...and you thought we had an Energy Shortage

Every day we hear about the energy shortage (i.e., oil) and the impact on business and our lives. However, I have been spending a significant amount of time researching the talent management space . . . and if you think there is an energy shortage and prices are ever-increasing, you have not seen anything yet. There will be a major shortfall in skilled talent soon. One of the key shortages is leadership skills. If you are in leadership or on a track for leadership, you will have tremendous amount of opportunity if you have a successful background. However, if you are a business leader and need a strong leadership team, it is important that you retain and engage your existing leadership group. Otherwise, there are competitors and other organizations who are on the prowl looking for key leadership skills in their organization. Consequently, you need to be proactive and reach out to those high potentials as they will be your leaders in the future. Some further thoughts:

1. This is a business problem not an HR problem, so business managers need to own the talent management issue. Where appropriate, expand your leadership team so that the future leaders can experience how a leadership team works and feel engaged so that they are a part of the future strategy of the business.
2. Start Today, not at the next meeting. Talent management issues always seems to be at the end of the meeting agenda and an item that gets push to the next meeting. Start now before it is too late and you are in reactive mode.
3. A successful talent development program (attracting, developing, assessing, rewarding and retaining) need to be connected and integrated so that they are dependent upon each other and each are reinforced by each other. The program needs to be directly linked to the business requirements.
4. HR is no longer a place. The HR function is a facilitator and enabler, but not the owner of the issue. HR, i.e, "talent managers" need to be incorporated in each business manager. Remember, it is now, reading, writing, arithmetic, and HR . . .
5. If you are experiencing turnover in leadership levels, you just might be on the wrong path.

With this shortage looming, there is opportunity. As a leader, it is important that you proactively face this shortage and put in place initiatives that will retain your key future leaders (and more important, don't do something that dis-engages them).

Don't Forget to Invest in Yourself

Often as a leader, you provide guidance/advice to staff on development needs and possible areas of growth. However, many times you forget about the development needs that you as a leader need. Everyone can improve and grow.

Abraham Lincoln said "I don't think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday."

You must take time to make an investment in YOU and Your career. Yes, I know it is not easy, too much work, deliverables, deadlines, etc. If you don't do it, no one else will do it for you, plus it will make you feel better and more confident.

My suggestions:

* Set a personal goal to learn something new about your organization or professional discipline (every week)

* Learn by teaching (this is something Stephen Covey talks about often, you learn the most when you teach others)

* Development does not have to be related to your profession but could be something that has nothing to do with your job . . . but bottom line, you are growing and learning.

* Personally, I found periodically talking to a network or even recruiter about my background and what is needed for me to take another role that I might be interested in . . . have someone outside of your organization provides good feedback on how your background relates to the general marketplace.

Bottom Line: Make an investment in You!

People are the Greatest Asset

This short article from Business Week discusses how serious companies are about employees being their its best asset. Many of the readers of my blog have seen my presentations about the view that the only long term sustainable competitive advantage is your people. As part of this concept, the HR department needs to be elevated to status of a profitable business unit . . . it has been interesting to see that in several major organizations, a successful business unit person is being "promoted" to head of HR without any previous HR experience (look for this trend to continue). Remember, on average 40% of the expense line of a business is related to people and this is the organization's most important investment (yes, I said investment NOT costs). This article has several points on HR "upping their game" and thought it interesting to share. Where does the HR department rank within your organization?

http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/jul2008/ca20080717_668877.htm?chan=rss_topStories_ssi_5

6 Signs You Don't Care about Workers
How to gauge whether your company's happy talk about employees being its best asset has any basis in reality
by Liz Ryan

It has become a sad cliché: "Our People are our Greatest Asset." That hackneyed phrase doesn't mean anything in particular, so it's an easy bit of boilerplate to stamp on hallway posters and marketing brochures. When certain employers do elevate their talent-retention and team-welfare initiatives to the level of strategic priority, it's obvious.

Google (BusinessWeek.com, 10/25/07) (GOOG) is a hot stock, but it's even hotter as a desirable workplace because of the attention paid to hiring and keeping the best folks on board. When companies talk about valuing talent but don't put that talk into action, it shows. As a business leader, there are easy ways to gauge whether the happy talk about employees has a basis in reality. Here are our Top Six not-walking-the-walk red flags:

1. The talent chief is a half-chief.

If the human resources leader in the organization isn't at the same level as the rest of the E-staff—whether that's executive vice-president, senior vice-president, or chief [whatever] officer—the "greatest asset" language is a lie. Why would a company that values talent demote its top people officer relative to the rest of its leadership staff? Talk is cheap. If your company values talent, it will bring on an HR exec with the experience and wherewithal to operate at the same level as the rest of the leadership roster.

2. HR is a finance function.

Years ago, when HR was called personnel, maybe it made sense to stick the function under accounting. After all, most of what happened in personnel had to do with payroll records, vacation days, and the like. Today, managing HR as a finance function says "We value people, all right. Those salaries and benefits suck cost right outta the bottom line." If your HR function is a sub-group of finance or of your general counsel's office, you've got some squaring up to do between your "greatest asset" talk and the way things actually run.

