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What's the plural for Mustang? Mustangs!
What's the plural for Hummer? Hummers!
What's the plural for Corolla? Corollas!
But what's the plural for Prius? Prius.
At least that's what Toyota says. But they don't mind if customers use whatever their hearts desire. What does Prius mean? It is a Latin term that means before, ahead, prior. So put in context Prius is that which goes before. Wikipedia says the true plural of Prius is Priora. Here is the section. If you know Latin, I suppose it's really easy to understand.
I once walked into a Lexus dealership. They were holding a raffle (or some kind of draw) to give away a brand new Lexus sedan. As we walked up, the receptionist called in a sales person to take care of us. We told him we weren't looking to buy a Lexus, but we wanted to participate in the raffle nevertheless. In our conversation we had mentioned the Prius. And surprisingly the salesman went into a rant about how the Prius causes more damage to the environment than it saves. His argument, and I had seen this before, was that the mining of nickel for the battery, shipping it to Japan, making the battery, shipping the car back to the USA and then in time disposing the battery causes more harm to the environment than a Hummer does. A CNW Marketing analysis named "Dust to Dust" made these same claims. I wonder if that's where he got his talking points from. Of course he didn't mention the tests conducted at MIT, Carnegie Mellon and Argonne National Laboratories that completely shredded the "Dust to Dust" report. Again, here is the section from Wikipedia.
Another time, when we rented a Prius for a road trip, the Hertz mechanic who was around when we picked out the car, said that hybrids are no good at all. They are weak and inefficient and what the world needs is a better gas engine. He also said global warming was sham, scam and nonsense. According to this rental car company mechanic, the Prius is just a political show-off. I was extremely polite when I reminded him that he was neither an engineer, nor a physicist, nor a climatologist and that his opinion, as entitled to it as he may be, is best stored in a dark damp place only he is familiar with.
I called Toyota once to ask them about these claims. They actually took the time to explain the fallacy of the naysayers' arguments.
Priora: the ones that go before. And truly they do. They herald a new era. They blaze a trail for other cars to follow. And indeed, following the rest are.
People who own Harley-Davidson motorcycles are loyal. Very loyal. It is said that a pre-owned HD motorbike is more expensive than a new one. Why? Because you have to persuade the owner to sell it. And that often takes quite a bit more cash than the price of a new one. Well, all that is fairly well known and I contributed nothing new to the world... yet.
Consider now, the Prius. This is not a Harley. In fact if anything it is the polar opposite of a Harley. Well, actually a Prius is the polar opposite of a Hummer, but you know, people who drive Hummers could just as well own Harleys or vice-versa: so it's not that different. The Prius commands quite some loyalty from their owners. I have not seen a single owner of a Prius who does not say, "I love my Prius!"
Think about it. How often do you hear that? How often do you hear a Chevy Blazer driver brag about their SUV saying, "I love my Blazer!" My friend who has a Blazer doesn't brag too often. Or even people who own their M3 or M5 (yeah, BMW) don't have such a strong rapport with their cars. They probably like driving their vehicles, but they don't think of it as an extension of themselves. It's almost as if the Prius was a pet. Like a dog, or horse. You love your dog. You love your Prius. You love to drive your Porsche (if you have one). But you love your Prius. I think that's pretty amazing. And of course your Prius loves you back as well. It saves you from spending your hard earned money to buy overpriced liquefied dinosaurs. And it keeps the air you breathe clean.
May be soon there will be a proverb: Love me, love my Prius.
How many times have you seen managers, directors, VPs and CEOs referred to as leaders? The business school I went to had a slightly different idea of a leader, but once I was out of b-school and inside the bowels of a big corporation, I saw the other meaning of the word.
Corporate leaders are more akin to feudal lords than they are to real leaders. They are no more worthy of the word than a baron or knight or fief is. Feudalism in the 17th century created an elaborate heirarchy. At the top was the king and the bottom was the peasants and serfs. Somewhere in between were the barons, the knights and so on. These decorated positions owed allegiance to the king and the king promised to give them land and protection. The poor people at the bottom worked for the profit of the nobility and did not own any land. The people above them were not chosen by them but thrust upon them by layers of "nobility" above. Of course this begs the question, how did they obtain this "nobility" in the first place? But I'll side step that question for now.
The whole point I am trying to make is, the poor serfs and peasants worked away their lives to make profits for their "lords". And these poor people had no say about who their lords were. It all depended on the king and how he chose his men and how that process trickled down.
I see a great parallel between this and the modern American coporations. The CEO and his entourage of VPs and Directors and Managers are like the "nobility". The individual contributor at the bottom is like the serf or peasant, who has no say whatsoever in the choice of their "lord". You can absolutely not speak up against your vassal, your fief. If you do, you run the risk to suffer the equivalent punishment of beheading: firing! Well not all companies are like that. But most are.
How are these people leaders? How can you be a leader if no one is willing to follow you? Sure people will follow if you threaten them with dismissal, after all most people have families to feed. But if you remove all incumbrances and allow people to make free choices would those people still claim that their bosses are leaders? Or would they rather call them oppressors? I have not seen one person in corporate America that can or will address this issue.
I do not mean to carry on. This is a relatively new idea but there are others that have done a great job explaining the whole issue. I highly recommend Dhruve. He has already done a fabulous job in explaining this line of thought. Read his manifesto when you have time. I have a copy, email me if you want it.
I have a serious case of writer's block. There was once a time when I could pick up a pen and a notepad and scribble away whatever came to my mind. Of late, (ever since I went to business school) that faculty of my mind seems to have waned away. I did have to write about five essays for each school I applied to. And once I was admitted, I had to write a lot. Business school, unlike engineering school, is not cut and dry and there are no brief, short answers. Every answer or rather every question is very vague and can be interpreted in various different ways and therefore no answer is considered wrong. You can be as verbose as you want to be and drift off-topic as much as you like but your answer can still count. Instead of a 10-on-10 score you may only score a 6-on-10. I made sure to not lose such ample opportunity to ramble when I didn't know how to answer a question. The habit perhaps took out all the words and their meaningful juxtapositions from my brain and hence I cannot write anymore. Nothing of substance at least. This is perhaps the longest paragraph I have written in a while, but rest assured, I will be back in form sooner than I suspect.
There's a lot I have to write about. Too many topics, too little time.
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