Discover the 90/10 Principle. It will change your life (at least the way you react to situations).
What is this principle?
10% of life is made up of what happens to you.
90% of life is decided by how you react. What does this mean?
We really have no control over 10% of what happens to us. We cannot stop the car from breaking down. The plane will be late arriving, which throws our whole schedule off. A driver may cut us off in traffic. We have no control over this 10%. The other 90% is different. You determine the other 90%.
How? By your reaction. You cannot control a red light. However, you can control your reaction. Do not let people fool you; YOU can control how you react.Let us use an example: You are eating breakfast with your family. Your daughter knocks over a cup of coffee onto your business shirt. You have no control over what just happened. What happens next will be determined by how you react. You curse. You harshly scold your daughter for knocking the cup over. She breaks down in tears. After scolding her, you turn to your spouse and criticize her for placing the cup too close to the edge of the table. A short verbal battle follows. You storm upstairs and change your shirt. Back downstairs, you find your daughter has been too busy crying to finish breakfast and get ready for school. She misses the bus. Your spouse must leave immediately for work.You rush to the car and drive your daughter to school. Because you are late, you drive 40 miles an hour in a 30 mph speed limit zone. After a 15-minute delay and throwing $60 traffic fine away, you arrive at school. Your daughter runs into the building without saying good-bye.
After arriving at the office 20 minutes late, you find you forgot your briefcase. Your day has started terrible. As it continues, it seems to get worse and worse. You look forward to coming home, When you arrive home, you find small wedge in your relationship with your spouse and daughter.
Why? Because of how you reacted in the morning. Why did you have a bad day?
A. Did the coffee cause it?
B. Did your daughter cause it?
C. Did the policeman cause it?
D. Did you cause it?
The answer is "D".
You had no control over what happened with the coffee. How you reacted in those 5 seconds is what caused your bad day. Here is what could have and should have happened. Coffee splashes over you. Your daughter is about to cry. You gently say, "Its OK honey, you just need to be more careful next time". Grabbing a towel, you rush upstairs.After grabbing a new shirt and your briefcase, you come back down in time to look through the window and see your child getting on the bus. She turns and waves.
You arrive 5 minutes early and cheerfully greet the staff. Your boss comments on how good the day you are having.
Notice the difference?
Two different scenarios. Both started the same. Both ended different. Why? Because of how you REACTED. You really do not have any control over 10% of what happens. The other 90% was determined by your reaction. Here are some ways to apply the 90/10 principle.
If someone says something negative about you, do not be a sponge. Let the attack roll off like water on glass. You do not have to let the negative comment affect you! React properly and it will not ruin your day. A wrong reaction could result in losing a friend, being fired, getting stressed out etc.
How do you react if someone cuts you off in traffic?
* Do you lose your temper?
* Pound on the steering wheel? (A friend of mine had the steering wheel fall Off)
* Do you curse?
* Does your blood pressure skyrocket?
* Do you try to bump them?
WHO CARES if you arrive ten seconds later at work? Why let the cars ruin your drive.
Remember the 90/10 principle, and do not worry about it. You are told you lost your job. Why lose sleep and get irritated? It will work out. Use your worrying energy and time into finding another job.
The plane is late; it is going to mangle your schedule for the day. Why take out your frustration on the flight attendant? She has no control over what is going on. Use your time to study, get to know the other passenger. Why are stressed out? It will just make things worse. Now you know the 90-10 principle. Apply it and you will be amazed at the results. You will lose nothing if you try it.
The 90-10 principle is incredible. Very few know and apply this principle.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
The Oz Principle
This article is based on the following book:
The Oz Principle : Getting Results Through Individual and Organizational Accountability
In The Oz Principle, Connors, Smith, and Hickman brilliantly use the analogy of “The Wizard of Oz” to discuss a business philosophy aimed in propelling individuals and organizations to overcome unfavorable circumstances and achieve desired results. This philosophy can be encompassed in one word: ACCOUNTABILITY.
The eponymous principle builds upon the ethos of personal and organizational accountability. It explores the root cause of an organization’s impediments to exceptional performance and productivity, and provides great insight on how to re-establish a business from the bottom up, emphasizing on the thin line that separates success from failure. The Above The Line, Below The Line methodology is the driving force behind The Oz Principle.
The Oz Principle: Getting Results through Accountability
Just like Dorothy’s search for the Wizard of Oz for enlightenment, individuals and organizations also seek out the wizard that will save them from the maladies that afflict their workplace. However, the wizard is just a distraction, bearing new-fangled business philosophies and management fads that will only create a layer atop the ugly truth that needs to be revealed. When the core problem is not addressed, the ills will eventually resurface and the business is back to its sorry state.
Victim Thinking or Failed Accountability
When a company suffers from poor performance or unsatisfactory results, individuals from top management all the way to the front line begin finger-pointing, forming excuses, rationalizing, and justifying, instead of doing something to alleviate the situation. They foolishly profess that the circumstances have made victims of them, that the events are completely out of their control, and that they shouldn’t be blamed for the company’s current problems. It’s always something or someone else, never themselves.
Above The Line, Below The Line
A thin line separates failure and success, greatness and mediocrity.Above The Line, you’ll find the Steps to Accountability which include in chronological order: See It, Own It, Solve It, and Do It. The first step, See It, means acknowledging the problem; to Own It is to assume responsibility for the problem and the results; Solve It means to formulate solutions to remedy the situation; and, as a culminating step, Do It commands the practical application of the solutions identified.
Below The Line is where the self-professed victims play The Blame Game. Here, crippling attitudes such as Wait and See, Confusion/Tell Me What To Do, It’s Not My Job, Ignore/Deny, Finger Pointing, and Cover Your Tail are rampant. Though majority of the people found in this dimension are weak in accountability, this does not mean that very accountable individuals are exempt from falling Below The Line. They, too, slip every now and then. The only difference is that they know how to get out of the rut.
A Simple Solution to Victimization
Individuals and organizations Below The Line languish in self-pity until they get trapped in the “I Am a Victim” mind-set and find it hard to break free from the vicious cycle. Accountability offers a very simple choice to make, albeit a difficult one to act upon: “You can either get stuck or get results.” So stark in its simplicity that most people fail to realize that the ball has always been in their court.
The Power of Individual Accountability: Moving Yourself Above The Line
The first step to accountability is recognizing the problem. It takes great courage to admit that you are stuck in a difficult situation. Most people, however, fail to view reality the way it is because they choose to ignore it or they accept the situation as the status quo and go along with it.
To commence the march up the Steps to Accountability, you must first muster the courage to: a) recognize when you fall Below The Line; b) realize that remaining Below The Line not only ignores the real problem but leads to increasingly poor results; and c) acknowledge and accept reality as the first step toward taking accountability.
Mustering the courage to See It will lead to the next step, Owning It. Here, you must have the heart to own the circumstances you’ve recognized in the See It step as well as the results that will come from the course of action you plan to take.
“What else can I do to rise above my circumstances and achieve the results I want?” That is the question to continually ask yourself when you find yourself stuck in a stubborn situation. Apart from creating solutions, Solving It also involves foresight in determining the worst possible scenario that can happen, and being prepared to battle it head on.
Having solutions is not enough if you neglect practical application. You can’t Do It unless you make yourself accountable not only for immediate circumstances but also for future accomplishment. With this, you are empowering not only yourself but also your organization.
It’s so easy to be pulled back Below The Line, especially if you don’t accept full accountability for the situation and the future. A lot people are afraid to become accountable because they fear the risks associated with it. However, know that without taking the big leap, you will never get anywhere.
The Oz Principle : Getting Results Through Individual and Organizational Accountability
In The Oz Principle, Connors, Smith, and Hickman brilliantly use the analogy of “The Wizard of Oz” to discuss a business philosophy aimed in propelling individuals and organizations to overcome unfavorable circumstances and achieve desired results. This philosophy can be encompassed in one word: ACCOUNTABILITY.
The eponymous principle builds upon the ethos of personal and organizational accountability. It explores the root cause of an organization’s impediments to exceptional performance and productivity, and provides great insight on how to re-establish a business from the bottom up, emphasizing on the thin line that separates success from failure. The Above The Line, Below The Line methodology is the driving force behind The Oz Principle.
The Oz Principle: Getting Results through Accountability
Just like Dorothy’s search for the Wizard of Oz for enlightenment, individuals and organizations also seek out the wizard that will save them from the maladies that afflict their workplace. However, the wizard is just a distraction, bearing new-fangled business philosophies and management fads that will only create a layer atop the ugly truth that needs to be revealed. When the core problem is not addressed, the ills will eventually resurface and the business is back to its sorry state.
Victim Thinking or Failed Accountability
When a company suffers from poor performance or unsatisfactory results, individuals from top management all the way to the front line begin finger-pointing, forming excuses, rationalizing, and justifying, instead of doing something to alleviate the situation. They foolishly profess that the circumstances have made victims of them, that the events are completely out of their control, and that they shouldn’t be blamed for the company’s current problems. It’s always something or someone else, never themselves.
Above The Line, Below The Line
A thin line separates failure and success, greatness and mediocrity.Above The Line, you’ll find the Steps to Accountability which include in chronological order: See It, Own It, Solve It, and Do It. The first step, See It, means acknowledging the problem; to Own It is to assume responsibility for the problem and the results; Solve It means to formulate solutions to remedy the situation; and, as a culminating step, Do It commands the practical application of the solutions identified.
Below The Line is where the self-professed victims play The Blame Game. Here, crippling attitudes such as Wait and See, Confusion/Tell Me What To Do, It’s Not My Job, Ignore/Deny, Finger Pointing, and Cover Your Tail are rampant. Though majority of the people found in this dimension are weak in accountability, this does not mean that very accountable individuals are exempt from falling Below The Line. They, too, slip every now and then. The only difference is that they know how to get out of the rut.
A Simple Solution to Victimization
Individuals and organizations Below The Line languish in self-pity until they get trapped in the “I Am a Victim” mind-set and find it hard to break free from the vicious cycle. Accountability offers a very simple choice to make, albeit a difficult one to act upon: “You can either get stuck or get results.” So stark in its simplicity that most people fail to realize that the ball has always been in their court.
The Power of Individual Accountability: Moving Yourself Above The Line
The first step to accountability is recognizing the problem. It takes great courage to admit that you are stuck in a difficult situation. Most people, however, fail to view reality the way it is because they choose to ignore it or they accept the situation as the status quo and go along with it.
To commence the march up the Steps to Accountability, you must first muster the courage to: a) recognize when you fall Below The Line; b) realize that remaining Below The Line not only ignores the real problem but leads to increasingly poor results; and c) acknowledge and accept reality as the first step toward taking accountability.
Mustering the courage to See It will lead to the next step, Owning It. Here, you must have the heart to own the circumstances you’ve recognized in the See It step as well as the results that will come from the course of action you plan to take.
“What else can I do to rise above my circumstances and achieve the results I want?” That is the question to continually ask yourself when you find yourself stuck in a stubborn situation. Apart from creating solutions, Solving It also involves foresight in determining the worst possible scenario that can happen, and being prepared to battle it head on.
Having solutions is not enough if you neglect practical application. You can’t Do It unless you make yourself accountable not only for immediate circumstances but also for future accomplishment. With this, you are empowering not only yourself but also your organization.
It’s so easy to be pulled back Below The Line, especially if you don’t accept full accountability for the situation and the future. A lot people are afraid to become accountable because they fear the risks associated with it. However, know that without taking the big leap, you will never get anywhere.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Ideas Are Free
By Alan G. Robinson and Dean M. Schroeder
Without great ideas, no organization can stay afloat, much less flourish. Managers and top executives are constantly struggling to come up with big ones – creative marketing strategies, ingenious cost-cutting schemes and other corporate solutions that will save time and money and improve productivity. But what few of them realize is that right under their noses is a virtually limitless source of valuable ideas – ideas that can revolutionize their company and help bring substantial and sustainable competitive advantage. These great ideas come, surprisingly, from the lowest point of the corporate food chain – from the frontline employees who do the “dirty” work and who therefore see a lot of problems and opportunities that their managers do not.
Employee ideas are a lot more valuable than most managers think. More importantly, they can be had virtually for free, if you know how. This book teaches the most effective methods for tapping this “hidden” resource, based on extensive research in more than 300 organizations around the world. It offers precise techniques for setting up an idea management system that can empower your people, transform your organization and make you a much more effective leader.
The Idea Revolution
In traditional companies there are two distinct types of workers:
• The thinkers – the supervisors, managers and other executives; and
• The doers – the frontline employees.
The rationale behind this division is that regular workers are not capable of the kind of critical thinking needed for problem solving and strategy formulation, and therefore they should not participate in brainstorming.
The Idea Revolution invites you to break free from this old, limiting thinking pattern and to change the rules, because the truth is that although your frontline workers may indeed not have the knack for strategic planning, they do possess other, equally valuable type of knowledge – detailed, practical information about the company’s daily operations, and common sense. Because they are actually where the action is, so to speak, they see a lot of things that you do not – what the customers really need, what machines are not working, what is being wasted. And often they know what to do to make things better.
The only thing you need to do is to ask and to welcome, not discourage, their ideas.
Why Employee Ideas are Important
In most organizations only the first type of knowledge is encouraged. The other kind is not only discouraged, but actually suppressed. But actually both are needed to run an efficient company. Managers and employees need to cooperate, to contribute what they know in order to come up with workable solutions and significant improvements.
Managers and supervisors can tend to generalize issues and gloss over certain details, while employees who work directly with what is causing the problem know exactly what is wrong and what should be done about it. Their knowledge of the problem is direct and intimate, and they can provide accurate solutions. They know things by experience, not by theory.
The Power of Small Ideas
Big ideas are always more attractive – they are splashier, grander, always more promising. Managers are therefore more likely to weed out “small” ideas and go for the really big ones, the “home runs” – those that could help generate millions of dollars in revenue or topple the competition, instantly. But when it comes to ideas, small does not always mean ineffective or weak. In fact, in organizations it is often smarter to focus on small ideas rather than on big ones.
Idea Management
As simple as it sounds, getting and using employee ideas to improve your organization’s performance entails a lot of planning, preparation and hard work. Two crucial issues that you would have to deal with are:
• How can the employees be encouraged or motivated to come up with so many ideas?
• Who has time to deal with all of them?
After all, once the ideas start pouring in, they would each have to be evaluated, and then implemented. These are non-value adding tasks that can take up all of your valuable time. The only way you can effectively manage employee ideas is by setting up a good idea system, one that will make the process, which can become messy, organized and productive.
Profound Change
By encouraging the free flow of ideas, you will have the opportunity to bring about a profound transformation within your organization, one that could not only boost its overall performance, but would also liberate the people who work within it.
Idea systems have the power to change the very culture of an organization, by bringing about more trust, respect, openness, commitment and harmony among its people.
When employees see that their ideas are valued, their attitudes change, from one of detachment and frustration to involvement and fulfillment. This not only uplifts the quality of their lives, but also brings about real growth in the organization.
Without great ideas, no organization can stay afloat, much less flourish. Managers and top executives are constantly struggling to come up with big ones – creative marketing strategies, ingenious cost-cutting schemes and other corporate solutions that will save time and money and improve productivity. But what few of them realize is that right under their noses is a virtually limitless source of valuable ideas – ideas that can revolutionize their company and help bring substantial and sustainable competitive advantage. These great ideas come, surprisingly, from the lowest point of the corporate food chain – from the frontline employees who do the “dirty” work and who therefore see a lot of problems and opportunities that their managers do not.
Employee ideas are a lot more valuable than most managers think. More importantly, they can be had virtually for free, if you know how. This book teaches the most effective methods for tapping this “hidden” resource, based on extensive research in more than 300 organizations around the world. It offers precise techniques for setting up an idea management system that can empower your people, transform your organization and make you a much more effective leader.
The Idea Revolution
In traditional companies there are two distinct types of workers:
• The thinkers – the supervisors, managers and other executives; and
• The doers – the frontline employees.
The rationale behind this division is that regular workers are not capable of the kind of critical thinking needed for problem solving and strategy formulation, and therefore they should not participate in brainstorming.
The Idea Revolution invites you to break free from this old, limiting thinking pattern and to change the rules, because the truth is that although your frontline workers may indeed not have the knack for strategic planning, they do possess other, equally valuable type of knowledge – detailed, practical information about the company’s daily operations, and common sense. Because they are actually where the action is, so to speak, they see a lot of things that you do not – what the customers really need, what machines are not working, what is being wasted. And often they know what to do to make things better.
The only thing you need to do is to ask and to welcome, not discourage, their ideas.
Why Employee Ideas are Important
In most organizations only the first type of knowledge is encouraged. The other kind is not only discouraged, but actually suppressed. But actually both are needed to run an efficient company. Managers and employees need to cooperate, to contribute what they know in order to come up with workable solutions and significant improvements.
Managers and supervisors can tend to generalize issues and gloss over certain details, while employees who work directly with what is causing the problem know exactly what is wrong and what should be done about it. Their knowledge of the problem is direct and intimate, and they can provide accurate solutions. They know things by experience, not by theory.
The Power of Small Ideas
Big ideas are always more attractive – they are splashier, grander, always more promising. Managers are therefore more likely to weed out “small” ideas and go for the really big ones, the “home runs” – those that could help generate millions of dollars in revenue or topple the competition, instantly. But when it comes to ideas, small does not always mean ineffective or weak. In fact, in organizations it is often smarter to focus on small ideas rather than on big ones.
Idea Management
As simple as it sounds, getting and using employee ideas to improve your organization’s performance entails a lot of planning, preparation and hard work. Two crucial issues that you would have to deal with are:
• How can the employees be encouraged or motivated to come up with so many ideas?
• Who has time to deal with all of them?
After all, once the ideas start pouring in, they would each have to be evaluated, and then implemented. These are non-value adding tasks that can take up all of your valuable time. The only way you can effectively manage employee ideas is by setting up a good idea system, one that will make the process, which can become messy, organized and productive.
Profound Change
By encouraging the free flow of ideas, you will have the opportunity to bring about a profound transformation within your organization, one that could not only boost its overall performance, but would also liberate the people who work within it.
