<HTML>Start questioning yourself In the Sept. 18, 2000 issue of the St. Louis Post Dispatch Business section = is an article entitled, "Are you an excellent employee?" written by Dale Dau= ten, a businessman and author of a book called "The Gifted Boss". The articl= e deals with complacency in the work place, or "what do you do better now th= an six months ago?" Mr. Richard Gooding, VP of global strategy for Avnet, sa= id this to Mr. Dauten. "One of the biggest problems in corporate America is = creeping complacency. As soon as one task is mastered, you loose the intensi= ty. We take for granted that we know how to do every day tasks, with the exc= use, 'Oh, I know how to do this, I've done it a hundred times. I can wing it= '. That's when you start skimping on preparation, and stop double checking y= our facts". Mr. Gooding adds, "The trouble with experience is that you start= to think you're good, and that's when you relax". A learning curve should be an elongated S, eventually flattening out as it r= eaches the point of mastery. Unfortunately, in the real world, what happens = is that most people reach a certain level of competency, and then actually f= alls backwards, into negative learning when workers start to figure out how = to avoid work. So the danger isn't just learning, it's anti- learning. And t= hat leads to the Complacency Paradox: "The day you no longer need to ask oth= ers how to do your job is the day you must start questioning yourself". Have you been questioning yourself? Are you ready to give yourself the answe= rs to every problem you encounter?  Learning is a never ending process.= When is the last time you attended a seminar, institute or even a chapter t= ech session? Do you read the Journal every month? Surfing the net, and parti= cipating in Pianotech is certainly better than not doing anything. But are y= ou doing enough to better yourself? Are you better now than six months ago? = You know the answer. You know what needs to be done. Dallas is beckoning you= to beat the complacency paradox. Wim </HTML>