3. Recruitment is a black hole.

Twenty years ago, during the Quality Revolution, experts urged CEOs to "staple themselves to an order," the idea being that the CEOs would learn first-hand what a customer's order-placing and -receiving experience was like. Today, you'd be wise to "staple yourself to a résumé." If your recruiting group is (as is common) a pit where résumés go to die, you're hereby forbidden to talk about greatest human assets until the problem is fixed.

At least 90% of the organizations I hear from have enormous problems managing the recruiting function in a way that values talent—and that's during the we-love-you stage, where valuing talent should be at its peak! Fix the function so that job candidates are treated like valued contributors rather than livestock, and you'll have made a major stride.

4. HR is a cost-reduction unit.

When HR is primarily a cost-reduction unit, charged with taking nickels out of the dental-plan premiums, your talent-awareness score approaches zero.

This doesn't mean that life in HR—even in the most talent-minded organizations—is spent handing out bonuses and organizing trips to amusement parks. Cost reductions, including layoffs, are unavoidable when business realities change. Even companies that find it necessary to reduce their staff rosters from time to time can be human, fair and respectful in doing so (Sun Microsystems (JAVA) comes to mind as an example of a company that doesn't drop out the human element in such situations). If your HR team's goals for the year focus on cost reduction rather than talent management, the engine is broken.

5. You've outsourced the most critical people functions.

It's logical to outsource an HR function such as processing worker's-comp claims to a firm that specializes in it. With any luck, worker's comp claims aren't terribly common or essential core competencies for your company. But employee relations? Staffing? Companies that move these talent-critical functions out-of-house are signalling in neon: "We Say It, But We Don't Mean It." No one sitting 3,000 miles away and answering 40 calls a day can listen and understand your employee's issues in the same way as someone embedded in the team, even if that's a roving HR rep or a local office manager with a bit of employee-relations training and support. When we reach the point where you're calling a stranger three time zones away to talk about sensitive people issues on the job, talent goes out the window, and good people won't stay.

6. Org development and HR aren't one.

Ten years ago, major corporations realized with a start that their HR folks weren't all up to the challenge of creating a winning culture and building leadership strength for the company. At that point, many of them created a separate organizational development group to deal with these issues. Talk about sidestepping a critical issue! No self-respecting CFO would permit her boss to take away her most strategic functions, and no HR chief worth leading your talent charge will sit by while you carve off leadership development, mentoring, succession planning, and performance management into a separate OD function. They're all aspects of the same role: putting the winning team on the field. Get an HR leader who can run the whole show, and put these functions back together.

If your company's showing one or more of these warning signs, you've got some work to do. The good news is, resolving these six organizational and operational problems will put you in great position to begin building a talent-management culture in your shop. There isn't any time to waste—if you recognized your company on our To-Don't list above, talented candidates are doubtless avoiding working for you right now.

Life to the Fullest

If you have heard this story, you probably agree it is a good one. For those who haven't I highly recommend it. Life is too short to focus on the negative, on areas that are not important, on work versus living, on not letting some things just go . . . there is a learning for everyone from Randy Pausch. It's never easy, but as you age, you try a little harder.

This from a blog on Inc.com.
http://blog.inc.com/the-browser/2008/07/randy_pausch_last_lecture_prof.html?partner=rss


Randy Pausch, "Last Lecture" Professor, Dies

Randy Pausch, the computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon whose last lecture to students became a web video phenomenon, has died of pancreatic cancer at age 47. Pausch's lecture and trademark optimism were written about by Jeffrey Zaslow of The Wall Street Journal; the two men subsequently collaborated on a book version of the speech. Pausch was also invited on Oprah to share his wisdom, and interviewed by Diane Sawyer on ABC. Sawyer announced his death on Good Morning America.
During his career, Pausch studied how animation and computer graphics could be applied to entertainment. He worked at Disney's Imagineering division and at game maker Electronic Arts during sabbaticals from Carnegie Mellon; he also consulted with Google.

In addition, Pausch developed a curriculum for teaching technology in high-school and college classrooms, and launched an annual contest for people who created virtual reality software.

But in the end, he will probably be remembered for that moving lecture he delivered on September 18, 2007, on how he had achieved his childhood dreams, and how others could too. Among the lessons:

1. Make sure your dreams are specific. For example, he gave up on being an astronaut, but dreamed of "being in zero gravity," and persuaded NASA to let his class experience zero gravity in a training facility.

2. You have to commit yourself to either being an Eeyore or a Tigger. He chose the latter.

3. Bring something to the table. To get what you want, figure out how to trade something meaningful and valuable.

4. "It’s very important to know when you’re in a pissing match. And
it’s very important to get out of it as quickly as possible."
There's a lot more—what were your favorite takeaways from Pausch's lecture?
If you haven't seen the whole thing yet, here's the video:

It's about an hour long but worth it (you will have to copy this link and paste into your browser)!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

Joke of the Weekend XIV

Laws of work

If you can't get your work done in the first 24 hours, work nights.