Idea systems have the power to change the very culture of an organization, by bringing about more trust, respect, openness, commitment and harmony among its people.
When employees see that their ideas are valued, their attitudes change, from one of detachment and frustration to involvement and fulfillment. This not only uplifts the quality of their lives, but also brings about real growth in the organization.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Stick to your core proposition!!
How Starbucks Strayed
Case Study: Automatic Espresso Machines, Day-Old Food and Plastic Chairs
By Kate Macarthur
Published: March 05, 2007
CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- In the wake of the Starbucks "Memo Shot Round the World" from Chairman Howard Shultz on the looming commoditization of its brand, we asked the experts how they would restore the mythical Starbucks Experience.
Joseph Michelli, author of "The Starbucks Experience: Five Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary": "They can make sure the sensory experience at Starbucks is rich" by bringing back coffee aromas with fresh grinding and reinforcing the notion of affordable luxury by making sure knowledgeable baristas French-press coffee. It also means nixing plastic chairs and bringing back the living-room feel. "It is all the details of the physical environment."
Seth Godin, author of "Small is the New Big": "They have to bring the audience with them as they move the masses back to authenticity," starting with "fixing the coffee and figuring out how to sell something you can eat." He said the bigger question is: "Should Starbucks be willing to take a short-term stock and market-share hit in order to return to its authenticity?" When it comes to brands, "shareholders, in the long run, are always wrong," he said, adding: "In order to be big, they have to give up stuff."
Mark Gobe, chairman-CEO of Desgrippes Gobe and author of "BrandJam: Humanizing the Brand Through Emotional Design": Starbucks should ask its consumers why they went there in the first place and what is missing now, he said. The chain needs to decide whether it is mass or luxury mass. "Brands have to find their limitations. ... You have to know where you're going to disconnect from consumers."
Bob Goldin, exec VP of food consultant Technomic: "The company needs to better understand how the customer point of view has changed" in the past decade. While he isn't convinced McDonald's will supplant Starbucks as the place for Gen Y consumers to park their laptops on a Saturday night ("That place smells like french fries"), he does agree Starbucks needs to make "significant improvements" to its food program, including managing its ubiquity and push for turning out specialty beverages at a rapid pace.
Larry Wu, VP-consumer strategist food and beverage, Iconoculture: Of all the experts we polled, perhaps Mr. Wu knows the brand best. A former director of research and development for Starbucks, he said, "It used to be about great service, knowledgeable expertise and love of coffee. Now it's about love of profit, margin and growth." He said stores are too small and understaffed: "That's why [baristas] make shortcuts now." The chain "should look at capacity instead of just speed." Finally, he said, Starbucks "should pull back on the food and make coffee the core again."
David Aaker, VP of Prophet and professor of marketing at University of California at Berkeley's Haas School of Business: "This is a portfolio problem. Once you get into supermarkets, it's not easy to pull back." But he said it's possible. "One option would be to create a sub-brand for an upscale Starbucks." It's an idea much like the Hallmark Gold Crown concept, where the chain could create an experience around the original Starbucks for customers who want that level of service vs. the grab-and-go business the company has developed.
Bryant Simon, professor of history and director of American studies at Temple University, who visited 400 locations to research his coming book, "Consuming Starbucks": "There's no reason not to put a semi-automated machine in the drive-thru," and then push its notion of authenticity and coffee theater in its flagship stores. "Give up some of the volume and, like Nike, make it a [showroom] store about coffee."
Case Study: Automatic Espresso Machines, Day-Old Food and Plastic Chairs
By Kate Macarthur
Published: March 05, 2007
CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- In the wake of the Starbucks "Memo Shot Round the World" from Chairman Howard Shultz on the looming commoditization of its brand, we asked the experts how they would restore the mythical Starbucks Experience.
Joseph Michelli, author of "The Starbucks Experience: Five Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary": "They can make sure the sensory experience at Starbucks is rich" by bringing back coffee aromas with fresh grinding and reinforcing the notion of affordable luxury by making sure knowledgeable baristas French-press coffee. It also means nixing plastic chairs and bringing back the living-room feel. "It is all the details of the physical environment."
Seth Godin, author of "Small is the New Big": "They have to bring the audience with them as they move the masses back to authenticity," starting with "fixing the coffee and figuring out how to sell something you can eat." He said the bigger question is: "Should Starbucks be willing to take a short-term stock and market-share hit in order to return to its authenticity?" When it comes to brands, "shareholders, in the long run, are always wrong," he said, adding: "In order to be big, they have to give up stuff."
Mark Gobe, chairman-CEO of Desgrippes Gobe and author of "BrandJam: Humanizing the Brand Through Emotional Design": Starbucks should ask its consumers why they went there in the first place and what is missing now, he said. The chain needs to decide whether it is mass or luxury mass. "Brands have to find their limitations. ... You have to know where you're going to disconnect from consumers."
Bob Goldin, exec VP of food consultant Technomic: "The company needs to better understand how the customer point of view has changed" in the past decade. While he isn't convinced McDonald's will supplant Starbucks as the place for Gen Y consumers to park their laptops on a Saturday night ("That place smells like french fries"), he does agree Starbucks needs to make "significant improvements" to its food program, including managing its ubiquity and push for turning out specialty beverages at a rapid pace.
Larry Wu, VP-consumer strategist food and beverage, Iconoculture: Of all the experts we polled, perhaps Mr. Wu knows the brand best. A former director of research and development for Starbucks, he said, "It used to be about great service, knowledgeable expertise and love of coffee. Now it's about love of profit, margin and growth." He said stores are too small and understaffed: "That's why [baristas] make shortcuts now." The chain "should look at capacity instead of just speed." Finally, he said, Starbucks "should pull back on the food and make coffee the core again."
David Aaker, VP of Prophet and professor of marketing at University of California at Berkeley's Haas School of Business: "This is a portfolio problem. Once you get into supermarkets, it's not easy to pull back." But he said it's possible. "One option would be to create a sub-brand for an upscale Starbucks." It's an idea much like the Hallmark Gold Crown concept, where the chain could create an experience around the original Starbucks for customers who want that level of service vs. the grab-and-go business the company has developed.
Bryant Simon, professor of history and director of American studies at Temple University, who visited 400 locations to research his coming book, "Consuming Starbucks": "There's no reason not to put a semi-automated machine in the drive-thru," and then push its notion of authenticity and coffee theater in its flagship stores. "Give up some of the volume and, like Nike, make it a [showroom] store about coffee."
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Primal Leadership
This article is based on the following book: Primal Leadership“Leading To Lead With Emotional Intelligence” By Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, Annie Mckee Published by Harvard Business School Press.
Primal leadership takes center stage in this book. This concept goes beyond the set of conventional competencies on the making of a leader. Beyond bottom line figures, this book takes a leap forward with the concept of primal leadership through a keen and in-depth understanding of emotional intelligence and its link to leading and building emotionally intelligent organizations.The authors explore the idea of leadership as an emotional function.
They propose that the fundamental task of a leader is to create resonance at work, thereby unleashing positive traits and attributes in people. Emotionally intelligent leaders bring organizational success to the fore because they inspire, motivate and foster commitment in people.Harness the power of primal leadership in this book and bring out the emotionally intelligent leader in you.Primal Dimension of Leadership The use of emotion in leadership functions is a primal task that sets leaders apart. Great leaders move people by channeling emotions in the right direction, whether it is in formulating corporate strategy in the boardroom or a series of action items in the shop floor.
Resonance EffectThe positive channeling of emotions that empowers people to be top performers is called resonance. The culture of resonance brings out the best in people. On the other hand, when leaders negatively drive emotions dissonance is created. Dissonance is not conducive to harmonious working relationships as it can undermine people’s potentials.Key to Primal LeadershipEmotional intelligence is the foundation of making primal leadership work. An emotionally intelligent leader knows how to handle himself and his relationship with the people he works with in order to drive up performance.Good Moods, Good WorkA good mood is essential for a team to function effectively. It is crucial for a leader to foster positive working relationships because emotional conflicts in a group can hamper a team’s performance.
A study of CEOs from Fortune 500 companies revealed that positive overall mood of top management people leads to better cooperation and better business performance. This argument takes the view that it is top management that creates the conditions for workers to work well.
Resonant LeaderFor emotionally intelligent leaders, resonance comes naturally in their dealings with people. Their actions reinforce synchrony within their team and within the organization. The strength of an emotionally resonant leader lies in the emotional bond he forms which allows people to collaborate with each other even in the face of change and uncertainty.
Four Dimensions of Emotional IntelligenceThe creation of resonance is a hallmark of primal leadership that can only be fostered by emotionally intelligent leaders. For a leader to promote prime resonance in a group, it is important to understand the four EI competencies. Interestingly, these competencies are not innately inherent but are learned abilities. According to research, an effective leader typically demonstrates at least one competence among the four dimensions.
1. Self-Awareness
2. Self-Management
3. Social Awareness
4. Relationship ManagementApproaches to Leadership in a Nutshell
1. Visionary 2. Coaching 3. Affiliative 4. Democratic
5. Pacesetting
6. CommandingThe Five Discoveries of Self-Directed Learning
1. First Discovery: My ideal self – Who do I want to be?
2. Second Discovery: My real self – Who am I? What are my strengths and gaps?
3. Third Discovery: My learning agenda – How can I build on my strengths while reducing my gaps?
4. Fourth Discovery: Experimenting with and practicing new behaviors, thoughts, and feelings to the point of mastery.
5. Fifth Discovery: Developing supportive and trusting relationships that make change possible.
Final NotesPrimal leadership is anchored on emotions. These emotions have underlying neurological explanations to them such as the open loop system. Thus, a leader must work hard to obtain emotional intelligence competencies that will make him a resonant leader because resonance is the key to primal leadership.A resonant leader builds a culture of resonance by demonstrating emotionally intelligent abilities that permeate throughout the organization. A resonant leader aims to live a resonant life for him and his people in order to make resonant work. It is this kind of work that builds an emotionally intelligent organization – a kind of organization that can survive the changing business climate because it has built-in processes that can sustain change.
Primal leadership takes center stage in this book. This concept goes beyond the set of conventional competencies on the making of a leader. Beyond bottom line figures, this book takes a leap forward with the concept of primal leadership through a keen and in-depth understanding of emotional intelligence and its link to leading and building emotionally intelligent organizations.The authors explore the idea of leadership as an emotional function.
They propose that the fundamental task of a leader is to create resonance at work, thereby unleashing positive traits and attributes in people. Emotionally intelligent leaders bring organizational success to the fore because they inspire, motivate and foster commitment in people.Harness the power of primal leadership in this book and bring out the emotionally intelligent leader in you.Primal Dimension of Leadership The use of emotion in leadership functions is a primal task that sets leaders apart. Great leaders move people by channeling emotions in the right direction, whether it is in formulating corporate strategy in the boardroom or a series of action items in the shop floor.
Resonance EffectThe positive channeling of emotions that empowers people to be top performers is called resonance. The culture of resonance brings out the best in people. On the other hand, when leaders negatively drive emotions dissonance is created. Dissonance is not conducive to harmonious working relationships as it can undermine people’s potentials.Key to Primal LeadershipEmotional intelligence is the foundation of making primal leadership work. An emotionally intelligent leader knows how to handle himself and his relationship with the people he works with in order to drive up performance.Good Moods, Good WorkA good mood is essential for a team to function effectively. It is crucial for a leader to foster positive working relationships because emotional conflicts in a group can hamper a team’s performance.
A study of CEOs from Fortune 500 companies revealed that positive overall mood of top management people leads to better cooperation and better business performance. This argument takes the view that it is top management that creates the conditions for workers to work well.
Resonant LeaderFor emotionally intelligent leaders, resonance comes naturally in their dealings with people. Their actions reinforce synchrony within their team and within the organization. The strength of an emotionally resonant leader lies in the emotional bond he forms which allows people to collaborate with each other even in the face of change and uncertainty.
Four Dimensions of Emotional IntelligenceThe creation of resonance is a hallmark of primal leadership that can only be fostered by emotionally intelligent leaders. For a leader to promote prime resonance in a group, it is important to understand the four EI competencies. Interestingly, these competencies are not innately inherent but are learned abilities. According to research, an effective leader typically demonstrates at least one competence among the four dimensions.
1. Self-Awareness
2. Self-Management
3. Social Awareness
4. Relationship ManagementApproaches to Leadership in a Nutshell
1. Visionary 2. Coaching 3. Affiliative 4. Democratic
5. Pacesetting
6. CommandingThe Five Discoveries of Self-Directed Learning
1. First Discovery: My ideal self – Who do I want to be?
2. Second Discovery: My real self – Who am I? What are my strengths and gaps?
3. Third Discovery: My learning agenda – How can I build on my strengths while reducing my gaps?
4. Fourth Discovery: Experimenting with and practicing new behaviors, thoughts, and feelings to the point of mastery.
5. Fifth Discovery: Developing supportive and trusting relationships that make change possible.
Final NotesPrimal leadership is anchored on emotions. These emotions have underlying neurological explanations to them such as the open loop system. Thus, a leader must work hard to obtain emotional intelligence competencies that will make him a resonant leader because resonance is the key to primal leadership.A resonant leader builds a culture of resonance by demonstrating emotionally intelligent abilities that permeate throughout the organization. A resonant leader aims to live a resonant life for him and his people in order to make resonant work. It is this kind of work that builds an emotionally intelligent organization – a kind of organization that can survive the changing business climate because it has built-in processes that can sustain change.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Little Things Mean a Lot
How do you care for your customers and employees?
"Just as the accumulation of small improvements can make a dramatic, lasting change in the organization’s products or services, the repeated, numerous small occasions of taking note of the contributions of individuals and teams of individuals can create a different company." (The Quality Process: Little Things Mean a Lot)
Showing appreciation to both clients and team members (formerly employees) is an integral part of a successful business. Too often we overlook it. It’s easy to take existing clients for granted while making special efforts to attract new ones. Many of us are guilty of assuming we take care of our team by simply giving them a pay cheque.
Respect Your Team Members (Employees)
"In environments in which human needs are acknowledged and talent and creativity are allowed to flourish, employees give their all." (Creating Successful Partnerships with Employees)
The most valuable asset in an organization is the people. Mark Twain once said, "I can go two months on one compliment!" When was the last time you said "well done" to anyone in your business? Appreciation is the number one thing people want from their jobs, even before money and promotions, according to a Robert Half survey.
If you think you don’t have the time or the budget to start an appreciation program in your workplace, think again. There are dozens of easy, inexpensive ways to generate spirit and appreciation.
· Companies often focus on single goals (such as annual sales quotas) and forget to celebrate the little successes that add up to the main goal. Recognize the little victories along the way and keep everyone motivated for the ultimate goal. How about treating everyone to an ice cream break or a hot dog lunch?
· Foster an environment that encourages creativity and mutual respect. Be generous in small ways. Keep a large candy jar in your reception area filled with fun, kid-style candies, suckers, or bubble gum. Or, fill it with slips of paper with jokes or motivational sayings on them. Put a small treat in employees’ mail/message boxes. On a hot day, bring in Popsicles. Encourage everyone in your organization to take their work seriously but themselves lightly.
· Treat your team members as individuals, not just part of your organization. Recognize special times in their lives such as marriages and births.
· Keep a well-stocked refreshment area for both team members and clients. Fill it with coffee, teas, bottled water, juices, and maybe a big cookie or candy jar!
· Let your people know you care about their work environment. Do you think those walls that need painting or the torn and dirty carpet doesn’t affect them, or that dirty washrooms and lunchrooms are acceptable? These all say a lot about your attitude towards them. Show pride and respect for yourself, your business, your team, and your clients by keeping a well-maintained place of business.
· Celebrate together and show you care about morale. Hold Christmas parties, summer picnics, or golf tournaments. Ask your suppliers to donate prizes.
Appreciate Your Customers
Most people like to do business with people they like and who appreciate them.
How much money do you spend trying to attract new customers, and how much do you spend showing your existing customers that you care about them? It costs much less to keep a customer than to find a new one. Make customer appreciation a part of your everyday activities.
· Keep a stack of thank-you cards at your desk. Get in the habit at the end of each day to think about those who gave you their time or their business. In this age of electronic communications, we all appreciate an old-fashioned handwritten note. Don’t just pick up the phone to say thanks - put it in writing. The cost is small, but the impact is large. You’ll be noticed for your thoughtfulness.
· Recognize your client’s special events and milestones such as business anniversaries, promotions, and moves. Work with a gift basket company or florist to create a signature gift that you can send whenever the need arises.
· Hold an annual customer appreciation day.
· Insist that everyone in your organization show respect and appreciation to every customer - big or small. After all, if we didn’t have customers, we wouldn’t be in business. Starting right now, find ways to show your team and clients that you care! Customers don’t deal with companies - they deal with people. So, if you want first-class customers you must have first-class team members to attract them.
"Just as the accumulation of small improvements can make a dramatic, lasting change in the organization’s products or services, the repeated, numerous small occasions of taking note of the contributions of individuals and teams of individuals can create a different company." (The Quality Process: Little Things Mean a Lot)
Showing appreciation to both clients and team members (formerly employees) is an integral part of a successful business. Too often we overlook it. It’s easy to take existing clients for granted while making special efforts to attract new ones. Many of us are guilty of assuming we take care of our team by simply giving them a pay cheque.
Respect Your Team Members (Employees)
"In environments in which human needs are acknowledged and talent and creativity are allowed to flourish, employees give their all." (Creating Successful Partnerships with Employees)
The most valuable asset in an organization is the people. Mark Twain once said, "I can go two months on one compliment!" When was the last time you said "well done" to anyone in your business? Appreciation is the number one thing people want from their jobs, even before money and promotions, according to a Robert Half survey.
If you think you don’t have the time or the budget to start an appreciation program in your workplace, think again. There are dozens of easy, inexpensive ways to generate spirit and appreciation.
· Companies often focus on single goals (such as annual sales quotas) and forget to celebrate the little successes that add up to the main goal. Recognize the little victories along the way and keep everyone motivated for the ultimate goal. How about treating everyone to an ice cream break or a hot dog lunch?
