇
You didn't know this about the Chunnel
|
The Channel Tunnel, or "Chunnel," connecting the UK and France, was one of the most ambitious engineering feats of the 20th century. Over £9 billion or about $21 billion today. 50.5 kilometers (31.4 miles) of tunnel under the English Channel. Politicians smelling the blood of taxpayers… Paradise for corruption and things that can go wrong. During the project, some lonely managers noticed something strange. The daily records for soil removal from the British side of the tunnel didn’t add up. Thousands of cubic meters of chalk and dirt were being excavated, but the number of dump trucks required to remove it kept fluctuating wildly. Some days there were too many trucks, and on others, there were too few. They decided to investigate. Trucks were "disappearing" before completing their assigned trips to the dumping zones. Curiously only on the British side… Pirates! Well… In the Kent countryside near the British side of the tunnel, fertile soil was at a premium. Word had spread among farmers that the chalky spoil being excavated from the tunnel was perfect for enriching their fields. Every night, farmers were sneaking onto the construction site and bribing drivers to "accidentally" dump their loads on private farmland instead of at the official disposal sites. Some drivers were reportedly paid £50-£100 per load, and the farmers, thrilled with their new topsoil, happily spread it across their fields… This illustrates the unexpected challenges of managing logistics on massive construction sites. As well as creativity of local communities, my friend, in "participating" in infrastructure projects… And missed business opportunities… I created a document with the more important lessons learned of my last project. Probably not as spectacular… but some of them equally laughable.
​
PD 1: If you liked this email, don't keep it in secret and forward it to a friend. They will thank you enormously one day. PD 2: If somebody has sent you this email and you want to receive emails like this yourself, visit vicentevalencia.com PD 3: If you want unsubscribe, click the link below. |
Vicente Valencia
I talk about Personal Growth, Management, Infrastructure and More | 👇JOIN +2k readers 👇
Last year, talking with a big guy in a big company, he showed me their offices. “Look at all the meetings,” he said. “They’re working hard.” As a consultant now, I’m always curious and put into test what I’ve learned the hard way through the years. And let me tell you some data. Studies show that the average employee is only truly productive for about 60% of the workday. In office jobs that translates to roughly 2 hours and 53 minutes of focused work out of 8 hours. Same hours. Much less real...
Too many products. Too many versions. Too much confusion. And the CEO comes back. He walks into a product meeting. Engineers proud. Slides prepared. Roadmaps built. He listens. And listens. And listens. Then he walks to the whiteboard. Draws a simple 2x2 grid. Consumer / Pro. Desktop / Portable. “That’s it,” he says. Everything else? Gone. Not optimized. Not restructured. Killed. In one meeting, he cut roughly 70% of the product line. Imagine the room. Years of work. Teams built around those...
Anything that is alive is in a continual state of change and movement. The moment that you rest, thinking that you have attained the level you desire, a part of your mind enters a phase of decay. You lose your hard-earned creativity and others begin to sense it. This is a power and intelligence that must be continually renewed, or it will die ---- Robert Greene If you ever wonder what I’m doing at 10pm in New Zealand, just when I’m writing this email… You’ve got your answer. I said many times...