Don't be irreplaceable, if you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted. It doesn't matter what you do, it only matters what you say you've done and what you're going to do.

You can go anywhere you want if you look serious and carry a clipboard.

Eat one live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.

If at first you don't succeed, try again. Then quit. No use being a fool about it.

Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he/she is supposed to be doing.

Anything anyone can do badly will be done worse.

Important letters that contain no errors will develop errors in the mail.

If you are good, you will be assigned all the work. If you are really good, you will get out of it.

You are always doing something marginal when the boss drops by your desk.

If it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would get done.

When you don't know what to do, walk fast and look worried.

Following the rules will not get the job done.

Getting the job done is no excuse for not following the rules.

No matter how much you do, you never do enough.

The last person that quit or was fired will be held responsible for everything that goes wrong.

Deer in the Headlights

You have heard the phrase. Deer jumps out in the middle of the road and freezes while looking at the oncoming vehicle, neither returning to where it came from or continuing on their path.

This periodically happens in business by decision makers. Due to fear of failure, risk aversion, or just plain do not know what to do, the decision maker delays or does not make a decision. You have done it, I have done it, others have done it.

I have used a quote in the past, "Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out."

If you are in a leadership position, you need to create an environment where you recognize and celebrate intelligent risk taking. Intelligent risk taking is the lifeblood of growth. If a risky initiative works, great. If it doesn't, turn those failures into developmental experiences . . . focus on the positives. It is okay to fail if you learn something from the experience (just don't make the mistake over again). Everyone makes mistakes, you will make mistakes so get over that (I know I have made my share). In an environment where failure of sticking your hneck out is "punished", it prevents innovation and risk taking and thereby hurting future growth opportunities.

If you are having difficulty making a decision, set a deadline (and communicate it) and obtain as much information as you can. Then, make the decision and focus on making it successful (don't keep second guessing your decision). Remember, as a leader, people are looking to you on this decision and are waiting to know what to do until your decision is made. Effectively, a no decision becomes a decision (and many times creating a ripple impact of other decisions which might be detrimental to the unit). Use a status quo case in your analysis because this becomes the case where no decision is made.

In decision making, you will rarely have all the information you need to make the "right" decision. However, you can make a good decison based upon the information you can gather and past experiences.

Don't be a deer in the headlights, as you might be looking at a mess in your hands.

Working, Dieting, and Exercising

Last night, I corresponded with someone who was on a stairmaster, and wanted to do a post on the difficulty of working, dieting and exercising given the pressures we all have to deliver. However, I have known many who started running, cycling, walking . . . while performing even better at work.

I came across this article.

Steve Jobs' Diet Secrets
by Brian Caulfield

http://www.forbes.com/2008/07/24/steve-jobs-diet-tech-personal-cx_bc_0724jobs.html?partner=yahootix

BURLINGAME, CALIF. - Is Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs sick? Apple calls his health a "private matter."

But is he losing weight? Definitely. And in an industry where so many leaders resemble talking sides of beef, Jobs' trim figure is noticeable.

What's his secret? The skinny, so to speak, on the Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) campus is Jobs' gaunt frame says as much about his diet as his health. Jobs lunches with the troops in the Cupertino, Calif.-based company's cafeteria--a place packed with the likes of fresh sushi and Smart Water.

And while Apple employees eat healthy, Jobs takes it to an extreme, one employee says, eating dark green vegetables such as broccoli and asparagus, grilled or steamed. Jobs has been a vegetarian for years but his enthusiasm for green may have taken on an extra dimension since his brush with cancer. Jobs has surgery in 2004 to treat pancreatic cancer, and, again, earlier this year, according to The New York Times, to address "a problem that was contributing to a loss of weight." The veg-heavy diet, however, likely will not help him pack on any pounds. "No wonder he's cranky all the time," one Apple insider says.

Jobs' diet is only the latest example of a high-profile technologist using mind to master matter. It's one of the reasons technologists so often end up overweight. So many of them simply forget diet and exercise as they crank away on a project. It's an obsessive-streak, however, that some are turning from mastering technology to molding their bodies. Autodesk (nasdaq: ADSK - news - people ) founder John Walker's "The Hacker's Diet" couples willpower with tools such as spreadsheets to engineer the weight away. Craigslist engineer Jeremy D. Zawodny used a simplified version of the plan to shed 50 pounds in a year.

"Engineers love to quantify things, and calorie counting lends itself to quantifying," says Pressflip.com co-founder Ted Dziuba, who wrote a hilarious riff on weight loss for his personal blog. "There are opportunities for charts, graphs, statistical analyses, and optimizations with what you eat."