· Foster an environment that encourages creativity and mutual respect. Be generous in small ways. Keep a large candy jar in your reception area filled with fun, kid-style candies, suckers, or bubble gum. Or, fill it with slips of paper with jokes or motivational sayings on them. Put a small treat in employees’ mail/message boxes. On a hot day, bring in Popsicles. Encourage everyone in your organization to take their work seriously but themselves lightly.
· Treat your team members as individuals, not just part of your organization. Recognize special times in their lives such as marriages and births.
· Keep a well-stocked refreshment area for both team members and clients. Fill it with coffee, teas, bottled water, juices, and maybe a big cookie or candy jar!
· Let your people know you care about their work environment. Do you think those walls that need painting or the torn and dirty carpet doesn’t affect them, or that dirty washrooms and lunchrooms are acceptable? These all say a lot about your attitude towards them. Show pride and respect for yourself, your business, your team, and your clients by keeping a well-maintained place of business.
· Celebrate together and show you care about morale. Hold Christmas parties, summer picnics, or golf tournaments. Ask your suppliers to donate prizes.
Appreciate Your Customers
Most people like to do business with people they like and who appreciate them.
How much money do you spend trying to attract new customers, and how much do you spend showing your existing customers that you care about them? It costs much less to keep a customer than to find a new one. Make customer appreciation a part of your everyday activities.
· Keep a stack of thank-you cards at your desk. Get in the habit at the end of each day to think about those who gave you their time or their business. In this age of electronic communications, we all appreciate an old-fashioned handwritten note. Don’t just pick up the phone to say thanks - put it in writing. The cost is small, but the impact is large. You’ll be noticed for your thoughtfulness.
· Recognize your client’s special events and milestones such as business anniversaries, promotions, and moves. Work with a gift basket company or florist to create a signature gift that you can send whenever the need arises.
· Hold an annual customer appreciation day.
· Insist that everyone in your organization show respect and appreciation to every customer - big or small. After all, if we didn’t have customers, we wouldn’t be in business. Starting right now, find ways to show your team and clients that you care! Customers don’t deal with companies - they deal with people. So, if you want first-class customers you must have first-class team members to attract them.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
The Servant - Book Summary
"A Simple Story About the True Essence of Leadership" In order to lead, you must serve. This is the solid premise of the book “The Servant” by James C. Hunter. It is discussed through the tale of John Daily, a business executive who starts to lose his grip as boss, husband, father, and coach. He was talked into going on a week-long retreat at a Benedictine Monastery to re-center and find his balance. During the retreat, a former Wall Street legend turned monk shows him a different perspective on leadership - servant leadership.
The Ten Attributes of Love and LeadershipThe book enumerated the following as the qualities of a servant leader. Incidentally, these are also the attributes of love, which was defined earlier as one’s behavior towards others.
• Patient - showing self-control.
• Kind - giving attention, appreciation, and encouragement.
• Humble - being authentic without pretense or arrogance.
• Respectful - treating others as important people.
• Selfless - meeting the needs of others.
• Forgiving - giving up resentment when wronged.
• Honest - being free from deception.
• Committed - sticking to your choices.
All these behaviors will entail you to serve and sacrifice for others. This would mean setting aside your own wants and needs to focus on the legitimate needs of others.You need to realize that success does not only come from hard work and appropriately playing the part. To be successful in business and in your career, you must be able to distinguish yourself from the rest of the pack - you need to develop, build and defend your reputation.
The Law of the Harvest Remember: you reap what you sow. For authority or influence to flourish, the right environment must be provided and a nurturing behavior must be present. In a garden, the soil, the sun, the water, the fertilizer, and the care given by the gardener all make up the environment under which the plant will grow and mature. The one thing that you are not sure of, however, is when the flowers will actually bloom. Bear in mind that influence is not a magical beanstalk that will sprout overnight; rather, it is something that grows in time.
The Rewards of Leading with AuthorityLeading with authority enables you to have a personal mission statement: to serve the people you lead, to listen to their needs, to give praise and recognition, to show kindness, and to be honest, among other things. When servant leadership becomes your ethos in life, people would be lining up to join your cause.By serving others and loving your neighbors, you are keeping in line with the doctrines of the Church as well as other religions. You mature psychologically and spiritually, which is essentially the end goal of the individual’s journey through life.While the above payoffs are well and good, the most important reward of all is the joy you will experience when you put others first and free yourself from the chains of self-centeredness. As a certain Dr. Albert Schweitzer wisely puts it, “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know. The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.”
The Ten Attributes of Love and LeadershipThe book enumerated the following as the qualities of a servant leader. Incidentally, these are also the attributes of love, which was defined earlier as one’s behavior towards others.
• Patient - showing self-control.
• Kind - giving attention, appreciation, and encouragement.
• Humble - being authentic without pretense or arrogance.
• Respectful - treating others as important people.
• Selfless - meeting the needs of others.
• Forgiving - giving up resentment when wronged.
• Honest - being free from deception.
• Committed - sticking to your choices.
All these behaviors will entail you to serve and sacrifice for others. This would mean setting aside your own wants and needs to focus on the legitimate needs of others.You need to realize that success does not only come from hard work and appropriately playing the part. To be successful in business and in your career, you must be able to distinguish yourself from the rest of the pack - you need to develop, build and defend your reputation.
The Law of the Harvest Remember: you reap what you sow. For authority or influence to flourish, the right environment must be provided and a nurturing behavior must be present. In a garden, the soil, the sun, the water, the fertilizer, and the care given by the gardener all make up the environment under which the plant will grow and mature. The one thing that you are not sure of, however, is when the flowers will actually bloom. Bear in mind that influence is not a magical beanstalk that will sprout overnight; rather, it is something that grows in time.
The Rewards of Leading with AuthorityLeading with authority enables you to have a personal mission statement: to serve the people you lead, to listen to their needs, to give praise and recognition, to show kindness, and to be honest, among other things. When servant leadership becomes your ethos in life, people would be lining up to join your cause.By serving others and loving your neighbors, you are keeping in line with the doctrines of the Church as well as other religions. You mature psychologically and spiritually, which is essentially the end goal of the individual’s journey through life.While the above payoffs are well and good, the most important reward of all is the joy you will experience when you put others first and free yourself from the chains of self-centeredness. As a certain Dr. Albert Schweitzer wisely puts it, “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know. The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.”
Monday, July 9, 2007
The five faces of Genius..
by Annette Moser-Wellman
Most managers believe that if they manage well they will succeed. But in rapidly changing markets, being a good manager is less important than being an innovator. Those who can come up with new ideas - those who can create - become the leaders of the organization and the industry.
So, personal creativity is the skill we need the most but are taught the least. Did you have any courses on how to be a creative thinker? Of course not. Most of us live by the assumption that creativity is a gift one has or doesn't have. Our formal education usually trains the creativity out of us. And in business, being an innovator will be the next core competency - the essential capability for success.
So who do we model to help us learn these necessary skills? I've spent my career studying creativity in the arts and the sciences. When you look to some of the creative genius of our world, you find patterns of thinking that can augment our lives and increase our probability of new ideas in business.
Below is a framework of some of the most powerful skills in a creative genius and how the same skills are used in business. I call them the five faces of genius.
The seer
When painters begin to paint, they have an image in their mind's eye - an internal picture they "see". When musicians write music, they often have a musical score that appears in their mind. The great writer Robertson Davies said, "What appears in my head is a picture that somehow must be considered." The visual stimulates the new idea.
And the same is true in business. Bill Gates said that the original vision for Microsoft was "a PC on every desk and in every home." It was the image that created the future. When executives meet in our workshops, they describe new products they see, new marketing ideas or even new businesses. Ideas come - not when we use our linear side but when we use our visual intuition.
The observer
Before Ray Kroc was the head of the McDonald's franchise, he was a milkshake mixer salesman. When reviewing a list of clients, he noticed one small detail. One customer was buying enough milkshake mixers to make 40 milkshakes at one time. This made Kroc curious.
He travelled long distances to see the McDonald's restaurant. He was so impressed that he joined the McDonald's family to build the franchise.
Observers pay attention to small things and get big ideas from those details. Former Sony president Akio Morita developed the Walk-Man when he got the idea from a small thing he noticed. During a party for one of his teenagers, he saw that kids were lugging heavy stereo equipment from one room to the next. Morito asked himself, "What if music was portable?" and the Walk-Man was born.
The alchemist
Do you frequently ask yourself, "where have I seen this problem before?" The "alchemist" uses the world around them to come up with new ideas. Physicists, for instance, find breakthrough theoretical ideas by creating analogies of the natural world.
You may use your alchemistic skill everyday and not know it. Marlboro cigarettes was a brainstorm of advertising guru, Leo Burnett. Burnett was flipping through a magazine and stumbled on a retrospective of the American cowboy. He connected the need to reposition the cigarette with the love of the cowboy. It was through this connection that the icon of one of the world's biggest brands was born.
The fool
Most managers say, "I don't want to be a fool!" but in fact the "fool" is one of the most powerful creative skills. And once you see it at work in business, you'll see why. The "fool" knows how to invert problems, persevere when the going gets tough and isn't afraid to pursue absurd solutions.
Oprah Winfrey is arguably the most powerful business woman in the world. She built her empire with a "fool" strategy. When she began her talk show, other talk show hosts were featuring people's problems and making fun of each other.
Oprah turned the model upside down and started focusing on the strength of the human spirit. She created a book club, a magazine and programmes that featured the positive power of humanity.
The sage
Have you ever worked with someone who could take complicated information, synthesise it quickly and then come up with a great idea? That is the creative style of the "sage". A seemingly easy notion, but in practice, very challenging. The design greats of the Bauhaus knew this best with the motto, "less is more".
A perfect example of the "sage" at work would be the business genius of Michael Dell. Prior to Dell computers, you had to buy a computer at a retail store. A low-margin business, fraught with tangled problems, Dell simplified the route to market. His idea in effect went straight to the heart of the problem and revolutionised the way we buy computers.
Perhaps you have seen yourself in the thinking styles above. Our research has shown that highly creative people have the ability to use all five skills. Just like turning a sparkling diamond, the next generation manager will be able to turn a problem in the mind and come up with new solutions from at least five different angles.
Becoming a creative business person, not merely a manager, requires a relentless pursuit of innovation. It means you will prioritise ideas and place them at the centre of what you do everyday. It means you will not allow yourself to become distracted by day-to-day concerns and miss the larger reason you are working for - creatively bring value to the firm. It means you will bring your genius to work.
Each person has been granted the gift of creativity - t is our own personal genius. When we dedicate ourselves to using the full spectrum of our minds, we'll be surprised ourselves. Not only see our business grow, but we'll see our careers rise. And we will become the leaders the business world is looking for.
Most managers believe that if they manage well they will succeed. But in rapidly changing markets, being a good manager is less important than being an innovator. Those who can come up with new ideas - those who can create - become the leaders of the organization and the industry.
So, personal creativity is the skill we need the most but are taught the least. Did you have any courses on how to be a creative thinker? Of course not. Most of us live by the assumption that creativity is a gift one has or doesn't have. Our formal education usually trains the creativity out of us. And in business, being an innovator will be the next core competency - the essential capability for success.
So who do we model to help us learn these necessary skills? I've spent my career studying creativity in the arts and the sciences. When you look to some of the creative genius of our world, you find patterns of thinking that can augment our lives and increase our probability of new ideas in business.
Below is a framework of some of the most powerful skills in a creative genius and how the same skills are used in business. I call them the five faces of genius.
The seer
When painters begin to paint, they have an image in their mind's eye - an internal picture they "see". When musicians write music, they often have a musical score that appears in their mind. The great writer Robertson Davies said, "What appears in my head is a picture that somehow must be considered." The visual stimulates the new idea.
And the same is true in business. Bill Gates said that the original vision for Microsoft was "a PC on every desk and in every home." It was the image that created the future. When executives meet in our workshops, they describe new products they see, new marketing ideas or even new businesses. Ideas come - not when we use our linear side but when we use our visual intuition.
The observer
Before Ray Kroc was the head of the McDonald's franchise, he was a milkshake mixer salesman. When reviewing a list of clients, he noticed one small detail. One customer was buying enough milkshake mixers to make 40 milkshakes at one time. This made Kroc curious.
He travelled long distances to see the McDonald's restaurant. He was so impressed that he joined the McDonald's family to build the franchise.
Observers pay attention to small things and get big ideas from those details. Former Sony president Akio Morita developed the Walk-Man when he got the idea from a small thing he noticed. During a party for one of his teenagers, he saw that kids were lugging heavy stereo equipment from one room to the next. Morito asked himself, "What if music was portable?" and the Walk-Man was born.
The alchemist
Do you frequently ask yourself, "where have I seen this problem before?" The "alchemist" uses the world around them to come up with new ideas. Physicists, for instance, find breakthrough theoretical ideas by creating analogies of the natural world.
You may use your alchemistic skill everyday and not know it. Marlboro cigarettes was a brainstorm of advertising guru, Leo Burnett. Burnett was flipping through a magazine and stumbled on a retrospective of the American cowboy. He connected the need to reposition the cigarette with the love of the cowboy. It was through this connection that the icon of one of the world's biggest brands was born.
The fool
Most managers say, "I don't want to be a fool!" but in fact the "fool" is one of the most powerful creative skills. And once you see it at work in business, you'll see why. The "fool" knows how to invert problems, persevere when the going gets tough and isn't afraid to pursue absurd solutions.
Oprah Winfrey is arguably the most powerful business woman in the world. She built her empire with a "fool" strategy. When she began her talk show, other talk show hosts were featuring people's problems and making fun of each other.
Oprah turned the model upside down and started focusing on the strength of the human spirit. She created a book club, a magazine and programmes that featured the positive power of humanity.
The sage
Have you ever worked with someone who could take complicated information, synthesise it quickly and then come up with a great idea? That is the creative style of the "sage". A seemingly easy notion, but in practice, very challenging. The design greats of the Bauhaus knew this best with the motto, "less is more".
A perfect example of the "sage" at work would be the business genius of Michael Dell. Prior to Dell computers, you had to buy a computer at a retail store. A low-margin business, fraught with tangled problems, Dell simplified the route to market. His idea in effect went straight to the heart of the problem and revolutionised the way we buy computers.
Perhaps you have seen yourself in the thinking styles above. Our research has shown that highly creative people have the ability to use all five skills. Just like turning a sparkling diamond, the next generation manager will be able to turn a problem in the mind and come up with new solutions from at least five different angles.
Becoming a creative business person, not merely a manager, requires a relentless pursuit of innovation. It means you will prioritise ideas and place them at the centre of what you do everyday. It means you will not allow yourself to become distracted by day-to-day concerns and miss the larger reason you are working for - creatively bring value to the firm. It means you will bring your genius to work.
Each person has been granted the gift of creativity - t is our own personal genius. When we dedicate ourselves to using the full spectrum of our minds, we'll be surprised ourselves. Not only see our business grow, but we'll see our careers rise. And we will become the leaders the business world is looking for.
Friday, July 6, 2007
Deal with people. - How to.
By Suman Srivastava
Business school taught me how to read balance sheets, but didn't tell me how to motivate people to give their best. It taught me how to structure the organisation for maximum productivity, but not how to deal with a person who thinks her boss is a creep. My management degree taught me how to create an excellent marketing strategy, but not how to sell it to a client who is insecure about his job.
Business schools tend to be very left-brained. Very analytical, quantitative and structured. Which is a good thing because the Indian education system is not very good at teaching us to be analytical, quantitative or structured. The school system basically teaches us to learn by rote. The best business schools force you to unlearn that.
In the process, they tend to put the quantitative approach to a problem on a pedestal, ignoring the qualitative and "feel" aspects of managing people. If management is both a science and an art, then B-schools teach the science but ignore the art.
Life, unfortunately, is all about art. Success comes to those who learn to deal with people best. Those who learn to understand the fears and motivations that people have, understand their joys and sorrows. The role of a leader is to inspire, provide direction and keep people motivated. Other professional skills are taken for granted.
One can argue, perhaps with justification, that nobody can teach the art. That may be true, but where business schools tend to err is in leaving their management students with a feeling that the art doesn't really matter.
I had to wait until my hair turned grey before I understood that the art does matter.
But perhaps, I am just a slow learner.
Suman Srivastava graduated from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, in 1987
Business school taught me how to read balance sheets, but didn't tell me how to motivate people to give their best. It taught me how to structure the organisation for maximum productivity, but not how to deal with a person who thinks her boss is a creep. My management degree taught me how to create an excellent marketing strategy, but not how to sell it to a client who is insecure about his job.
Business schools tend to be very left-brained. Very analytical, quantitative and structured. Which is a good thing because the Indian education system is not very good at teaching us to be analytical, quantitative or structured. The school system basically teaches us to learn by rote. The best business schools force you to unlearn that.
In the process, they tend to put the quantitative approach to a problem on a pedestal, ignoring the qualitative and "feel" aspects of managing people. If management is both a science and an art, then B-schools teach the science but ignore the art.
Life, unfortunately, is all about art. Success comes to those who learn to deal with people best. Those who learn to understand the fears and motivations that people have, understand their joys and sorrows. The role of a leader is to inspire, provide direction and keep people motivated. Other professional skills are taken for granted.
One can argue, perhaps with justification, that nobody can teach the art. That may be true, but where business schools tend to err is in leaving their management students with a feeling that the art doesn't really matter.
I had to wait until my hair turned grey before I understood that the art does matter.
But perhaps, I am just a slow learner.
Suman Srivastava graduated from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, in 1987
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Mind Your ABC's. Get Rid of the D's
Mind Your ABC's. Get Rid of the D's.
Too many D’s and not enough A's: this is one thing in life that holds many of us back, without our even realizing it. It touches our everyday lives to an amazing degree. Let’s look at some examples in both our business and personal lives.
BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS:The customer is not always right; the RIGHT customer is always right.
Not all customers are created equally. Some buy a lot from us, respect our opinions, and pay their bills on time. On the other hand, some just really drain us with small orders, constant complaining, and late payments. If you hang around these negative ones (they attach themselves to us), how are you ever going to have the time and energy to deal with the positive ones? I’m sure you can think of five to 10 customers who make your life a misery.
