Are you nuts?

Creativity and schizophrenia have the same markers, you are kidding right?

"The study shows that highly creative people who did well on the divergent tests had a lower density of D2 receptors in the thalamus than less-creative people," Ullen said. "Schizophrenics are also known to have low D2 density in this part of the brain, suggesting a cause of the link between mental illness and creativity."

The thalamus region of the brain, the authors noted, is a kind of filter for information before it moves on to the cortex region, which handles understanding and reasoning.

The researchers pointed out that people with highly creative skills have previously been shown to also have a higher likelihood of having mental illness in their family. Creativity itself has also been associated with a modestly higher risk for both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

The Management Paradox:

Idris has an insightful post about the continual battle that occurs between order and chaos:

• Success and Failure: In order for people to succeed, you must first allow them to fail so they fail small and quickly and succeed big.
• Efficiency and Effectiveness: The customer is best served when the organization is efficient; the organization is effective when it puts the customer first.
• Control and Freedom: People need controls to be free. Freedom can only be bought with restraints. Empowering people without losing control and ensure efforts are aligned.
• Change and Stability: To change safely, we need a stable base. To find stability, we need to change ourselves often. Or as Alfred Whitehead put it: "The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.

The paradox is that if change is to be successful it requires revolutionary not evolution thinking. Too often entrepreneurs lull themselves into believing that small incremental tweaks are sufficient to keep ahead of the curve. The process enables a false sense of security as they sail their fragile vessels headlong into uncertainty.

Prejudging Customers:

When a customer walks in, we judge them. There is a human need to judge regardless of how much we discuss, teach, educate and instruct. The trait is no doubt adaptive as our ancestors survived because they were able to determine if friend or foe was approaching based on their looks, dress and carriage. The skills that were very useful on the eastern plains of Rift Valley are a hindrance in modern day restaurant settings.

It does matter, you can not know who that person is by what they look like, how they walk, talk or with whom they journey. Not everyone needs to be your customer however everyone is crucial to the viability of your restaurant. The deal that you have bought into when you created the restaurant was that you would give everyone exceptional services. Being aware that you prejudge helps to mitigate some of the notions you have and a great deal of the minutia that hampers your restaurant from providing exceptional customer service every time.

Creative Class:

Attracting the creative class, the dreamers, designers, artists, and artisans who shape our world should be one of your goals. This type of guest tends to be categorized as the pioneer, the early adapter, and the experimental. This group provides the best word of mouth advertising. Creative's create customer advocacy. Generalizing a bit, they tend to hang out in large metropolitan areas, as a group, are more open to new ideas. The dreamers push the envelope and require you to be innovative.