Others tap into a hypercompetive streak. Tibco Chief Executive Vivek Ranadivé sets a high bar for himself--he aims to be able to run a six-minute mile, among other benchmarks--but also helps coach his coworkers to better health. His secret weapon? Roger Craig, the former star running back with the San Francisco 49rs, who works as a business development director at the company. "One of our guys lost 81 pounds," Craig says.

"I find extremes," says Ranadivé. "If you went around the Valley, you'll see many founders and chief executives who are very fit. They tend to be extremely competitive and that works its way into their fitness regimens as well. But you still find people who have bad habits."

Using your brain can be the best way to break away from those habits. That's at the heart of software engineer Steve Klassen's weight loss effort. Klassen, who has chronicled his push to 300 pounds from 450 pounds on the GeekFit Podcast, suggests geeky dieters use a timer to remind themselves when they should eat, and keeping a fridge full of healthy food, such as Smart Ones and Lean Cuisine. "If you're a geek and you're getting into your work, spending a lot of time in the zone, you don't get hunger until it's too late--and at that point you're starving," Klassen says.

Techies can also benefit from their taste for complex tools. Zawodny relied heavily on a spreadsheet. Gear such as the geek-a-cycle allows users to peddle away on a recumbent bicycle at their computer. Others have turned to peddling away while wander about the virtual realms of online game "World of Warcraft" to burn off calories. Jason Tucker, co-host at the GeekFit Podcast even recommends the iPhone, which is loaded with applications for tracking calories and exercise.

The culture of technophiles can provide another advantage. California-based technology companies will push food that might cause revolts at companies in other industries. Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) offers employees free all-you-can-eat organic fare. Jobs chows down on broccoli, a food that the American Cancer Society describes as a known cancer fighter. Ranadivé is a fan of the healthy effects of blueberries.

Of course, healthy food can be delicious, as well as nutritious. All that organic goat cheese pizza and heirloom tomato salad creates a phenomenon Google employees call the "Google 15." Likewise, the same focus that once led Broadcom (nasdaq: BRCM - news - people ) founder Henry Nicholas to subsist largely on PowerBars choked down between weight lifting sessions can lead others to pizza-fueled 80-hour-a-week work benders.

All of that, however, can leave you out of shape just when you need a burst of energy most. Ranadivé was in the process of doing due diligence on a company Tibco wanted to acquire and wanted to find out if the other company's chief executive--an avowed runner--was for real.

"So I said, 'My colleague Roger Craig, the three-time Super Bowl champion, is going to take you for a run tomorrow morning," Ranadivé says. When the CEO demurred that he didn't have his running shoes, Ranadivé pulled out a bag with shoes in his size. The executive pulled them out and gamely went out for the run.

"He passed," Craig says. "But he was in a lot of pain."

Ranadivé bought the company.

Leadership and Conflict

I found this article on Inc.com and thought I would share it with you. I believe it has some helpful insight into dealing with conflicts as a leader. When I find an interesting article on improving leadership, I will continue to share them with you.

Why Leaders Should Take Conflict Seriously
Posted by Craig E. Runde and Tim Flanagan


http://blog.inc.com/leadership/2008/07/why_leaders_should_take_confli_1.html

Most people prefer to avoid conflict. Leaders don't enjoy it either, but effective ones know that too much is at stake to ignore conflict. Poorly managed, it can lead to a number of out-of-pocket expenses. Addressed skillfully, conflict can actually improve creativity and decision-making.

If leaders avoid conflict or respond with destructive behaviors, it can lead to a type of conflict researchers describe as relationship or affective conflict. Then, things really get worse. Research has shown that this type of conflict tends to prolong and escalate negative feelings that lead to reduced communications and commitment.

When this kind of conflict is prevalent in organizations, you stop running a company, and you start running interference. Managers wind up spending more time trying to work out solutions, turnover rises as good employees leave to find more acceptable work environments, and absenteeism or its cousin presenteeism sap productivity. When conflicts fester and grow over time, they can lead to even more serious outcomes such as sabotage, violence, labor unrest, lawsuits, and bad publicity.

But when leaders are able to respond to conflict constructively and encourage others to do so as well, they can find benefits hiding in the very same differences that can lead to bad outcomes. Researchers have identified a second type of organizational conflict termed task or cognitive conflict that when harnessed can lead to higher productivity. When people engage in task conflict, their focus remains on the issue at hand and their efforts revolve around problem-solving rather than finger-pointing. When teams engage in task conflict, they regularly exhibit higher levels of creativity and innovation. When issues can be debated and ideas vetted, leaders are able to arrive at better quality decisions and team members will be more committed to implementation because they have been active participants in the process.

While the concept is straight forward, it is not easy to keep the focus on problem-solving. When people's ideas are criticized, it is very easy for them to take the criticism personally, become angry, and strike back. Leaders need to closely monitor when it emerges to make sure teams keep their focus on the task at hand. They also need to model effective behaviors to keep communications positive and solution- focused.