What if . . . ? Yes, what if they didn’t exist? Or, better still, what if they were dealing with your competitors and bringing them down? You would free up capacity that is being badly used and turn it into good capacity.
Replace those 10 baddies with one goodie and you are ahead of the game. First, get rid of the baddies. In case you haven’t figured it out, those are the D’s. Wouldn’t it be fun for you to double the number of baddies that your competitors deal with? It will drive them crazy, and they will lose some of their A customers to you. So, rank your customers A, B, C, & D. If getting rid of your D customers is difficult for you (maybe you don’t like to say no), then set stringent rules for them and insist they must follow them:
· Get their credit card number/ banking instruments before they buy.
· Develop a minimum size order.
· Insist they deal with you by fax or email.
You set the rules. If they don’t leave, they will become better customers. Your A customers are the best ones. So, treat them best. Next come your B’s and then your C’s. You need to set the parameters for A, B, C, and D. If you need help give me a call. Target your marketing activities toward A customers. Find out what delights them and make it part of your culture!
The questions you should ask yourself to help develop your strategies are:
· What can I do to convert my D customers to C, my C to B and my B to A?
· How can I get more A customers?
· What can I do to delight my A customers?
Now look at your suppliers and your employees, and follow the same pattern. You’ll improve the quality of your working life!
PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS:Take control.
What about in your personal life? Are there people who drain you? Take more control and put limits on those relationships. Small changes here will make big differences in the quality of your life. Are you involved in too many volunteer activities? What are the unimportant things that are taking up your time? Freeing up even 15 minutes a day from marginal activities and spending it with your family will have a huge impact on your life. We are constantly reminded of how fragile life is. Don’t wait until it is too late. Sit with your family, share these thoughts and make a new family strategy now. Learn how to delight each other.
"What I do today is important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it."
Too many D’s and not enough A's: this is one thing in life that holds many of us back, without our even realizing it. It touches our everyday lives to an amazing degree. Let’s look at some examples in both our business and personal lives.
BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS:The customer is not always right; the RIGHT customer is always right.
Not all customers are created equally. Some buy a lot from us, respect our opinions, and pay their bills on time. On the other hand, some just really drain us with small orders, constant complaining, and late payments. If you hang around these negative ones (they attach themselves to us), how are you ever going to have the time and energy to deal with the positive ones? I’m sure you can think of five to 10 customers who make your life a misery.
What if . . . ? Yes, what if they didn’t exist? Or, better still, what if they were dealing with your competitors and bringing them down? You would free up capacity that is being badly used and turn it into good capacity.
Replace those 10 baddies with one goodie and you are ahead of the game. First, get rid of the baddies. In case you haven’t figured it out, those are the D’s. Wouldn’t it be fun for you to double the number of baddies that your competitors deal with? It will drive them crazy, and they will lose some of their A customers to you. So, rank your customers A, B, C, & D. If getting rid of your D customers is difficult for you (maybe you don’t like to say no), then set stringent rules for them and insist they must follow them:
· Get their credit card number/ banking instruments before they buy.
· Develop a minimum size order.
· Insist they deal with you by fax or email.
You set the rules. If they don’t leave, they will become better customers. Your A customers are the best ones. So, treat them best. Next come your B’s and then your C’s. You need to set the parameters for A, B, C, and D. If you need help give me a call. Target your marketing activities toward A customers. Find out what delights them and make it part of your culture!
The questions you should ask yourself to help develop your strategies are:
· What can I do to convert my D customers to C, my C to B and my B to A?
· How can I get more A customers?
· What can I do to delight my A customers?
Now look at your suppliers and your employees, and follow the same pattern. You’ll improve the quality of your working life!
PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS:Take control.
What about in your personal life? Are there people who drain you? Take more control and put limits on those relationships. Small changes here will make big differences in the quality of your life. Are you involved in too many volunteer activities? What are the unimportant things that are taking up your time? Freeing up even 15 minutes a day from marginal activities and spending it with your family will have a huge impact on your life. We are constantly reminded of how fragile life is. Don’t wait until it is too late. Sit with your family, share these thoughts and make a new family strategy now. Learn how to delight each other.
"What I do today is important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it."
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Painless Performance Improvement.
Painless Performance Improvement
Real change only happens when the decision to change comes from the person doing the changing. Painless Performance Improvement provides managers with a simple and proven technique to help team members improve their own poor performance without the drama, pain or conflict often associated with performance issues.
Performance Improvement is Painless when you:
State what you’ve observed
Wait for a response
Remind them of the Goal
Ask for a solution
Agree together on the best solution
Follow through to ensure success
KEY LEARNING POINTS
Focus on Performance - Not Attitude
Intervene Rather than Confront
Recognize and Deflect Common Sidetracks
Follow the Six Steps to Performance Improvement
Real change only happens when the decision to change comes from the person doing the changing. Painless Performance Improvement provides managers with a simple and proven technique to help team members improve their own poor performance without the drama, pain or conflict often associated with performance issues.
Performance Improvement is Painless when you:
State what you’ve observed
Wait for a response
Remind them of the Goal
Ask for a solution
Agree together on the best solution
Follow through to ensure success
KEY LEARNING POINTS
Focus on Performance - Not Attitude
Intervene Rather than Confront
Recognize and Deflect Common Sidetracks
Follow the Six Steps to Performance Improvement
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Peter Drucker -management beliefs vs Conventional Wisdom
Drucker's insights can be of tremendous help to any management practitioner. But, they often ran contrary to what common sense advocated. Here's Drucker on some vital management beliefs, contrasted with conventional wisdom on the same issue.
Conventional wisdom (CW) : Executives need to develop the ability to make many decisions rapidly and accurately.
Peter Drucker (PD): The effective decision-maker actually makes very few decisions. This is because he recognises that most problems he faces are generic. They are not unique, one-off events. He, therefore, establishes a rule, a principle or a policy to handle all such situations.
He always assumes that the event that clamours for his attention is in reality a symptom. He looks for the true problem. He is not content with just doctoring the symptom.
He then makes a decision on principle at the highest possible conceptual level. This does not, as a rule, take longer than a decision on symptoms or expediency. Because the manager solves generic situations through a rule and policy, he can handle most events as cases under the rule; that is, by adaptation. This is why he does not need to make many decisions.
For instance, when Alfred Sloan, Jr, took over General Motors in 1922, he was faced with a company struggling for survival with about half a dozen divisions each headed by capable but almost independent chieftains, all pulling in different directions.
Everyone before Sloan had seen the problem as one of personalities, to be solved through a struggle for power, from which one man would emerge victorious. Sloan saw it as a constitutional problem to be solved through a new structure, that is, decentralisation, which balances local autonomy in operations with central control of direction and policy.
Sloan thus identified the generic problem, which was one of organisational structure, and solved it at the highest conceptual level through decentralisation.
CW: It is important for an executive to plan his work.
PD: As Drucker put it, the above advice sounds eminently plausible. The only trouble with it is that it rarely works. The plans always remain on paper, as good intentions.
Effective executives, as Drucker observed, do not start with their tasks. They start with their time. And they do not start out with planning their time. They start by finding out where their time already goes (by recording how it is actually spent by keeping a time log).
Then they attempt to manage their time and to cut back unproductive demands on their time. Finally, they consolidate their "discretionary" time into the largest possible continuing units. This three-step process -- of recording time, managing time and consolidating time -- is the foundation of executive effectiveness.
CW: When making staffing decisions, a manager must be alert to the weaknesses of a prospective candidate.
PD: The effective executive fills positions and promotes on the basis of what a man can do. He does not make staffing decisions to minimise weaknesses but to maximise strengths. This is because to try to build against weakness frustrates the purpose of organisation. Organisation is a specific instrument to make human strengths redound to performance while human weakness is neutralised and largely rendered harmless.
Drucker quoted the following example to illustrate his point. Abraham Lincoln, when told that General Ulysses S Grant, his new commander-in-chief, was fond of the bottle, said: "If I knew his brand, I'd send a barrel or so to some other generals." After a childhood on the Kentucky and Illinois frontier, Lincoln assuredly knew all about the bottle and its dangers.
But of all the Union generals, Grant alone had proven consistently capable of planning and leading winning campaigns. Grant's appointment was the turning point of the Civil War. It was effective because Lincoln chose his general for his tested ability to win battles, and not for his sobriety, that is, for the absence of a weakness.
CW: Executives need to be good problem-solvers.
PD: While problem-solving is an important task, one must always keep in mind that an organisation obtains results by exploiting opportunities, and not by solving problems.
All one can hope to get by solving a problem is to restore normality. At best, it can help eliminate a restriction on the capacity of the business to obtain results. The results themselves must come from the exploitation of opportunities.
CW: Entrepreneurs are a breed apart from other people with a different psychology and character traits.
PD: Entrepreneurship is not about character traits. It is not something mysterious -- whether a gift, talent, inspiration, or "flash of genius". Entrepreneurship is a purposeful task that can be organised. It is a question of behaviour, policies and practices rather than personality. It is a discipline that can be learned.
What's more, entrepreneurship is part of every executive's job and needs to be mastered by any manager who wishes to be effective.
Conventional wisdom (CW) : Executives need to develop the ability to make many decisions rapidly and accurately.
Peter Drucker (PD): The effective decision-maker actually makes very few decisions. This is because he recognises that most problems he faces are generic. They are not unique, one-off events. He, therefore, establishes a rule, a principle or a policy to handle all such situations.
He always assumes that the event that clamours for his attention is in reality a symptom. He looks for the true problem. He is not content with just doctoring the symptom.
He then makes a decision on principle at the highest possible conceptual level. This does not, as a rule, take longer than a decision on symptoms or expediency. Because the manager solves generic situations through a rule and policy, he can handle most events as cases under the rule; that is, by adaptation. This is why he does not need to make many decisions.
For instance, when Alfred Sloan, Jr, took over General Motors in 1922, he was faced with a company struggling for survival with about half a dozen divisions each headed by capable but almost independent chieftains, all pulling in different directions.
Everyone before Sloan had seen the problem as one of personalities, to be solved through a struggle for power, from which one man would emerge victorious. Sloan saw it as a constitutional problem to be solved through a new structure, that is, decentralisation, which balances local autonomy in operations with central control of direction and policy.
Sloan thus identified the generic problem, which was one of organisational structure, and solved it at the highest conceptual level through decentralisation.
CW: It is important for an executive to plan his work.
PD: As Drucker put it, the above advice sounds eminently plausible. The only trouble with it is that it rarely works. The plans always remain on paper, as good intentions.
Effective executives, as Drucker observed, do not start with their tasks. They start with their time. And they do not start out with planning their time. They start by finding out where their time already goes (by recording how it is actually spent by keeping a time log).
Then they attempt to manage their time and to cut back unproductive demands on their time. Finally, they consolidate their "discretionary" time into the largest possible continuing units. This three-step process -- of recording time, managing time and consolidating time -- is the foundation of executive effectiveness.
CW: When making staffing decisions, a manager must be alert to the weaknesses of a prospective candidate.
PD: The effective executive fills positions and promotes on the basis of what a man can do. He does not make staffing decisions to minimise weaknesses but to maximise strengths. This is because to try to build against weakness frustrates the purpose of organisation. Organisation is a specific instrument to make human strengths redound to performance while human weakness is neutralised and largely rendered harmless.
Drucker quoted the following example to illustrate his point. Abraham Lincoln, when told that General Ulysses S Grant, his new commander-in-chief, was fond of the bottle, said: "If I knew his brand, I'd send a barrel or so to some other generals." After a childhood on the Kentucky and Illinois frontier, Lincoln assuredly knew all about the bottle and its dangers.
But of all the Union generals, Grant alone had proven consistently capable of planning and leading winning campaigns. Grant's appointment was the turning point of the Civil War. It was effective because Lincoln chose his general for his tested ability to win battles, and not for his sobriety, that is, for the absence of a weakness.
CW: Executives need to be good problem-solvers.
PD: While problem-solving is an important task, one must always keep in mind that an organisation obtains results by exploiting opportunities, and not by solving problems.
All one can hope to get by solving a problem is to restore normality. At best, it can help eliminate a restriction on the capacity of the business to obtain results. The results themselves must come from the exploitation of opportunities.
CW: Entrepreneurs are a breed apart from other people with a different psychology and character traits.
PD: Entrepreneurship is not about character traits. It is not something mysterious -- whether a gift, talent, inspiration, or "flash of genius". Entrepreneurship is a purposeful task that can be organised. It is a question of behaviour, policies and practices rather than personality. It is a discipline that can be learned.
What's more, entrepreneurship is part of every executive's job and needs to be mastered by any manager who wishes to be effective.
Monday, July 2, 2007
Good to Great
"Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't"
Jim Collins, co-author of ‘Built to Last'
Explore what goes into a company's transformation from mediocre to excellent. Based on hard evidence and volumes of data, the book author (Jim Collins) and his team uncover timeless principles on how the good-to-great companies like Abbott, Circuit City, Fannie Mae, Gillette, Kimberly-Clark, Kroger, Nucor, Philip Morris, Pitney Bowes, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo produced sustained great results and achieved enduring greatness, evolving into companies that were indeed ‘Built to Last'. The Collins team selected 2 sets of comparison companies:
a. Direct comparisons – Companies in the same industry with the same resources and opportunities as the good-to-great group but showed no leap in performance, which were: Upjohn, Silo, Great Western, Warner-Lambert, Scott Paper, A&P, Bethlehem Steel, RJ Reynolds, Addressograph, Eckerd, and Bank of America.
b. Unsustained comparisons – Companies that made a short-term shift from good to great but failed to maintain the trajectory, namely: Burroughs, Chrysler, Harris, Hasbro, Rubbermaid, and Teledyne
Wisdom In A Nutshell:
a. Ten out of eleven good-to-great company leaders or CEOs came from the inside. They were not outsiders hired in to ‘save' the company. They were either people who worked many years at the company or were members of the family that owned the company.
b. Strategy per se did not separate the good to great companies from the comparison groups.
c. Good-to-great companies focus on what Not to do and what they should stop doing.
d. Technology has nothing to do with the transformation from good to great. It may help accelerate it but is not the cause of it.
e. Mergers and acquisitions do not cause a transformation from good to great.
f. Good-to-great companies paid little attention to managing change or motivating people. Under the right conditions, these problems naturally go away.
g. Good-to-great transformations did not need any new name, tagline, or launch program. The leap was in the performance results, not a revolutionary process.
h. Greatness is not a function of circumstance; it is clearly a matter of conscious choice.
i. Every good-to-great company had “Level 5” leadership during pivotal transition years, where Level 1 is a Highly Capable Individual, Level 2 is a Contributing Team Member, Level 3 is the Competent Manager, Level 4 is an Effective Leader, and Level 5 is the Executive who builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.
j. Level 5 leaders display a compelling modesty, are self-effacing and understated. In contrast, two thirds of the comparison companies had leaders with gargantuan personal egos that contributed to the demise or continued mediocrity of the company.
k. Level 5 leaders are fanatically driven, infected with an incurable need to produce sustained results. They are resolved to do whatever it takes to make the company great, no matter how big or hard the decisions.
l. One of the most damaging trends in recent history is the tendency (especially of boards of directors) to select dazzling, celebrity leaders and to de-select potential Level 5 leaders.
m. Potential Level 5 leaders exist all around us, we just have to know what to look for.
n. The research team was not looking for Level 5 leadership, but the data was overwhelming and convincing. The Level 5 discovery is an empirical, not ideological, finding.
o. Before answering the “what” questions of vision and strategy, ask first “who” are the right people for the team.
p. Comparison companies used layoffs much more than the good-to-great companies. Although rigorous, the good-to-great companies were never ruthless and did not rely on layoffs or restructuring to improve performance.
q. Good-to-great management teams consist of people who debate vigorously in search of the best answers, yet who unify behind decisions, regardless of parochial interests.
r. There is no link between executive compensation and the shift from good to great. The purpose of compensation is not to ‘motivate' the right behaviors from the wrong people, but to get and keep the right people in the first place.
s. The old adage “People are your most important asset” is wrong. People are not your most important asset. The right people are.
t. Whether someone is the right person has more to do with character and innate capabilities than specific knowledge, skills or experience.
u. The Hedgehog Concept is a concept that flows from the deep understanding about the intersection of the following three circles:
1. What you can be best in the world at, realistically, and what you cannot be best in the world at
2. What drives your economic engine
3. What you are deeply passionate about
v. Discover your core values and purpose beyond simply making money and combine this with the dynamic of preserve the core values - stimulate progress, as shown for example by Disney. They have evolved from making short animated films, to feature length films, to theme parks, to cruises, but their core values of providing happiness to young and old, and not succumbing to cynicism remains strong.
w. Enduring great companies don't exist merely to deliver returns to shareholders. In a truly great company, profits and cash flow are absolutely essential for life, but they are not the very point of life.
