"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." - From a sign hanging in Albert Einstein's office at Princeton.







Storyline:

1. The famous Golden Gate Bridge was the largest suspension bridge in the world at the time of its completion in 1937. Joseph Strauss, the chief engineer who designed the bridge, demanded extremely rigorous safety precautions that were not normally used in those times. Some of these, like using a safety net, are now amongst today’s most basic safety standards.

During those times, "one life lost for every million dollars spent" was considered normal and acceptable. Since the bridge cost $35 million dollars, the fact that only 11 people died during its construction was hailed as an all-time record, and a magnificent achievement.

Indeed, 11 deaths resulting from the project instead of 35 could be considered a good reduction. Does this achievement matter to the families and friends of those 11 people? What might have been done differently if the accepted standard was (like today) that nobody should die?

2. In the mid 1990s, during the peak of the Internet boom, one fellow was working for a promising startup involved in making graphic chips for computers. One day, during final qualification tests, the fellow noticed that the images on the computer screen often showed a few missing pixels (empty spaces), while similar chips from competitors showed smooth images with no defects. He recommended against shipping the samples to customers, and asked that the problem be fixed.

The fuming engineering head (who was also the founder of the company) walked into this fellow’s office. He told this fellow "What do you mean by saying our chip is not good? We have the best algorithm on the market. Do you realize how many man hours we spent on developing it and how many lines of code have been written?"

Replied the fellow "But we are not selling lines of code and man hours, we are selling the thing that is supposed to create smooth images on the screen."

A week later, the fellow was released from the company for not having enough technical depth required to understand the complexity of the company's products. Sometime later that company, not being able to gain customer acceptance, vanished and was never heard from again.

3. Some time ago, a very successful executive had announced his retirement after 35 years of an illustrious career. I went to his office to say goodbye and wish him well. During our chat, I asked him "What were the most memorable moments of your career?"

Knowing about his track record and reputation, I was expecting to hear about the number of patents that he had created, how many new products he had introduced, the number of deals he had done, or the amount of money he made to provide financial independence for next few generations.

Instead, to my surprise, he opened a scrapbook. Inside, there were notes from many people: from all walks of life and from all levels of organizations. Some were simple sentences and some were a few paragraphs. All of them were personal: some acknowledging his contributions and many notes of thanks and appreciation for the difference he had made in people's lives.