To make it work, leaders must respond rationally rather than just react. One leader's team faced a critical decision with team members deeply split about whether to invest in a new product design. The leader favored the new approach, as did two other members of the team. They argued vigorously for their position – so much so that the others on the team became angry because they felt they weren't being heard. Finally, they forcefully challenged the leader and he reacted with hostile remarks. Things deteriorated quickly and didn't get back on track until intervention from a third party.

While it is easy to get into a win-at-all-costs mindset, leaders must recognize that conflict can rapidly escalate when it is not handled well. Conflict is too important to ignore or to approach by flying on autopilot. Leaders need to become conscious of their emotional and behavioral responses to conflict and then exercise discretion as they address the critical opportunities that conflict provides.

Success

I have a writing on my wall and helps me put perspective into my life. It is the definition of success (ironically, it is not attributed to anyone, i.e., Anonymous)

To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people and affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends
to appreciate beauty,
to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better,
whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

Ultimately, it is not how many sales you made, points you scored, how many people you got to like you, as we are here for a short time, so we should make the best of it!

This Blog

A Milestone was reached this weekend; Over 5,000 visits have been made to this blog. I thought I would post about writing on this blog over the past few months.

* I have been in leadership/management for over 20 years. The purpose of this blog is to share thoughts, readings and experiences on leadership/management.

* I was involved in a blog at my prior employer and was encouraged by many of my colleagues to continue blogging about my experience and knowledge.

* I have posted daily (with exception of Sundays) since early April.

* Based upon a few comments, it seems I have my critics.

* For the readers, I do plan to improve peer review my postings. Many times, I write them quickly without any peer review (not a good example for a leader). If you spend time reading this blog, I should spend time ensuring the quality of the posts.

* Thanks again for reading my blog, I have enjoyed your overwhelming positive feedback via comments, conversations and emails.

Blog On!

Joke of Weekend XIII

Executive Envelopes

Morris had just been hired as the new CEO of a large high tech corporation. The CEO who was stepping down met with him privately and presented him with three numbered envelopes....#1,#2,#3. "Open these if you run up against a problem you don't think you can solve," the departing CEO said.

Well, things went along pretty smoothly, but six months later, sales took a downturn and Morris was really catching a lot of heat. About at his wit's end, he remembered the envelopes. He went to his drawer and took out the first envelope. The message read, "Blame your predecessor."

Morris, the new CEO called a press conference and tactfully laid the blame at the feet of the previous CEO. Satisfied with his comments, the press -- and Wall Street -- responded positively, sales began to pick up and the problem was soon behind him.

About a year later, the company was again experiencing a slight dip in sales, combined with serious product problems. Having learned from his previous experience, the CEO quickly opened the second envelope. The message read, "Reorganize." This he did, and the company quickly rebounded.

After several consecutive profitable quarters, the company once again fell on difficult times. Morris went to his office, closed the door and opened the third envelope.

The message said, "Prepare three envelopes."

Just a Toothache?

I have a tooth ache. It seems that every 4 hours I get a throbbing ache around one of my teeth. It lasts for about 10 minutes and it is fairly intense. Some will ask how does my toothache relate to this blog on leadership?

Well, I went to the dentist. She has no idea what the problem is. The dentist suggested the possibility of a root canal or pulling the tooth, but she questioned either course of action because we do not fully understand the issue. During the drive home from the dentist, I started to think. It is the same with my business. I've seen leaders want to "treat" the symptons. For example, someone is not "performing well", so they let them go (without giving that person a chance to succeed). Or, they say "cut all expenses" because the economy is going south when it might be a time to invest. A bad economy is not the time to cut marketing or sales efforts in areas that have substantial growth opportunities. Frequently, I see leaders "panic", jump to conclusions and treat symptoms without being like my dentist and taking the time for the right decision.

WIth a fundamentally sound business and solid vision, leaders will be fine . . . if there are issues, they should spend more time on diagnostics (talking to clients/prospects, assessing trends, buyer's behaviors, etc.).

By the way, I ate when I got home - the tiniest bite - OUCH . . . my tooth starts hurting BIGTIME!

Successful Leaders actually Care!

Someone once said "When people work in a place that cares about them, they contribute a lot more than duty." You will notice that successful leaders create an environment where people are not just working for a paycheck, there is something more . . . vision, mission, helping others succeed, etc. When a vision or strategy is missing or not communicated, people immediate turn to their pay because if this is just about a paycheck, there are other opportunities to make a higher paycheck so why stay here! Dont get me wrong, a competitive pay is important, but when you ask people if they were willing to give up a little pay to be in a creative, fast-growing, vision-based environment, most people would say "Yes". Someone once told me that the difference between a great company and good company is getting the staff to want to work just 10% more than they would otherwise (usually because they believe in what is being accomplished)!