"IF YOU'RE DOING SOMETHING YOU CARE DEEPLY ABOUT AND IF YOU BELIVE IN IT , IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO IMAGINE NOT TRYING TO MAKE IT GREAT"
Jim Collins, co-author of ‘Built to Last'
Explore what goes into a company's transformation from mediocre to excellent. Based on hard evidence and volumes of data, the book author (Jim Collins) and his team uncover timeless principles on how the good-to-great companies like Abbott, Circuit City, Fannie Mae, Gillette, Kimberly-Clark, Kroger, Nucor, Philip Morris, Pitney Bowes, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo produced sustained great results and achieved enduring greatness, evolving into companies that were indeed ‘Built to Last'. The Collins team selected 2 sets of comparison companies:
a. Direct comparisons – Companies in the same industry with the same resources and opportunities as the good-to-great group but showed no leap in performance, which were: Upjohn, Silo, Great Western, Warner-Lambert, Scott Paper, A&P, Bethlehem Steel, RJ Reynolds, Addressograph, Eckerd, and Bank of America.
b. Unsustained comparisons – Companies that made a short-term shift from good to great but failed to maintain the trajectory, namely: Burroughs, Chrysler, Harris, Hasbro, Rubbermaid, and Teledyne
Wisdom In A Nutshell:
a. Ten out of eleven good-to-great company leaders or CEOs came from the inside. They were not outsiders hired in to ‘save' the company. They were either people who worked many years at the company or were members of the family that owned the company.
b. Strategy per se did not separate the good to great companies from the comparison groups.
c. Good-to-great companies focus on what Not to do and what they should stop doing.
d. Technology has nothing to do with the transformation from good to great. It may help accelerate it but is not the cause of it.
e. Mergers and acquisitions do not cause a transformation from good to great.
f. Good-to-great companies paid little attention to managing change or motivating people. Under the right conditions, these problems naturally go away.
g. Good-to-great transformations did not need any new name, tagline, or launch program. The leap was in the performance results, not a revolutionary process.
h. Greatness is not a function of circumstance; it is clearly a matter of conscious choice.
i. Every good-to-great company had “Level 5” leadership during pivotal transition years, where Level 1 is a Highly Capable Individual, Level 2 is a Contributing Team Member, Level 3 is the Competent Manager, Level 4 is an Effective Leader, and Level 5 is the Executive who builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.
j. Level 5 leaders display a compelling modesty, are self-effacing and understated. In contrast, two thirds of the comparison companies had leaders with gargantuan personal egos that contributed to the demise or continued mediocrity of the company.
k. Level 5 leaders are fanatically driven, infected with an incurable need to produce sustained results. They are resolved to do whatever it takes to make the company great, no matter how big or hard the decisions.
l. One of the most damaging trends in recent history is the tendency (especially of boards of directors) to select dazzling, celebrity leaders and to de-select potential Level 5 leaders.
m. Potential Level 5 leaders exist all around us, we just have to know what to look for.
n. The research team was not looking for Level 5 leadership, but the data was overwhelming and convincing. The Level 5 discovery is an empirical, not ideological, finding.
o. Before answering the “what” questions of vision and strategy, ask first “who” are the right people for the team.
p. Comparison companies used layoffs much more than the good-to-great companies. Although rigorous, the good-to-great companies were never ruthless and did not rely on layoffs or restructuring to improve performance.
q. Good-to-great management teams consist of people who debate vigorously in search of the best answers, yet who unify behind decisions, regardless of parochial interests.
r. There is no link between executive compensation and the shift from good to great. The purpose of compensation is not to ‘motivate' the right behaviors from the wrong people, but to get and keep the right people in the first place.
s. The old adage “People are your most important asset” is wrong. People are not your most important asset. The right people are.
t. Whether someone is the right person has more to do with character and innate capabilities than specific knowledge, skills or experience.
u. The Hedgehog Concept is a concept that flows from the deep understanding about the intersection of the following three circles:
1. What you can be best in the world at, realistically, and what you cannot be best in the world at
2. What drives your economic engine
3. What you are deeply passionate about
v. Discover your core values and purpose beyond simply making money and combine this with the dynamic of preserve the core values - stimulate progress, as shown for example by Disney. They have evolved from making short animated films, to feature length films, to theme parks, to cruises, but their core values of providing happiness to young and old, and not succumbing to cynicism remains strong.
w. Enduring great companies don't exist merely to deliver returns to shareholders. In a truly great company, profits and cash flow are absolutely essential for life, but they are not the very point of life.
"IF YOU'RE DOING SOMETHING YOU CARE DEEPLY ABOUT AND IF YOU BELIVE IN IT , IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO IMAGINE NOT TRYING TO MAKE IT GREAT"
Saturday, June 30, 2007
What are the 10 Reasons I Should Deal With You?
In that context, of course, "I" means any potential customer. When you do it, it’s more than likely that your team will come up with fairly typical answers - answers like better service, better qualified temps and personnel, and so on.
As they come up with answers, write all the answers on a board, and then do something really interesting. Tell the team that you’re going to be really hard. You’re going to erase anything you’ve written down that one of your competitors would also say to a customer about their business - whether or not it’s true. Ask the team to tell you which attributes they want you to erase on that basis. In other words, ask them to imagine that you’d asked their competitors the same "What are the 10 reasons" question and erase answers they thought their competitors would have given to the same question. Not surprisingly, all the warm "touchy-feely" things will disappear. After all, everyone says they give great service, everyone says they have better qualified people, everyone says they have top quality products, etc.
If you’re really severe with the board eraser, you may have absolutely nothing left on the board. That means you have a problem. Your business is either not unique, or just as importantly, you haven’t been able to find a way to articulate your uniqueness. The point is, of course, that if you don’t have anything tangible or real that differentiates you, you have to find it.
Paul Dunn did an exercise a while ago in Perth with a personnel agency. It’s a fascinating story because like most companies, they had difficulty at first coming up with unique things. But, as they worked on it, they found they could build a USP (unique selling point). The company did have two tangible differences. They had a LIFETIME guarantee (yes, you read that right - a lifetime guarantee) on all permanent placements they made. And, they gave the client the first two hours of the temporary employee’s time free while they were familiarizing themselves with the client’s business. But, they needed to get more. And, by brainstorming, they found it. They decided that the temporaries the company sent out had to be the very best. They had to reflect the company’s values. They had to be different. Training was the answer there. Every temporary (even thought they might be skilled in their own particular area) got a special program on customer care through a special video created for the company. Remarkably, it’s a program that the temporaries gladly paid to participate in! That gave them another difference to communicate to potential customers.
Consider what might happen if you took the time to do the "What are the 10 reasons I should buy from you" exercise. It really is a fascinating one to do.
As they come up with answers, write all the answers on a board, and then do something really interesting. Tell the team that you’re going to be really hard. You’re going to erase anything you’ve written down that one of your competitors would also say to a customer about their business - whether or not it’s true. Ask the team to tell you which attributes they want you to erase on that basis. In other words, ask them to imagine that you’d asked their competitors the same "What are the 10 reasons" question and erase answers they thought their competitors would have given to the same question. Not surprisingly, all the warm "touchy-feely" things will disappear. After all, everyone says they give great service, everyone says they have better qualified people, everyone says they have top quality products, etc.
If you’re really severe with the board eraser, you may have absolutely nothing left on the board. That means you have a problem. Your business is either not unique, or just as importantly, you haven’t been able to find a way to articulate your uniqueness. The point is, of course, that if you don’t have anything tangible or real that differentiates you, you have to find it.
Paul Dunn did an exercise a while ago in Perth with a personnel agency. It’s a fascinating story because like most companies, they had difficulty at first coming up with unique things. But, as they worked on it, they found they could build a USP (unique selling point). The company did have two tangible differences. They had a LIFETIME guarantee (yes, you read that right - a lifetime guarantee) on all permanent placements they made. And, they gave the client the first two hours of the temporary employee’s time free while they were familiarizing themselves with the client’s business. But, they needed to get more. And, by brainstorming, they found it. They decided that the temporaries the company sent out had to be the very best. They had to reflect the company’s values. They had to be different. Training was the answer there. Every temporary (even thought they might be skilled in their own particular area) got a special program on customer care through a special video created for the company. Remarkably, it’s a program that the temporaries gladly paid to participate in! That gave them another difference to communicate to potential customers.
Consider what might happen if you took the time to do the "What are the 10 reasons I should buy from you" exercise. It really is a fascinating one to do.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Profitable Growth Is Everyone's Business
Profitable Growth Is Everyone's Business
"10 Tools You Can Use Monday Morning"By Ram Charan
The days of ruthless downsizing and drastic cost cutting are long gone. Nowadays, companies have realized that the best way to earn profit is only through growth – profitable growth. In this book, author Ram Charan provides 10 tools anyone can use to hurdle obstacles and achieve profitable growth.These tools are:
1. Revenue growth is everyone’s business, so make it part of everyone’s daily work routine.
2. Hit many singles and doubles, not just home runs.
3. Seek good growth and avoid bad growth.
4. Dispel the myths that inhibit both people and organizations from growing.
5. Turn the idea of productivity on its head by increasing revenue productivity.
6. Develop and implement a growth budget.
7. Beef up upstream marketing.
8. Understand how to do effective cross-selling (or value/solutions selling).
9. Create a social engine to accelerate revenue growth.
10. Operationalize innovation by converting ideas into revenue growth.
One of the most critical points discussed is the need for re-orientation of thinking. Most businessmen and executives think about growth as “home-runs” and more often than not disregard the “singles and doubles”. Managers often look forward to the big breakthrough or the grand new product without realizing that home runs don’t happen everywhere – sometimes, they don’t even happen in a decade.Instead of aiming for that one grand home run, aim for singles and doubles. This is a surer and more consistent path. Of course, it is important to note that while aiming for singles and doubles, one should not exclude home runs. These singles and doubles come from an in-depth analysis of ALL the fundamentals of a business.Another factor to be considered is the difference between good growth and bad growth. Managers should dispel the myth that growth in whatever form is a victory. Although growth (both good and bad) builds revenue, only good growth increases not only revenues but also improves profits and is sustainable over time.Bad growth, on the other hand, lowers shareholder value. Unwise mergers and acquisitions are examples of bad growth. Price cutting to gain market share without cutting costs can also be detrimental to your company’s health.Here are some questions that can help you diagnose whether or not you are part of a growth business:
1. What percentage of time and emotional energy does the management team routinely devote to revenue growth?
2. Are there just exhortations and talk about growth or is there actually follow through?
3. Do managers talk about growth only in terms of home runs? Do they understand the importance of singles and doubles for long-term, sustained organic growth?
4. How much of each management team member’s time is devoted to making effective visits with customers? Do they do more than listen and probe for information and then try to “connect the dots”?
5. Does the management team come into contact with the final user of your product?
6. Are people in the business clear about what the specific future sources of revenue growth will be? Do they know who is accountable?7. Would you characterize your company or business unit’s culture as cost cutting or growth oriented? If the answer is one or another you need to start doing both. Do people in leadership positions have the skill, orientation, and determination to grow revenues?
8. Does the company practice revenue productivity? Does it think through whether there are ways to more effectively use current resources to generate higher revenues?
9. How well does your sales force extract intelligence from customers and other players in the marketplace? How well is this information communicated and acted on by other parts of your organization, such as product development?
10. How good are the upstream marketing skills- that is, the ability to segment markets and identify consumer attributes- in your business?
"10 Tools You Can Use Monday Morning"By Ram Charan
The days of ruthless downsizing and drastic cost cutting are long gone. Nowadays, companies have realized that the best way to earn profit is only through growth – profitable growth. In this book, author Ram Charan provides 10 tools anyone can use to hurdle obstacles and achieve profitable growth.These tools are:
1. Revenue growth is everyone’s business, so make it part of everyone’s daily work routine.
2. Hit many singles and doubles, not just home runs.
3. Seek good growth and avoid bad growth.
4. Dispel the myths that inhibit both people and organizations from growing.
5. Turn the idea of productivity on its head by increasing revenue productivity.
6. Develop and implement a growth budget.
7. Beef up upstream marketing.
8. Understand how to do effective cross-selling (or value/solutions selling).
9. Create a social engine to accelerate revenue growth.
10. Operationalize innovation by converting ideas into revenue growth.
One of the most critical points discussed is the need for re-orientation of thinking. Most businessmen and executives think about growth as “home-runs” and more often than not disregard the “singles and doubles”. Managers often look forward to the big breakthrough or the grand new product without realizing that home runs don’t happen everywhere – sometimes, they don’t even happen in a decade.Instead of aiming for that one grand home run, aim for singles and doubles. This is a surer and more consistent path. Of course, it is important to note that while aiming for singles and doubles, one should not exclude home runs. These singles and doubles come from an in-depth analysis of ALL the fundamentals of a business.Another factor to be considered is the difference between good growth and bad growth. Managers should dispel the myth that growth in whatever form is a victory. Although growth (both good and bad) builds revenue, only good growth increases not only revenues but also improves profits and is sustainable over time.Bad growth, on the other hand, lowers shareholder value. Unwise mergers and acquisitions are examples of bad growth. Price cutting to gain market share without cutting costs can also be detrimental to your company’s health.Here are some questions that can help you diagnose whether or not you are part of a growth business:
1. What percentage of time and emotional energy does the management team routinely devote to revenue growth?
2. Are there just exhortations and talk about growth or is there actually follow through?
3. Do managers talk about growth only in terms of home runs? Do they understand the importance of singles and doubles for long-term, sustained organic growth?
4. How much of each management team member’s time is devoted to making effective visits with customers? Do they do more than listen and probe for information and then try to “connect the dots”?
5. Does the management team come into contact with the final user of your product?
6. Are people in the business clear about what the specific future sources of revenue growth will be? Do they know who is accountable?7. Would you characterize your company or business unit’s culture as cost cutting or growth oriented? If the answer is one or another you need to start doing both. Do people in leadership positions have the skill, orientation, and determination to grow revenues?
8. Does the company practice revenue productivity? Does it think through whether there are ways to more effectively use current resources to generate higher revenues?
9. How well does your sales force extract intelligence from customers and other players in the marketplace? How well is this information communicated and acted on by other parts of your organization, such as product development?
10. How good are the upstream marketing skills- that is, the ability to segment markets and identify consumer attributes- in your business?
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
The Rebel Rules"Daring to be your self in business"
What does it take to get in touch with your inner rebel and run a business on your terms? Today’s Information Age has spawned a number of rebel business leaders, from Virgin’s Richard Branson to The Body Shop’s Anita Roddick –and to Joie de Vivre Hospitality’s boy wonder – the author himself – people who have the passion, instinct, agility and vision to rewrite the rules of business so it is ethical, respects diversity, and means more to people than simply turning a profit.
So what exactly is a rebel?
1. Rebels get into activities that make them lose track of time and put them in a state of ecstasy.
2. Rebels build a career that is a natural reflection of themselves and follow a natural progression from their most innate childhood skills.
3. Rebels are working at jobs that they put on their list of top ten “favorite future jobs” from their childhood or youth.
4. Rebels are normally not straight A students, they would have been naïve idealists, non-conformists, or artists in their teenage years
5. Rebels are not afraid to fail, quit their jobs, and follow their lifelong passion and true calling.
6. Rebels either become leading experts in their chosen fields, millionaires, or end up in prison.
7. Rebels do not lose their political and social beliefs as they grow older. Their passion for the causes they support will only grow stronger over time.
8. Rebels do not take “No” for an answer. They will always try to find a way or solution.
Rebel Profile
Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group of Companies:
1. Started his first business, a magazine called Student, at the age of 16.2. Began Virgin mail-order record business at age 20.3. Built a net worth of $300 million by age 35 with diverse businesses all under the Virgin brand: travel, entertainment, retail, media, financial services, publishing, bridal service, and soft drinks.
4. Sold his music company for $1billion at age 41.
Rebel thinking: Position yourself as the underdog and you will enjoy a niche market.
Create your own personal mission statement.1. What do you want to be remembered for?2. What habits do you need to cultivate and what will you remove from your present life in order to live out your true purpose/calling?3. What are the most important personal accomplishments you can imagine in your life?4. Take an hour to write your one-page mission statement. Then cut it down to one paragraph. Then simplify it further by saying it all in one sentence. This summarizes your personal mission statement.How can you tell a Successful rebel?
They have a clear vision. They are highly creative. They are quick to spot trends that can be integrated into their business practices. They feel a higher calling or mission. They are very charismatic and create a strong presence when they walk into a room.
Successful rebels have passion. They are able to unite a diverse team made up of people from different backgrounds, rallying together to build a unique business and company culture.
Their passion comes out naturally because they are great storytellers and communicators. They listen to people carefully.
Successful rebels possess high integrity and trustworthiness. They are the epitome of grace under pressure, they stand up for their beliefs despite popular thinking.
Successful rebels are lifelong learners. They are also good teachers.
They are resourceful enough to find solutions and fix situations. They know how to negotiate deals and have all parties to the deal come away satisfied.
Successful rebels are agile enough to spring into action when necessary, and seem to be “Open 24 hours”. They have boundless energy, and like a Quarterback, moves the ball across the field and gets the job done.
Successful rebels are amazing networkers, multi-taskers, andare very driven individuals who do not easily get distracted from their goals.
Successful rebels follow their companies core values, and “walk their talk”.
Successful rebels know how to keep their employees happy. They give them intangible benefits like high self-esteem, rewards for achievements, and a positive working environment.
Successful rebels inspire their employees to think like business owners. Open-book management, popularized by Jack Stack, is a way of sharing financial information in a fun, educational format to make employees understand how their work earns for the business. You can be sure that when you explain clearly how tardiness affects the bottom line, affecting everyone’s mid-year bonus, employees will start showing up earlier for work.
A few ideas on how to make employees think like entrepreneurs:1. Post the critical numbers on a scoreboard in a fun, visual format.2. Conduct basic financial training and develop strategies for making an impact.3. Review the success of those strategies and “best practices”.4. Play a game with a critical number and make it the goal-of-the-month or something.5. Set up a reward bonus system and give recognition as often as possible.6. Communicate the results throughout your organization.7. Ask new employees to comment on the company’s business practices after their first 30 days.8. Have a brainstorming party or game with prizes for the best ideas 9. Have managers visit competitors and gather after a week to compare notes.10. Have regular meetings with frontline staff to wring out all the information they learn.11. Give your managers a free subscription to the industry magazine.12. Study a role model company or a competitor, you could all go on a retreat or buy managers a copy of the role model company’s literature.13. Write a book with funny stories about how your company serves its customers.
Rebels encourage creativity and individuality within their own companies. They allow themselves and their employees enough free time for a life outside of work, for leisure and recreation.
So what exactly is a rebel?
1. Rebels get into activities that make them lose track of time and put them in a state of ecstasy.
2. Rebels build a career that is a natural reflection of themselves and follow a natural progression from their most innate childhood skills.
3. Rebels are working at jobs that they put on their list of top ten “favorite future jobs” from their childhood or youth.
4. Rebels are normally not straight A students, they would have been naïve idealists, non-conformists, or artists in their teenage years
5. Rebels are not afraid to fail, quit their jobs, and follow their lifelong passion and true calling.
6. Rebels either become leading experts in their chosen fields, millionaires, or end up in prison.
7. Rebels do not lose their political and social beliefs as they grow older. Their passion for the causes they support will only grow stronger over time.