Here are some small things that a leader can do . . . (1) Remember special occasions (I always tried hard to remember birthdays), (2) spend one-on-one time with each member of your team, whether a lunch, drink, or just showing up at someone's office (I tried to be informal and ask open ended question, nothing specific about a particular project or client, and remember listening is an important way to demonstrate that you care), (3)help people balance work needs and personal needs (it is important to help people in need, including if a family member is ill, try to protect them while they help their family member), and lastly (4) walk in your staff shoes, periodically do their work when they need a helping hand, you'll be able to see things from their perspective and develop the empathy important to caring for others.

An organization that cares will ultimately be successful because it will have a good reputation and people who will work hard, if not, people will not put in extra effort or focus on pay and end up leaving.

Somedays . . . you need a do-over

For long-time readers of my blog (realize that I have been blogging for over three years, but most of that was a private site until this past March), know that I am a runner. Running can get boring so I have a game that I play, when I past someone, I get a point, if someone passing me, I lose a point. In past postings, I mentioned that the earlier in the morning that I run, the less points I get (usually negative points), but the later I run, the more points I get . . . so you can assume that for some strange reason, the faster runners run earlier in the morning (everyone is usually amazed by my deductive reasoning). For the last few weeks, I have been running very early in the morning, and sure enough I was getting runs of -5, -3,-6,-2,-3,-4 . . . well, today, I decided to run a little later, I needed to build up my confidence again, well, woohoo, I scored a +3 (I would have got a +5, but two track stars zoomed by me in the end).

Anyway, I posted a question before about this phenomenon, would you rather be a small fish in a big pond (run with the faster runners) or a big fish in a small pond (run with the slower community). I said over and over again, that it is good to push yourself because that is how you get better, so I would rather run early (small fish in a big pond). However, some days, you just need a good "win", and it is okay to be a big fish in a small pond! It was a do-over day for me and felt good.

Tomorrow is a new day and return to being a small fish in a big pond.

Don't Screw up your Presentation

Presentations are key. As a leader, you will do more than your share. To be a good leader, you need to improve your presentations. They might be related to selling a concept, exciting your team, or selling a solution. I have seen my share of presentations and have some pet peeves that I have about them (for example, when the presenter just reads the slides, or when there is no passion to the presentation - if the presenter does not care about the subject, why should I?). I found this article on Forbes.com about some known mistakes in presentations.

I like to presentations; they give you immediate feedback and if done correctly can really energize a room! However, I did not always like to do them, it came with experience . . . the more you do, the better you will do it! So, get out there and do a presentation (even if in front of your family)!

10 Presentation Killers
When the pressure's on, don't fall prey to these rookie mistakes.
By Maureen Farrell

Faulty Numbers
Miscalculations, overly zealous projections or failure to explain missed numbers are all deadly. Make sure your story matches the market and the numbers you present. Investors don't want to work with a management team that doesn't have a firm grip on reality.
Crowded Slides
"People spend too much time creating [Microsoft] PowerPoint slides and not enough time developing the key points of a presentation," says Gary Hankins, author of the Power of the Pitch. Follow the "six by six rule": no more than six bullet points of text on a slide, and no more than six words per bullet point
Showing Your Backside
Never turn your back on the audience for more than a second or two. If there's a chart or graph you need to explain, remember the three T's: touch, turn and talk. Use a pointer to call attention to a certain fact or figure, but then make sure to face the audience when you're making your point.
Not Showing Them The Money
Sure, investors want to hear about the nuts and bolts, but don't spend your entire presentation explaining every esoteric detail of your software. Each nugget you share should serve to demonstrate--clearly and quickly--the company's money-making potential
No Knockout Punch
Every good presentation needs a good closer---and not merely a summation of points and a simple thank you, says Hankins. Get feedback: If you don't, and the audience has objections, "you could get dismissed without the opportunity to disprove them."
Failing to Anticipate The "Killer Three" Questions
Your delivery might be flawless, your PowerPoint slides works of art. But if you flub the "killer three" questions your audience is likely to ask, you're toast. The "killer three" is different for each presentation, says Hankins, but you should still try to identify them. (Hint: Focus hard on your company's core value proposition.)
Multiple Messages
There are myriad interesting nuances to your business. We have some news: Investors don't care. What your presentation needs is a clear, consistent theme. If you don't know it, the audience won't either--and confusion is cancer to a presentation.
Splintered Team
Splitting a presentation into separate sections each handled by a different person is defensible (if a bit distracting). Still, each team member should be up to speed on all parts, if only to convey a sense of cohesion about the team and its ability to execute.
Not Knowing Your Audience
Get this wrong and you should consider a different line of work. If you are looking for seed funding for your software company, don't pitch a late-stage venture capital firm that focuses on the energy sector. Likewise, if you are pitching to the head of purchasing, focus on price and delivery and save the bells and whistles for the head of engineering.
Ignoring The Risks
All businesses have inherent risks. Don't ignore them and don't pretend they aren't there--it's insulting, and smart investors (and customers) won't stand for it. Instead, identify the risks and explain how you plan to deal with them--and perhaps even turn them to your advantage some day.

Leading in a Slowdown

In some economies (namely USA), there is a slowdown. One of the mistakes that some leaders make is to begin to cut sales and marketing costs to "save" money. Now, I can understand sales/marketing which does not have a positive ROI, but sometimes cutting these sales and marketing ends up cutting revenue growth.

One of my mentors once told me that a slowdown is a natural flow to business and will pass, so while might be more difficulty, be smarter, but most importantly dont panic. This is a great time to assess the ROI of various initiatives and evaluate the current strategy to optimize business when the "good" times return.

Here is an article from BusinessWeek

http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jul2008/sb20080711_023930.htm?campaign_id=rss_smlbz

Five Don'ts for Marketing in Tough Times
by Steve McKee

Unpredictable. Slow. Bleak. Grim. Gloomy. All words that have been used to describe the economic outlook for the balance of 2008—and depending upon who you talk to, the scenario for 2009 and beyond. Standard & Poor's believes the economic difficulties we've been experiencing due to the mortgage mess and skyrocketing oil prices will be at their worst early next year (BusinessWeek.com, 6/13/08). And while the housing market is sure to recover, oil prices may never come back down. That means more tough times for the economy, both in the U.S. and globally.

What's a responsible business leader to do? Perhaps the slowdown already has made an impact on your company. Or maybe you can see it coming but aren't sure exactly when and how it will hit. In either case, the most important thing is to keep your wits about you and not succumb to five common mistakes companies often make when times get tough.

1. Be smart and thrifty, but don't panic. This, too, shall pass.

Economies go through cycles of expansion and contraction. It's what we all learned in college economics courses (back then, of course, we weren't really paying attention). The trouble is, while academics can pontificate on the cyclical economy, real business people have to live through difficult economic events. We love the expansionary times, but the contractions can be painful. If you're smart, you've managed your balance sheet well and can ride out a period of slow or no growth. If not, you may have to make some cuts. Just be careful to trim fat and avoid cutting muscle as much as possible.

2. Marketing is muscle, not fat. Be careful about cutting it.

Just as the savviest investors view down markets as a time to buy when everybody else is selling, the savviest marketers know recessions are a great time to pick up market share. They understand that by maintaining their budgets (or even increasing them) they may not come out ahead during the down times, but they can pick up market share that will pay off in the long run. Marketing dollars in a recession are like oxygen on Mt. Everest—the less there is in the surrounding environment, the more valuable the amount you possess becomes. Cutting your marketing spending is a sure way to give ground to competitors who may be more aggressive during the downturn.

3. Don't lose focus by chasing business you wouldn't normally want.

When clients and customers get nervous about the economy, they cut back their spending. For you that could mean fewer transactions, smaller purchases, or possibly both. But if you try to broaden your core product or service appeal to please a wider audience, chances are you'll make your best customers even less satisfied, giving them one more reason to stay home or spend less. There's a reason you don't pursue certain types of customers when times are good, and that reason probably hasn't changed. Do your best to stick to your knitting and enhance the value you provide to your best customers. They may decide to make their cutbacks in areas other than yours.

4. Don't discount.

It's easy to rationalize discounting during a downturn, for your company's sake ("it helps to drive business") as well as for the sake of your customers ("they're struggling and need the help"). But whether times are good or bad, discounting your price discounts your product (BusinessWeek.com, 4/14/08) in the eyes of your customers. There was a time in the 1990s when McDonald's (MCD) and Burger King (BKC) put their Big Macs and Whoppers on sale so often that they trained their customers never to pay full price. That created a margin problem from which it took them years to recover. If you need to make your products more affordable (to generate volume, goodwill, or both), do so carefully and deliberately. But lower the price instead of offering a discount.

5. Don't neglect the elephant in the room.

We live in a 24-hour information cycle. When news breaks, people know it, and economic news breaks every day. You don't have to be an economist to know the business environment isn't in the best shape right now, and the point is brought home to your people in a personal way every time they go to the grocery store or fill up their gas tanks. Even if your company's revenues have held up, your employees know there's trouble afoot and they're nervous. Make sure they know you're on top of things and have a plan.

There's no telling what lies ahead over the next several months. We may pull out of our economic rut more quickly than anticipated, or we may be in for a prolonged rough ride. But clients and customers will still need to eat. They still need transportation. They still seek entertainment, clothing, vacations, chain saws, pet food, perfume, office supplies, computer servers, tractors, and machinery. As the market tightens up, the best positioned players will survive and thrive. Avoid the mistakes above and you're more likely to be one of them.

Joke of the Weekend XII

Understanding corporate lingo

COMPETITIVE SALARY:
We remain competitive by paying less than our competitors.

JOIN OUR FAST-PACED COMPANY:
We hve no time to train you.

CASUAL WORK ATMOSPHERE:
We don't pay enough to expect that you'll dress up well, a couple of the real daring guys wear earrings.

MUST BE DEADLINE ORIENTED:
You'll be six months behind schedule on your first day.

SOME OVERTIME REQUIRED:
Some time each night and some time each weekend.