8. Rebels do not take “No” for an answer. They will always try to find a way or solution.
Rebel Profile
Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group of Companies:
1. Started his first business, a magazine called Student, at the age of 16.2. Began Virgin mail-order record business at age 20.3. Built a net worth of $300 million by age 35 with diverse businesses all under the Virgin brand: travel, entertainment, retail, media, financial services, publishing, bridal service, and soft drinks.
4. Sold his music company for $1billion at age 41.
Rebel thinking: Position yourself as the underdog and you will enjoy a niche market.
Create your own personal mission statement.1. What do you want to be remembered for?2. What habits do you need to cultivate and what will you remove from your present life in order to live out your true purpose/calling?3. What are the most important personal accomplishments you can imagine in your life?4. Take an hour to write your one-page mission statement. Then cut it down to one paragraph. Then simplify it further by saying it all in one sentence. This summarizes your personal mission statement.How can you tell a Successful rebel?
They have a clear vision. They are highly creative. They are quick to spot trends that can be integrated into their business practices. They feel a higher calling or mission. They are very charismatic and create a strong presence when they walk into a room.
Successful rebels have passion. They are able to unite a diverse team made up of people from different backgrounds, rallying together to build a unique business and company culture.
Their passion comes out naturally because they are great storytellers and communicators. They listen to people carefully.
Successful rebels possess high integrity and trustworthiness. They are the epitome of grace under pressure, they stand up for their beliefs despite popular thinking.
Successful rebels are lifelong learners. They are also good teachers.
They are resourceful enough to find solutions and fix situations. They know how to negotiate deals and have all parties to the deal come away satisfied.
Successful rebels are agile enough to spring into action when necessary, and seem to be “Open 24 hours”. They have boundless energy, and like a Quarterback, moves the ball across the field and gets the job done.
Successful rebels are amazing networkers, multi-taskers, andare very driven individuals who do not easily get distracted from their goals.
Successful rebels follow their companies core values, and “walk their talk”.
Successful rebels know how to keep their employees happy. They give them intangible benefits like high self-esteem, rewards for achievements, and a positive working environment.
Successful rebels inspire their employees to think like business owners. Open-book management, popularized by Jack Stack, is a way of sharing financial information in a fun, educational format to make employees understand how their work earns for the business. You can be sure that when you explain clearly how tardiness affects the bottom line, affecting everyone’s mid-year bonus, employees will start showing up earlier for work.
A few ideas on how to make employees think like entrepreneurs:1. Post the critical numbers on a scoreboard in a fun, visual format.2. Conduct basic financial training and develop strategies for making an impact.3. Review the success of those strategies and “best practices”.4. Play a game with a critical number and make it the goal-of-the-month or something.5. Set up a reward bonus system and give recognition as often as possible.6. Communicate the results throughout your organization.7. Ask new employees to comment on the company’s business practices after their first 30 days.8. Have a brainstorming party or game with prizes for the best ideas 9. Have managers visit competitors and gather after a week to compare notes.10. Have regular meetings with frontline staff to wring out all the information they learn.11. Give your managers a free subscription to the industry magazine.12. Study a role model company or a competitor, you could all go on a retreat or buy managers a copy of the role model company’s literature.13. Write a book with funny stories about how your company serves its customers.
Rebels encourage creativity and individuality within their own companies. They allow themselves and their employees enough free time for a life outside of work, for leisure and recreation.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
How To Work With Just About Anyone
“A Three-step Solution For Getting Difficult People To Change” By Lucy Gill
“I just can't seem to get along with this person!”
Every office has that one difficult person to work with, who affects productivity due to a terrible attitude, chronic tardiness, or simply drives everyone else up the wall. Here is the answer to common problems in conflict management. Dealing with negative behavior, whether at work or at home, can be solved with three steps:
1. Get to the heart of the matter.
2. Determine what problem-solving methods to avoid so you don't perpetuate the conflict.
3. Choose a different, surprising approach to solve the problem and keep it solved.
Finally, here is your key to some peace and sanity in the workplace, drawn from forty years of research and professional experience in consulting on the prevention and management of nonproductive behavior.
How difficult behavior is reinforced: People use the same solution that never brings new results. The answer is to try something radically different. Employ a totally new approach and choose your response carefully.
Why we fail to change negative behavior:
1. We are caught in the web of our own logic.
2. We don't realize we are doing the same things over and over.
3. We can't think of anything better to try.
This three-question formula can lead you to a new strategy:
1. What is the primary problem? Be specific. How exactly does it affect productivity?
2. What have you been doing about your problem so far? Identify the logic of your favorite solution.
3. What do you need to do instead?
You need to undo what your ineffective solution did. Attack with a brand new set of weapons. Focus on the facts. Figure out what the heart of the matter is:
1. List all the issues affecting you.
2. Decide which issue or who in particular is bothering you the most.
3. Encircle the issue or person's name on your list.
4. Focus on what you circled. List all the things that bother you about this person.
5. Now pick the problem to work on. If you could only fix one item on the list, and had to live with all the others, what would you choose?
6. Then with the particular problem chosen, spell out specifically: Who is doing what that presents a problem, to whom, and how is this behavior a problem?
The 4 ways to get bogged down in “whys” and therefore confused by superfluous issues:
1. Focusing on possible reasons for someone's behavior
2. Speculating about what the person is up to
3. Labeling behavior instead of describing it
4. Worrying about who is right or wrong Use reverse psychology!
1. Do something unexpected. Sometimes shock tactics or being brutally honest works.
2. Encourage the person to keep doing what it is that is irritating behavior. It is strange but encouraging people to continue their irritating behavior gets them to stop it.
3. Have fun experimenting with your new approaches!
4. Tell someone not to change what he is doing.
5. Create consequences or let the natural consequences of his negative behavior occur.
6. Urge someone to do the annoying actions even more New Conflict Management Techniques
1. Do not offer a long list of reasons why someone should change. Simply tell them what needs to be done. The more you rationalize or argue the more they will resist. You will be wasting time and energy.
2. In the face of constant criticism, silently take note of what is being said, then read the notes back – instead of actively defending each point.
3. Make statements (“Unless it creates a problem for you, I'm going to do X”)
4. Give a specific compliment to the other party in a conflict. (“I like the way you presented your report – your lineup of facts made it easy to follow”) It catches them off-guard and makes him/her less defensive.
5. Excuse yourself for a minute in the midst of a heated discussion to go to the toilet instead of escalating the argument.
6. Hold back for thirty minutes instead of rushing to fix a problem for someone else. Other “happy workplace” tips:
1. Keep an open mind about why the person behaves in such a manner.
2. See both sides of the situation, not just yours.
3. Be very specific when analyzing the problem. Make a mental videotape of the behavior.
4. Notice when it isn't happening. Understand why. You may have overlooked something you did that didn't result in the other person's annoying behavior.
5. Find someone with immunity and see how he or she successfully handles the troublesome behavior that you're struggling with.
“I just can't seem to get along with this person!”
Every office has that one difficult person to work with, who affects productivity due to a terrible attitude, chronic tardiness, or simply drives everyone else up the wall. Here is the answer to common problems in conflict management. Dealing with negative behavior, whether at work or at home, can be solved with three steps:
1. Get to the heart of the matter.
2. Determine what problem-solving methods to avoid so you don't perpetuate the conflict.
3. Choose a different, surprising approach to solve the problem and keep it solved.
Finally, here is your key to some peace and sanity in the workplace, drawn from forty years of research and professional experience in consulting on the prevention and management of nonproductive behavior.
How difficult behavior is reinforced: People use the same solution that never brings new results. The answer is to try something radically different. Employ a totally new approach and choose your response carefully.
Why we fail to change negative behavior:
1. We are caught in the web of our own logic.
2. We don't realize we are doing the same things over and over.
3. We can't think of anything better to try.
This three-question formula can lead you to a new strategy:
1. What is the primary problem? Be specific. How exactly does it affect productivity?
2. What have you been doing about your problem so far? Identify the logic of your favorite solution.
3. What do you need to do instead?
You need to undo what your ineffective solution did. Attack with a brand new set of weapons. Focus on the facts. Figure out what the heart of the matter is:
1. List all the issues affecting you.
2. Decide which issue or who in particular is bothering you the most.
3. Encircle the issue or person's name on your list.
4. Focus on what you circled. List all the things that bother you about this person.
5. Now pick the problem to work on. If you could only fix one item on the list, and had to live with all the others, what would you choose?
6. Then with the particular problem chosen, spell out specifically: Who is doing what that presents a problem, to whom, and how is this behavior a problem?
The 4 ways to get bogged down in “whys” and therefore confused by superfluous issues:
1. Focusing on possible reasons for someone's behavior
2. Speculating about what the person is up to
3. Labeling behavior instead of describing it
4. Worrying about who is right or wrong Use reverse psychology!
1. Do something unexpected. Sometimes shock tactics or being brutally honest works.
2. Encourage the person to keep doing what it is that is irritating behavior. It is strange but encouraging people to continue their irritating behavior gets them to stop it.
3. Have fun experimenting with your new approaches!
4. Tell someone not to change what he is doing.
5. Create consequences or let the natural consequences of his negative behavior occur.
6. Urge someone to do the annoying actions even more New Conflict Management Techniques
1. Do not offer a long list of reasons why someone should change. Simply tell them what needs to be done. The more you rationalize or argue the more they will resist. You will be wasting time and energy.
2. In the face of constant criticism, silently take note of what is being said, then read the notes back – instead of actively defending each point.
3. Make statements (“Unless it creates a problem for you, I'm going to do X”)
4. Give a specific compliment to the other party in a conflict. (“I like the way you presented your report – your lineup of facts made it easy to follow”) It catches them off-guard and makes him/her less defensive.
5. Excuse yourself for a minute in the midst of a heated discussion to go to the toilet instead of escalating the argument.
6. Hold back for thirty minutes instead of rushing to fix a problem for someone else. Other “happy workplace” tips:
1. Keep an open mind about why the person behaves in such a manner.
2. See both sides of the situation, not just yours.
3. Be very specific when analyzing the problem. Make a mental videotape of the behavior.
4. Notice when it isn't happening. Understand why. You may have overlooked something you did that didn't result in the other person's annoying behavior.
5. Find someone with immunity and see how he or she successfully handles the troublesome behavior that you're struggling with.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Wall Street Journal . Business Types Get a New Kick Out of the "Bucket"
By Christopher Rhoads.
Suddenly, the humble bucket has become a trendy fixture of corporate boardrooms and PowerPoint presentations. It is pushing aside other business-speak for describing categories or organizational units, such as silo and basket.
Ashwin Shirvaikar, a Citigroup analyst, wanted to get a better handle on the cash flow of Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. "Does it make sense to think of it as a whole, or as two buckets -- one in India and one in the U.S.?" Mr. Shirvaikar asked during an earnings conference call last year.
"I think of it as one bucket," replied Gordon Coburn, the chief financial officer of the technology-services company. "One bucket, OK, thank you," Mr. Shirvaikar said.
During a recent public-television interview, Dow Chemical Co. Chief Executive Andrew Liveris explained that producing ethanol "doesn't help the conservation efficiency bucket -- it helps the diversity of supply bucket." Cingular Wireless boasted that its new rate plan in South Florida lets customers "dig into their big bucket of night and weekend minutes" earlier than before.
Suddenly, the humble bucket has become a trendy fixture of corporate boardrooms and PowerPoint presentations. It is pushing aside other business-speak for describing categories or organizational units, such as silo and basket.
"People are using it everywhere now," says Tom Rath, a management consultant and author of
"How Full Is Your Bucket?" His book, which has been translated into more than 20 languages since its publication in 2004, advocates praise in the workplace. Mr. Rath's consulting firm has even begun selling readers metal buckets to place on their desks. Their purpose: to receive "drops" of praise from colleagues for a job well done.
A bucket is a container used to carry things such as water and livestock feed, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The dictionary cites other definitions over the years: In 16th-century England, slaughtered hogs were strapped by their hooves to a beam known as a bucket. That usage might have led to the expression for dying, or kicking the bucket.
It's also a verb, meaning to pour water on someone, according to the dictionary, as in: "Woe be to him whose head is bucketed with waters of a scalding bath."
But in the past several years, bucket has outgrown its barnyard roots and moved into the business world. "It's informal and universally understood -- a bucket is a bucket everywhere," says Sunil Misra, vice president of consulting in the Billerica, Mass., subsidiary of information-technology services company Getronics NV of the Netherlands.
The blossoming of bucket comes as no surprise to Anthony Aristar, a professor of linguistics at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti. When words -- particularly those centuries old -- become popular in new and different ways, that often indicates a gap in modern language. In this case, business has become organized in so many different kinds of subdivisions that no one quite knows what to call them all.
The result: Old words like bucket are being revived in a "metaphoric extension." Bucket, he explains, "still means a container for something, but now in a metaphorical context. You see this all the time with words."
For businesspeople, bucket trumps basket, which conjures an image of someone picking flowers in a field. Bucket sounds "more macho," suggests Mr. Misra.
Silo also has a negative buzz these days. It implies fiefdoms and exclusive divisions, rather than inclusiveness and working together as a team thrown together in, say, a bucket. "
A silo is a place to store corn or missiles," says Charles Prindiville, a commodities trader with UBS Securities LLC in New York who trades grains among other commodities. "In the past year or two you're definitely seeing people stay away from silo. I prefer to store money in a bucket."
Mr. Prindiville has heard bucket transformed into an adjective too. When a trader wants to sell a large block of stock, he looks for a buyer interested in "something bucket-y," says Mr. Prindiville. "It means something chunky, with some girth to it."
In the telecom world, industry executives recall first using the term in the late 1990s, as cellphones became ubiquitous. U.S. carriers, unlike most of their counterparts elsewhere, figured if customers purchased a block of minutes each month they would use their phones more often. They were right: U.S. cellphone bills and usage are among the highest in the world. And the block became a bucket.
European carriers are now considering the bucket model -- and likely the term as well, says Andrew Cole, president of CSMG Adventis, a telecom consulting firm in Boston. "They will adopt bucket," he says. "That is my strong feeling."
The word is also popular in the computer world, where "bit bucket" refers to the mysterious destination of lost or unintentionally deleted computer files. This probably comes from the days of mainframe computers that used card and paper-tape punches. Getronics's Mr. Misra recalls how small chips of discarded paper were put into what was called a bit bucket.
A noted user of bucket was Frank D'Amelio, former chief operating officer of Lucent Technologies Inc. During Lucent's earnings conference calls, analysts used to eagerly wait for him to drop the word bucket into his business banter, according to Steve Levy, a former Lehman Brothers analyst. "That's really how the numbers bucket out," Mr. D'Amelio concluded an answer in a conference call with analysts in May 2004, according to a transcript, employing the word in rare verb form. Mr. D'Amelio, now chief administrative officer of the newly combined French telecom equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent SA, could not be reached for comment.
Philip Evans, a partner in the Boston office of Boston Consulting Group and a native of Plymouth, England, says he hears the word all the time, including as a verb to describe younger associates' potential with the firm, as in, "How should we bucket this person?" "Visually you think of someone being thrown into a pail of water," says Mr. Evans, an avid reader of Joyce and Shakespeare who describes himself as a word collector. "It's hardly a dignified process, particularly when you think the stuff in a bucket is often animal waste," he says. "Even milk gets a bottle or a jug, not a bucket." _,_.__
Suddenly, the humble bucket has become a trendy fixture of corporate boardrooms and PowerPoint presentations. It is pushing aside other business-speak for describing categories or organizational units, such as silo and basket.
Ashwin Shirvaikar, a Citigroup analyst, wanted to get a better handle on the cash flow of Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. "Does it make sense to think of it as a whole, or as two buckets -- one in India and one in the U.S.?" Mr. Shirvaikar asked during an earnings conference call last year.
"I think of it as one bucket," replied Gordon Coburn, the chief financial officer of the technology-services company. "One bucket, OK, thank you," Mr. Shirvaikar said.
During a recent public-television interview, Dow Chemical Co. Chief Executive Andrew Liveris explained that producing ethanol "doesn't help the conservation efficiency bucket -- it helps the diversity of supply bucket." Cingular Wireless boasted that its new rate plan in South Florida lets customers "dig into their big bucket of night and weekend minutes" earlier than before.
Suddenly, the humble bucket has become a trendy fixture of corporate boardrooms and PowerPoint presentations. It is pushing aside other business-speak for describing categories or organizational units, such as silo and basket.
"People are using it everywhere now," says Tom Rath, a management consultant and author of
"How Full Is Your Bucket?" His book, which has been translated into more than 20 languages since its publication in 2004, advocates praise in the workplace. Mr. Rath's consulting firm has even begun selling readers metal buckets to place on their desks. Their purpose: to receive "drops" of praise from colleagues for a job well done.
A bucket is a container used to carry things such as water and livestock feed, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The dictionary cites other definitions over the years: In 16th-century England, slaughtered hogs were strapped by their hooves to a beam known as a bucket. That usage might have led to the expression for dying, or kicking the bucket.
It's also a verb, meaning to pour water on someone, according to the dictionary, as in: "Woe be to him whose head is bucketed with waters of a scalding bath."
But in the past several years, bucket has outgrown its barnyard roots and moved into the business world. "It's informal and universally understood -- a bucket is a bucket everywhere," says Sunil Misra, vice president of consulting in the Billerica, Mass., subsidiary of information-technology services company Getronics NV of the Netherlands.
The blossoming of bucket comes as no surprise to Anthony Aristar, a professor of linguistics at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti. When words -- particularly those centuries old -- become popular in new and different ways, that often indicates a gap in modern language. In this case, business has become organized in so many different kinds of subdivisions that no one quite knows what to call them all.
The result: Old words like bucket are being revived in a "metaphoric extension." Bucket, he explains, "still means a container for something, but now in a metaphorical context. You see this all the time with words."
For businesspeople, bucket trumps basket, which conjures an image of someone picking flowers in a field. Bucket sounds "more macho," suggests Mr. Misra.
Silo also has a negative buzz these days. It implies fiefdoms and exclusive divisions, rather than inclusiveness and working together as a team thrown together in, say, a bucket. "
A silo is a place to store corn or missiles," says Charles Prindiville, a commodities trader with UBS Securities LLC in New York who trades grains among other commodities. "In the past year or two you're definitely seeing people stay away from silo. I prefer to store money in a bucket."
Mr. Prindiville has heard bucket transformed into an adjective too. When a trader wants to sell a large block of stock, he looks for a buyer interested in "something bucket-y," says Mr. Prindiville. "It means something chunky, with some girth to it."
In the telecom world, industry executives recall first using the term in the late 1990s, as cellphones became ubiquitous. U.S. carriers, unlike most of their counterparts elsewhere, figured if customers purchased a block of minutes each month they would use their phones more often. They were right: U.S. cellphone bills and usage are among the highest in the world. And the block became a bucket.
European carriers are now considering the bucket model -- and likely the term as well, says Andrew Cole, president of CSMG Adventis, a telecom consulting firm in Boston. "They will adopt bucket," he says. "That is my strong feeling."
The word is also popular in the computer world, where "bit bucket" refers to the mysterious destination of lost or unintentionally deleted computer files. This probably comes from the days of mainframe computers that used card and paper-tape punches. Getronics's Mr. Misra recalls how small chips of discarded paper were put into what was called a bit bucket.
A noted user of bucket was Frank D'Amelio, former chief operating officer of Lucent Technologies Inc. During Lucent's earnings conference calls, analysts used to eagerly wait for him to drop the word bucket into his business banter, according to Steve Levy, a former Lehman Brothers analyst. "That's really how the numbers bucket out," Mr. D'Amelio concluded an answer in a conference call with analysts in May 2004, according to a transcript, employing the word in rare verb form. Mr. D'Amelio, now chief administrative officer of the newly combined French telecom equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent SA, could not be reached for comment.
Philip Evans, a partner in the Boston office of Boston Consulting Group and a native of Plymouth, England, says he hears the word all the time, including as a verb to describe younger associates' potential with the firm, as in, "How should we bucket this person?" "Visually you think of someone being thrown into a pail of water," says Mr. Evans, an avid reader of Joyce and Shakespeare who describes himself as a word collector. "It's hardly a dignified process, particularly when you think the stuff in a bucket is often animal waste," he says. "Even milk gets a bottle or a jug, not a bucket." _,_.__
Friday, June 22, 2007
Customer Satisfaction is WORTHLESS: Customer Loyalty is Priceless
by Jeffrey Gitomer
Subtitled "How to make customerslove you, keep them coming back, and tell everyone they know", Gitomer's book holds that traditional customer satisfaction measures are essentially meaningless. A merely satisfied customer, he maintains, is still likely to shop around the next time he or she needs to buy your product or service, for a better price or a more convenient offering. A loyal customer, on the other hand, is more likely to make a point of coming back to you specifically as the supplier, and moreover, is likely to recommend your product or service to others.
To illustrate this, he shows an interesting concept that he calls the "ladder of customer service"
The key is how to develop loyal customers, not simply satisfied ones.
Gitomer holds that it all boils down to something easy to say, but harder to do in practice: GIVING GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE. To show what this means in practice, he has articulated 13 principles of customer service success, which are:
1. understand that your customer is your paycheck - (an interesting suggestion that Gitomer has here is to paste a picture of your children eating dinner above your desk or workstation, to reinforce the knowledge that your customers are the source of your bread and butter).
2. know that your attitude (which he conceptualizes as the way you dedicate yourself to the way you think) determines the degree of excellence of the service you perform
3. customers call, contact, or visit for one reason they need help! - Gitomer advocates being as helpful and speedy in your response as possible to customers when they call, rather then letting then linger in voice mail limbo, or be left uncertain as to whether you can help them or not as he says" give them help, not hell"
4. the value of a customer is 20 times his annual sales volume - Gitomer recommends thinking in relationship marketing terms about the lifetime value of a customer
5. a customer ready to repeat his purchase is a powerful business advantage - the point here is that a major strategic business advantage that you have over your competition is customers who want to buy from you again and again - retaining these loyal customers (and developing more, of course) should be a key business strategy
6. customer satisfaction is worthless: "Satisfaction is no longer the acceptable standard of customer service. Satisfaction is no longer the acceptable measure of customer service success. The standard and measure of success for the next millennium is loyal customers." (p. 79)
7. when you're done speaking with a customer, or when the transaction is over, that's when they start talking - Gitomer recognizes that word of mouth is the most powerful form of advertising, and that customers who say good - or bad - things about you are extremely influential
8. word of mouth advertising is 50 times more powerful than advertising
9. your friendliness and willingness to help is in direct proportion to your success
10. company policy is written in terms of the company, not the customer - Gitomer's point here is that whenever a customer request cannot be dealt with, it is very bad form to fall back on 'company policy' as the reason why - company policy is written for the benefit of the company, not the customer - the customer doesn't care a whit about what the policy might be, they only know that they are dissatisfied because they can't get what they want - when absolutely necessary, he recommends using phrases such as "in order to be fair to everyone" which at least puts the emphasis on the benefits to customers, not the company
11. service is a feeling "Service is a feeling, and you know what it is whether it's good or bad. If you can't remember what 'bad' feels like, call the DMV, Post Office, IRS or Social Security. That's bad. Then call L.L.Bean that's good." (p. 84)
12. the secret to successful customer service is start with... YES - Gitomer says that instead of saying 'no' to customers, say 'yes' whenever possible, even if it is something along the lines of "yes, I see your concern"
13. the customer's perception of good or bad service is the measure of your success or failure
Most of the book is given over to an elaboration of these principles. A 'golden rule' that Gitomer suggests to help clarify these is to pretend that the customer is your grandmother, and to treat them with the respect and eagerness-to-please that you would your real relative.
According to Gitomer, great service is anything extra that you can do for your customer that will make them take notice of you and say WOW! He presents many examples of this kind of service in the book (such as the hotel that calls ahead of your visit to see if there is anything they can have prepared for you upon your arrival, or the tire store that has someone greet you in the parking lot with an umbrella when its raining).
WOW! Service will in turn generate free word-of-mouth advertising (because people like to tell memorable stories) that will in turn help build your business. Plus the customers will be not merely satisfied when the next opportunity rolls around for them to purchase your particular good or service - they will be loyal.
The most important determinant of providing WOW! Service is attitude and self-motivation, and Gitomer talks throughout the book about how to improve one's knowledge and positive attitude about the business they are in.
Customer Satisfaction is WORTHLESS: Customer Loyalty is Priceless is a quick and easy read, with lots of interesting examples and points to ponder. (For example, he provides a useful checklist of things to do when customers call up to complain - and you can be sure that one of then is NOT saying "Sorry - it's company policy"). Gitomer's style is very open and user-friendly, with interesting variations in the typeface to enhance reader interest and curiosity. Throughout, he presents quizzes and self-evaluation questionnaires to help the reader evaluate their own levels of service.
Subtitled "How to make customerslove you, keep them coming back, and tell everyone they know", Gitomer's book holds that traditional customer satisfaction measures are essentially meaningless. A merely satisfied customer, he maintains, is still likely to shop around the next time he or she needs to buy your product or service, for a better price or a more convenient offering. A loyal customer, on the other hand, is more likely to make a point of coming back to you specifically as the supplier, and moreover, is likely to recommend your product or service to others.
To illustrate this, he shows an interesting concept that he calls the "ladder of customer service"
The key is how to develop loyal customers, not simply satisfied ones.
Gitomer holds that it all boils down to something easy to say, but harder to do in practice: GIVING GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE. To show what this means in practice, he has articulated 13 principles of customer service success, which are:
1. understand that your customer is your paycheck - (an interesting suggestion that Gitomer has here is to paste a picture of your children eating dinner above your desk or workstation, to reinforce the knowledge that your customers are the source of your bread and butter).
2. know that your attitude (which he conceptualizes as the way you dedicate yourself to the way you think) determines the degree of excellence of the service you perform
3. customers call, contact, or visit for one reason they need help! - Gitomer advocates being as helpful and speedy in your response as possible to customers when they call, rather then letting then linger in voice mail limbo, or be left uncertain as to whether you can help them or not as he says" give them help, not hell"
4. the value of a customer is 20 times his annual sales volume - Gitomer recommends thinking in relationship marketing terms about the lifetime value of a customer
5. a customer ready to repeat his purchase is a powerful business advantage - the point here is that a major strategic business advantage that you have over your competition is customers who want to buy from you again and again - retaining these loyal customers (and developing more, of course) should be a key business strategy
6. customer satisfaction is worthless: "Satisfaction is no longer the acceptable standard of customer service. Satisfaction is no longer the acceptable measure of customer service success. The standard and measure of success for the next millennium is loyal customers." (p. 79)
7. when you're done speaking with a customer, or when the transaction is over, that's when they start talking - Gitomer recognizes that word of mouth is the most powerful form of advertising, and that customers who say good - or bad - things about you are extremely influential
8. word of mouth advertising is 50 times more powerful than advertising
9. your friendliness and willingness to help is in direct proportion to your success
10. company policy is written in terms of the company, not the customer - Gitomer's point here is that whenever a customer request cannot be dealt with, it is very bad form to fall back on 'company policy' as the reason why - company policy is written for the benefit of the company, not the customer - the customer doesn't care a whit about what the policy might be, they only know that they are dissatisfied because they can't get what they want - when absolutely necessary, he recommends using phrases such as "in order to be fair to everyone" which at least puts the emphasis on the benefits to customers, not the company
11. service is a feeling "Service is a feeling, and you know what it is whether it's good or bad. If you can't remember what 'bad' feels like, call the DMV, Post Office, IRS or Social Security. That's bad. Then call L.L.Bean that's good." (p. 84)
12. the secret to successful customer service is start with... YES - Gitomer says that instead of saying 'no' to customers, say 'yes' whenever possible, even if it is something along the lines of "yes, I see your concern"
13. the customer's perception of good or bad service is the measure of your success or failure
Most of the book is given over to an elaboration of these principles. A 'golden rule' that Gitomer suggests to help clarify these is to pretend that the customer is your grandmother, and to treat them with the respect and eagerness-to-please that you would your real relative.
According to Gitomer, great service is anything extra that you can do for your customer that will make them take notice of you and say WOW! He presents many examples of this kind of service in the book (such as the hotel that calls ahead of your visit to see if there is anything they can have prepared for you upon your arrival, or the tire store that has someone greet you in the parking lot with an umbrella when its raining).
WOW! Service will in turn generate free word-of-mouth advertising (because people like to tell memorable stories) that will in turn help build your business. Plus the customers will be not merely satisfied when the next opportunity rolls around for them to purchase your particular good or service - they will be loyal.
The most important determinant of providing WOW! Service is attitude and self-motivation, and Gitomer talks throughout the book about how to improve one's knowledge and positive attitude about the business they are in.
Customer Satisfaction is WORTHLESS: Customer Loyalty is Priceless is a quick and easy read, with lots of interesting examples and points to ponder. (For example, he provides a useful checklist of things to do when customers call up to complain - and you can be sure that one of then is NOT saying "Sorry - it's company policy"). Gitomer's style is very open and user-friendly, with interesting variations in the typeface to enhance reader interest and curiosity. Throughout, he presents quizzes and self-evaluation questionnaires to help the reader evaluate their own levels of service.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Clicking - 16 Trends to Future Fit Your Life, Your Work and Your Business
by Faith Popcorn and Lys Marigold
'Clicking' is the term that Popcorn and Marigold use to describe being in synch with a particular trend or set of trends. The analogy they draw is that of cracking a safe - when you have the tumblers all lined up the right way, there is a 'click' and the door pops open. In a similar manner, when you understand all the relevant trends that influence the future of your business and your life, and act in accordance with them, then you are 'clicking'. Or, as they would say, you are 'safecracking the future'.
They have even invented a slogan for which 'CLICK' acts as an acronym:
C is for Courage, which you need to have in order to follow a new direction in your business or your life;
L is for Letting Go of the old ways of thinking about things, and following the directions implied by the current prevailing trends;
I is for the Insight required in order to know how to re-structure your business or your life to take advantage of the trends;
C is for Commitment to follow through and stick it out in the initial times when it looks as though you won't succeed; and
K is for the Know-how that is required to make it work.
The recipe for success, the authors maintain, is simple: a belief in this 'click' formula, plus an understanding of the trends facing business and society today.
The book is divided into three sections. The first section defines the notion of 'clicking' and how it is meaningful, the second describes in some detail the various trends, and the third is devoted to 'how to click' - practical advice on how to use the idea of clicking on the trends in everything from planning a career to raising kids. Throughout, Clicking is filled with bizarre illustrations that depict in symbolic form the various themes that run through the book. Several of these feature likenesses of the authors in heroic and athletic poses. Very annoying.
The second section, which occupies the bulk of the book, identifies and describes sixteen trends that the authors report as being actively at work shaping our future. These build upon and extend the ten trends identified in their previous book, The Popcorn Report (1991), some of which (such as 'cocooning') have entered the common parlance and are acknowledged as factors shaping consumer behavior and market responses. These 16 trends are:
cocooning: this labels our desire to build ourselves strong and cozy nests where we can retreat from the world, enjoying ourselves in safety and comfort
clanning: this refers to our need to associate with like-minded individuals, and to identify ourselves with a particular group that shares our outlook and values
fantasy adventure: as a break from the mundane day-to-day, we seek risk-free fantasy and adventure experiences
pleasure revenge: another form of escape for us is to take enjoyment in sensual and pleasurable activities, as a feeling of reward for all we've suffered
small indulgences: this refers to the trend towards people rewarding themselves regularly with small everyday affordable luxuries
anchoring: this term refers to the increasing tendency for people to seek fulfillment in spiritual values, and looking back to the past to recapture what was comforting and reassuring then
egonomics: this is a reaction against the standardization imposed by the computer age, which manifests itself in terms of individuals seeking out various avenues for self-expression and personal statements
female think: what this boils down to is that women think and act differently than men - as women occupy more positions of power this is reflected in more caring and sharing types of decision-making approaches, characterized by consensus (as opposed a hierarchical, male-dominated decision-making process) - the authors state that women start twice as many new businesses as do men, so this is a trend to be aware of
emancipation: increasingly, men no longer are "strictly business" - they can now enjoy the freedom to be themselves, not feeling guilty about participating in child-raising, showing emotion, etc.
99 lives: this trend refers to the increasing tendency (brought about in many cases by necessity) for people to assume multiple roles in society, specializing in more than one thing in their lives
cashing out: increasing numbers of working men and women are choosing to leave, or are being forced out of, high-profile careers - they 'cash out', choosing simpler and more fulfilling life styles
being alive: this refers to the growing awareness of the concept of 'wellness', and the benefits of a healthy lifestyle in terms of a better quality of life, as well as a longer life overall
down-aging: this trend refers to the fact that people, especially in middle age or older, adopt or maintain lifestyles (and, of course, purchase products) that would normally be associated with younger people
vigilante consumerism: increasingly, consumers are manipulating the marketplace through pressure, protest and politics
icon toppling: increasingly, say the authors, we are questioning established institutions as well as individuals who are 'pillars of society'
S.O.S. (save our society): this refers to the trend towards an environmental ethic being practiced in business and personal affairs
The authors make the point early on in the book that for a new product or service to be successful, it should directly match four or more of these trends. To help organizations with this, Popcorn et. al. have built up a large consulting organization, BrainReserve, offering a variety of trade-marked products and services (things such as TrendView, BrainJam and ClickTime).
Clicking is a fascinating and important marketing phenomenon for two reasons: first , the trends themselves do have some merit and need to be understood to fully understand consumer behavior today; and second, the packaging and presentation of the book (a not to mention the companion audiotape) is itself an object lesson in self aggrandizement, and business development through client puffery. A cynic would see the book as simply a giant advertisement for BrainReserve's services - but then, as Popcorn admits in the book, she is in the marketing business.
'Clicking' is the term that Popcorn and Marigold use to describe being in synch with a particular trend or set of trends. The analogy they draw is that of cracking a safe - when you have the tumblers all lined up the right way, there is a 'click' and the door pops open. In a similar manner, when you understand all the relevant trends that influence the future of your business and your life, and act in accordance with them, then you are 'clicking'. Or, as they would say, you are 'safecracking the future'.
They have even invented a slogan for which 'CLICK' acts as an acronym:
C is for Courage, which you need to have in order to follow a new direction in your business or your life;
L is for Letting Go of the old ways of thinking about things, and following the directions implied by the current prevailing trends;
I is for the Insight required in order to know how to re-structure your business or your life to take advantage of the trends;
C is for Commitment to follow through and stick it out in the initial times when it looks as though you won't succeed; and
K is for the Know-how that is required to make it work.
The recipe for success, the authors maintain, is simple: a belief in this 'click' formula, plus an understanding of the trends facing business and society today.
The book is divided into three sections. The first section defines the notion of 'clicking' and how it is meaningful, the second describes in some detail the various trends, and the third is devoted to 'how to click' - practical advice on how to use the idea of clicking on the trends in everything from planning a career to raising kids. Throughout, Clicking is filled with bizarre illustrations that depict in symbolic form the various themes that run through the book. Several of these feature likenesses of the authors in heroic and athletic poses. Very annoying.
The second section, which occupies the bulk of the book, identifies and describes sixteen trends that the authors report as being actively at work shaping our future. These build upon and extend the ten trends identified in their previous book, The Popcorn Report (1991), some of which (such as 'cocooning') have entered the common parlance and are acknowledged as factors shaping consumer behavior and market responses. These 16 trends are:
cocooning: this labels our desire to build ourselves strong and cozy nests where we can retreat from the world, enjoying ourselves in safety and comfort
clanning: this refers to our need to associate with like-minded individuals, and to identify ourselves with a particular group that shares our outlook and values
fantasy adventure: as a break from the mundane day-to-day, we seek risk-free fantasy and adventure experiences
pleasure revenge: another form of escape for us is to take enjoyment in sensual and pleasurable activities, as a feeling of reward for all we've suffered
small indulgences: this refers to the trend towards people rewarding themselves regularly with small everyday affordable luxuries
anchoring: this term refers to the increasing tendency for people to seek fulfillment in spiritual values, and looking back to the past to recapture what was comforting and reassuring then
egonomics: this is a reaction against the standardization imposed by the computer age, which manifests itself in terms of individuals seeking out various avenues for self-expression and personal statements
female think: what this boils down to is that women think and act differently than men - as women occupy more positions of power this is reflected in more caring and sharing types of decision-making approaches, characterized by consensus (as opposed a hierarchical, male-dominated decision-making process) - the authors state that women start twice as many new businesses as do men, so this is a trend to be aware of
emancipation: increasingly, men no longer are "strictly business" - they can now enjoy the freedom to be themselves, not feeling guilty about participating in child-raising, showing emotion, etc.
99 lives: this trend refers to the increasing tendency (brought about in many cases by necessity) for people to assume multiple roles in society, specializing in more than one thing in their lives
cashing out: increasing numbers of working men and women are choosing to leave, or are being forced out of, high-profile careers - they 'cash out', choosing simpler and more fulfilling life styles
being alive: this refers to the growing awareness of the concept of 'wellness', and the benefits of a healthy lifestyle in terms of a better quality of life, as well as a longer life overall
down-aging: this trend refers to the fact that people, especially in middle age or older, adopt or maintain lifestyles (and, of course, purchase products) that would normally be associated with younger people
vigilante consumerism: increasingly, consumers are manipulating the marketplace through pressure, protest and politics
icon toppling: increasingly, say the authors, we are questioning established institutions as well as individuals who are 'pillars of society'
S.O.S. (save our society): this refers to the trend towards an environmental ethic being practiced in business and personal affairs
The authors make the point early on in the book that for a new product or service to be successful, it should directly match four or more of these trends. To help organizations with this, Popcorn et. al. have built up a large consulting organization, BrainReserve, offering a variety of trade-marked products and services (things such as TrendView, BrainJam and ClickTime).
Clicking is a fascinating and important marketing phenomenon for two reasons: first , the trends themselves do have some merit and need to be understood to fully understand consumer behavior today; and second, the packaging and presentation of the book (a not to mention the companion audiotape) is itself an object lesson in self aggrandizement, and business development through client puffery. A cynic would see the book as simply a giant advertisement for BrainReserve's services - but then, as Popcorn admits in the book, she is in the marketing business.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
It’s Your Ship
A challenge for every organization is to attract, retain and motivate employees. If a company succeeds in doing so, employees work with more passion, energy, and enthusiasm. This translates to an increase in productivity and more profit for the company.
Another factor to remember is this: real leadership must be done by example. Remember that the people below you follow your lead and that you have an enormous influence on your employees. They will look up to you for signals on how to behave and what the organization expects from them.
Remember that one of the secrets to a successful management of any organization is to be able to articulate a common goal that inspires people to work hard together. Proper, effective and open communication of goals, rules, instructions and expectations can spell a difference.
The best way for an organization to succeed is to give the employees all the responsibility they can handle and then stand back. Trusting your employees to do their job well sustains the company.
Trust is also a social contract – you have to earn it. Trust is earned when you give it. When people start trusting each other more and more, they stop questioning motives and start to work as one unit.
Encourage the people in your organization to be more result-oriented by opening their minds to new ideas. Encourage them to use their imagination to find new ways of doing things. Your employees must learn how to take the initiative.
It is also important to remember that sometimes, you need to learn to take calculated risks. Bet on people who think for themselves. By taking a "leap of faith" and trusting that one person can do the job and do it right, you increase his self-confidence and make him do his job even better. You must also learn to take a chance on a promising sailor. Give people second chances especially if you see potential in him. He might just surprise you with outstanding results. Lastly, if a rule doesn’t make sense, break it carefully. Remember, there is always room for improvement but think ideas thoroughly before implementing it.
In any business, standard operating procedure (SOP) is the rule. It is safe, proven and effective. However, SOP seldom gets outstanding results and distracts people from what is really important.
Innovation and progress are realized when you go beyond standard operating procedures. Sometimes, you have to look for new ways to handle old tasks and find new approaches to new problems.
Good leaders strengthen their organization by building their people and helping them feel good about themselves and their jobs. When this happens, morale and productivity is improved which translates to increased profit for the company. Focus on building self-esteem. Show them that you trust and believe in them. Praise them for a job well done.
Unity is essential to any organization. If you don’t support each other, the organization will soon encounter critical problems that may be irreparable. The job of a leader is to assemble the best team possible, train the unit, and figure out the best way to get the members to work together for the good of the organization.
Lastly, remember that people who enjoy and look forward to going to work are more productive and happy. You can create a positive atmosphere at work by letting people have fun and interact with their colleagues. Having fun at work creates more social glue for the organization. This results in productivity and loyalty.
g>
Another factor to remember is this: real leadership must be done by example. Remember that the people below you follow your lead and that you have an enormous influence on your employees. They will look up to you for signals on how to behave and what the organization expects from them.
Remember that one of the secrets to a successful management of any organization is to be able to articulate a common goal that inspires people to work hard together. Proper, effective and open communication of goals, rules, instructions and expectations can spell a difference.
The best way for an organization to succeed is to give the employees all the responsibility they can handle and then stand back. Trusting your employees to do their job well sustains the company.
Trust is also a social contract – you have to earn it. Trust is earned when you give it. When people start trusting each other more and more, they stop questioning motives and start to work as one unit.
Encourage the people in your organization to be more result-oriented by opening their minds to new ideas. Encourage them to use their imagination to find new ways of doing things. Your employees must learn how to take the initiative.
It is also important to remember that sometimes, you need to learn to take calculated risks. Bet on people who think for themselves. By taking a "leap of faith" and trusting that one person can do the job and do it right, you increase his self-confidence and make him do his job even better. You must also learn to take a chance on a promising sailor. Give people second chances especially if you see potential in him. He might just surprise you with outstanding results. Lastly, if a rule doesn’t make sense, break it carefully. Remember, there is always room for improvement but think ideas thoroughly before implementing it.
In any business, standard operating procedure (SOP) is the rule. It is safe, proven and effective. However, SOP seldom gets outstanding results and distracts people from what is really important.
Innovation and progress are realized when you go beyond standard operating procedures. Sometimes, you have to look for new ways to handle old tasks and find new approaches to new problems.
Good leaders strengthen their organization by building their people and helping them feel good about themselves and their jobs. When this happens, morale and productivity is improved which translates to increased profit for the company. Focus on building self-esteem. Show them that you trust and believe in them. Praise them for a job well done.
Unity is essential to any organization. If you don’t support each other, the organization will soon encounter critical problems that may be irreparable. The job of a leader is to assemble the best team possible, train the unit, and figure out the best way to get the members to work together for the good of the organization.
Lastly, remember that people who enjoy and look forward to going to work are more productive and happy. You can create a positive atmosphere at work by letting people have fun and interact with their colleagues. Having fun at work creates more social glue for the organization. This results in productivity and loyalty.
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Tuesday, June 19, 2007
One minute Manager meets the monkey.
• There are essential tasks and nonessential tasks (monkeys).
• Monkeys make managers run out of time.
• Managers work the monkeys, and their staff supervises them.
• If it is not worth doing, it is not worth doing well.
• Experience doesn't happen. What happens is what you do with it.
• Monkeys don't take care of themselves.
• The more you get rid of your monkeys, the more time you have for your staff.
• All monkeys must be handled at the lowest organizational level consistent with their welfare.
• The best way to develop responsibility is to give responsibility.
• Hand off management as much as possible, and hands on management as much as necessary.
• Assigning involves a single monkey. Delegating involves a family of monkeys.
• The purpose of coaching is to get into a position to delegate.
• Know the difference between: Boss imposed time. System imposed time. Self imposed time.
• If you always agree with your boss, one of you isn't necessary.
A great Manager
• Inspires employees to be the greatest they can be through shared vision.
• Always does the right thing.
• Treats employees as partners, with respect and dignity.
• Goes the extra mile for customers and employees.
• Trusts employees.
• Cares for his employees.
• Implements all relevant knowledge quickly and effectively.
• Develops employees to be independent thinkers.
• Strives to include all employees in the inner circle.
• Validates employees.
Note: We recommend the classic Harvard Business Review article: "Who's Got The Monkey?" first published in as a preamble to this book.
• Monkeys make managers run out of time.
• Managers work the monkeys, and their staff supervises them.
• If it is not worth doing, it is not worth doing well.
• Experience doesn't happen. What happens is what you do with it.
• Monkeys don't take care of themselves.
• The more you get rid of your monkeys, the more time you have for your staff.
• All monkeys must be handled at the lowest organizational level consistent with their welfare.
• The best way to develop responsibility is to give responsibility.
• Hand off management as much as possible, and hands on management as much as necessary.
• Assigning involves a single monkey. Delegating involves a family of monkeys.
• The purpose of coaching is to get into a position to delegate.
• Know the difference between: Boss imposed time. System imposed time. Self imposed time.
• If you always agree with your boss, one of you isn't necessary.
A great Manager
• Inspires employees to be the greatest they can be through shared vision.
• Always does the right thing.
• Treats employees as partners, with respect and dignity.
• Goes the extra mile for customers and employees.
• Trusts employees.
• Cares for his employees.
• Implements all relevant knowledge quickly and effectively.
• Develops employees to be independent thinkers.
• Strives to include all employees in the inner circle.
• Validates employees.
Note: We recommend the classic Harvard Business Review article: "Who's Got The Monkey?" first published in as a preamble to this book.
Monday, June 18, 2007
What Will Be - How the World of New Information Will Change Our Lives
Michael Dertouzos is the Director of the Laboratory for Computer Science at MIT, and thus reasonably well qualified to predict where computer technology will be taking us in the future. His book discusses technological changes that are occurring now and that are on the horizon, and shows how they will impact us on a day-to-day basis.
This book has three parts: Shaping the Future, which explains the new technologies so that readers can judge unfolding events for themselves; How Your Life Will Change, which imagines how and justifies why our lives will be recast; and Reuniting Technology and Humanity, which assesses the impact of these changes on our society and our humanity.
Central to Dertouzous' vision is the concept of the Information Marketplace, which he defines as the "...collection of people, computers, communications, software and services that will be engaged in the intraorganizational and interpersonal information transactions of the future. These transactions will involve the processing and communication of information under the same economic motives that drive today's traditional marketplace for material goods and services."
This Information Marketplace will be made possible by a communications infrastructure that will be built by the telecommunications and software industries. The Information Marketplace and the infrastructure upon which it is based exist today in an embryonic form, but are not yet at the state where the are totally flexible and user friendly. This is in contrast to other infrastructures such as the electrical grid or the highway network, where anybody can use them very easily, they are very widely distributed, and they are very inexpensive to use. Dertouzous sees that in the future the communications infrastructure will be the same way very easy to use (computers will respond to voice commands, for example, and be able to interpret requests for information or services easily), ubiquitously available to everyone, and totally incorporated into our daily lives.
The first part of the book identifies new technologies and products that will emerge. Some of the more significant and interesting of these that he discusses are:
- virtual reality, and other 'augmented interfaces', with applications for learning (e.g. simulators) and entertainment
- haptic interfaces, which combine manipulation with touch sensing, and will make virtual reality experiences even more lifelike the applications range from the erotic and sensual (use your imagination) to devices to enhance the abilities of the physically challenged, and cover most things in between
- avatars, which are electronic 'personalities' that individuals will create to represent themselves in the Information Marketplace (probably having different avatars for different roles that an individual may play: businessman, game player, lover, etc.)
- Guardian Angels, which would be data bases on the health-care history of a given patient, and which would accompany that person throughout their life its capabilities (in addition to furnishing doctors and medical personnel with a complete medical record) could include an ability to recommend the kinds of drugs and treatment that might benefit an individual
- a whole range of automation tools, using voice recognition software (which will greatly expand the accessibility of the infrastructure, bringing it into the reach of just about everyone)
- continuing reliance on e-mail as a major shared communications tool (albeit with better controls for info-junk and offensive mail)
- a range of products to enable groupwork and telework (akin to Lotus Notes, these will facilitate a team of individuals inputting to a project)
- a range of tools for finding and organizing information called hyperfinders by Dertouzos, these will search through the Information Marketplace for data that meets the user¹s specifications (likely dictated through voice recognition procedures)
- new theories, systems and products to ensure computer security
The second part of the book discusses how the emerging Information Marketplace will affect our lives in six areas, which are:
1. Daily Life
2. Pleasure
3. Health
4. Learning
5. Business and Organizations, and
6. Government
He makes extensive use of little vignettes in illustrating how the Information Marketplace and the communications infrastructure will influence our lives in each of these areas. The predictions he makes are basically examples of the application of the kinds of tools that he has discussed in the first part of the book (the use of 'Guardian Angels' by the health care system, for example).
The third section is devoted to an overview of what Dertouzos sees as the major changes that the Information Marketplace will bring to humanity. Here he introduces two new concepts: that of electronic bulldozers and electronic proximity. 'Electronic bulldozers' refers to the tremendous power of computers to do massive work in finding, organizing and presenting data and information to individuals; this ability to assemble huge amounts of information is unprecedented in human history. A companion notion is that of 'electronic proximity' communications technologies will enable us to break free of purely geographical boundaries in interacting with people, and which will bring us into contact with potentially hundreds of millions of people across the planet. Yet just because we will have these capabilities does not mean we will be able to handle them appropriately; human beings are, after all, still limited by our mental abilities to process data and to manage relationships with people. Thus the challenges will be how to educate individuals to maximize the potential of the Information Marketplace with care and reason, and not to become overwhelmed. He ends this third section with a vision of how the availablility of information in this manner may help to bridge the traditional gap between the arts and the sciences, where both communities see the value in the other.
Despite being written by one of the leading visionaries behind this emerging Information Marketplace, What Will Be is a relatively dry and uninspiring book. There's not much in it that we haven't heard before. Dertouzos does present his information and predictions in an interesting way (through the use of vignettes), but even this device gets stale after repeated use. However, the way he says it in no way should diminish the importance (and fundamental correctness) of what he is saying.
This book has three parts: Shaping the Future, which explains the new technologies so that readers can judge unfolding events for themselves; How Your Life Will Change, which imagines how and justifies why our lives will be recast; and Reuniting Technology and Humanity, which assesses the impact of these changes on our society and our humanity.
Central to Dertouzous' vision is the concept of the Information Marketplace, which he defines as the "...collection of people, computers, communications, software and services that will be engaged in the intraorganizational and interpersonal information transactions of the future. These transactions will involve the processing and communication of information under the same economic motives that drive today's traditional marketplace for material goods and services."
This Information Marketplace will be made possible by a communications infrastructure that will be built by the telecommunications and software industries. The Information Marketplace and the infrastructure upon which it is based exist today in an embryonic form, but are not yet at the state where the are totally flexible and user friendly. This is in contrast to other infrastructures such as the electrical grid or the highway network, where anybody can use them very easily, they are very widely distributed, and they are very inexpensive to use. Dertouzous sees that in the future the communications infrastructure will be the same way very easy to use (computers will respond to voice commands, for example, and be able to interpret requests for information or services easily), ubiquitously available to everyone, and totally incorporated into our daily lives.
The first part of the book identifies new technologies and products that will emerge. Some of the more significant and interesting of these that he discusses are:
- virtual reality, and other 'augmented interfaces', with applications for learning (e.g. simulators) and entertainment
- haptic interfaces, which combine manipulation with touch sensing, and will make virtual reality experiences even more lifelike the applications range from the erotic and sensual (use your imagination) to devices to enhance the abilities of the physically challenged, and cover most things in between
- avatars, which are electronic 'personalities' that individuals will create to represent themselves in the Information Marketplace (probably having different avatars for different roles that an individual may play: businessman, game player, lover, etc.)
- Guardian Angels, which would be data bases on the health-care history of a given patient, and which would accompany that person throughout their life its capabilities (in addition to furnishing doctors and medical personnel with a complete medical record) could include an ability to recommend the kinds of drugs and treatment that might benefit an individual
- a whole range of automation tools, using voice recognition software (which will greatly expand the accessibility of the infrastructure, bringing it into the reach of just about everyone)
- continuing reliance on e-mail as a major shared communications tool (albeit with better controls for info-junk and offensive mail)
- a range of products to enable groupwork and telework (akin to Lotus Notes, these will facilitate a team of individuals inputting to a project)
- a range of tools for finding and organizing information called hyperfinders by Dertouzos, these will search through the Information Marketplace for data that meets the user¹s specifications (likely dictated through voice recognition procedures)
- new theories, systems and products to ensure computer security
The second part of the book discusses how the emerging Information Marketplace will affect our lives in six areas, which are:
1. Daily Life
2. Pleasure
3. Health
4. Learning
5. Business and Organizations, and
6. Government
He makes extensive use of little vignettes in illustrating how the Information Marketplace and the communications infrastructure will influence our lives in each of these areas. The predictions he makes are basically examples of the application of the kinds of tools that he has discussed in the first part of the book (the use of 'Guardian Angels' by the health care system, for example).
The third section is devoted to an overview of what Dertouzos sees as the major changes that the Information Marketplace will bring to humanity. Here he introduces two new concepts: that of electronic bulldozers and electronic proximity. 'Electronic bulldozers' refers to the tremendous power of computers to do massive work in finding, organizing and presenting data and information to individuals; this ability to assemble huge amounts of information is unprecedented in human history. A companion notion is that of 'electronic proximity' communications technologies will enable us to break free of purely geographical boundaries in interacting with people, and which will bring us into contact with potentially hundreds of millions of people across the planet. Yet just because we will have these capabilities does not mean we will be able to handle them appropriately; human beings are, after all, still limited by our mental abilities to process data and to manage relationships with people. Thus the challenges will be how to educate individuals to maximize the potential of the Information Marketplace with care and reason, and not to become overwhelmed. He ends this third section with a vision of how the availablility of information in this manner may help to bridge the traditional gap between the arts and the sciences, where both communities see the value in the other.
Despite being written by one of the leading visionaries behind this emerging Information Marketplace, What Will Be is a relatively dry and uninspiring book. There's not much in it that we haven't heard before. Dertouzos does present his information and predictions in an interesting way (through the use of vignettes), but even this device gets stale after repeated use. However, the way he says it in no way should diminish the importance (and fundamental correctness) of what he is saying.
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