DUTIES WILL VARY:
Anyone in the office can boss you around.

MUST HAVE AN EYE FOR DETAIL:
We have no quality control.

CAREER-MINDED:
You must be childless (and remain that way)

APPLY IN PERSON:
If you're old, fat or ugly you'll be told the position has been filled.

NO PHONE CALLS PLEASE:
We've filled the job, our call for resumes is just a legal formality.

SEEKING CANDIDATES WITH A WIDE VARIETY OF EXPERIENCE:
You'll need it to replace three people who just left.

PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS A MUST:
You're walking into a company in perpetual chaos.

REQUIRES TEAM LEADERSHIP SKILLS:
You'll have the responsibilities of a manager, without the pay or respect.

GOOD COMMUNICATIONS SKILLS:
Management communicates, you figure out what they want and do.

I AM EXTREMELY ADEPT AT ALL MANNER OF OFFICE ORGANIZATION:
I've used Microsoft Office.

I AM HONEST, HARD-WORKING and DEPENDABLE:
I pilfer office supplies.

I TAKE PRIDE IN MY WORK:
I blame others for my mistakes.

I AM PERSONABLE:
I give lots of unsolicited personal advice to co-workers.

I AM EXTREMELY PROFESSIONAL:
I carry a Day-Timer.

I AM ADAPTABLE:
I've changed jobs a lot.

I AM ON THE GO:
I'm never at my desk.

When Top Management Fails: 7 Warning signs

Why is it that some organizations succeed and others fail even though they have similar resources or marketplace factors. I discovered a free white paper on RHR International's website. RHR is a Leadership development consulting firm and has extensive knowledge on what makes leadership succeed or fail.

http://www.rhrinternational.com/Files/EI/23-2.htm


When I reflect on my past leaders, especially those that had difficulty in succeed, had one or several of these warning signs. As a leader, these are areas that you need to constantly look in the mirror and ask yourself if you have any of these warning signs. If so, how can you improve on them (again, all of us can improve in one area or another -- with me, there are too many areas, but one day at a time)

The Warning Signs

1. Lack of Clear Direction

Most people think they know what business they are in. How long has it been since you took a hard look at your business objectives and examined systems and procedures to see if they mesh with your overall mission?

Companies that lack clear direction tend to engage in a lot of unproductive activity. They drift from one new product or administrative change to the next. They may have unnecessary staff, elaborate computer systems they don’t need, complex control mechanisms that become ends unto themselves, a lot of form without function.

When this happens, employees lose sight of the reason the firm is in business. Good people leave, and the competition beats you to the punch.

2. Failure to Meet the Challenges of Growth

As organizations grow they go through distinct phases. In the entrepreneurial organization, for example, the challenge is survival. Strong leadership, efficient use of scarce resources and flexibility are important. When the company grows, it faces organizational needs which the entrepreneurial CEO may find confining: a need for more professional management, delegation and greater dependence upon staff services.

The signs that an organization is outgrowing its management resources include people who suddenly seem over their heads, the realization that competitors are handling more information or products more efficiently than you are and a growing sense of inadequacy on your part in facing the tasks presented by growth and change.

3. Complacency

It is often far more difficult for a winning team to get up for a game than a losing one. Organizations which have been successful pose a subtle and difficult challenge for their CEOs. The CEO who has been instrumental in solving the firm’s biggest problems in the past may rest on his or her laurels. People ask fewer and fewer questions; there is a failure of nerve, a fear of taking risks.

Signs of complacency include an insistence on doing things the way they have always been done, rejection of outside criticism, exaggerated or arrogant criticism of competitors and a climate in which certain people are recognized as experts and others are not asked for their opinions. Innovation disappears and the effort of the organization is focused on the status quo.

4. Excessive Change

An early sign of top management failure is excessive organizational change, particularly when change is being introduced to bring things under control. It is ironic that, when these efforts at control are applied too often, the organization never settles into a routine and things remain out of control.

Signs to look for here include the frequency of major organizational shifts over the past five years: the average tenure of senior managers, a survivor mentality on the part of employees (which flows from their belief that they will be there after things have quieted down at the top), low morale caused by disorganization, and turnover resulting from job stress.

5. Living with Poor Performance

No one deliberately condones poor performance; ironically, it often happens when CEOs are trying to be fair and supportive, when they want to avoid causing problems for their management teams. Performance reviews mean raises for all, regardless of merit. Genuinely weak performers are rarely fired, and the organization chart reveals unusual reporting relationships because positions have been invented to protect those who have failed. The executive suite becomes a haven for the walking wounded.

In this climate, truly independent and aggressive problem solvers feel unwelcome. There is cynicism in the ranks. The competition gets the edge, because there is no one left to innovate or take advantage of growth opportunities.

6. Lack of Delegation

For all the talk about the importance of delegation, its lack is still surprisingly frequent. The CEO who is failing to delegate may have legitimate reasons for doing so. If managing a turnaround situation or if the senior staff is relatively inexperienced, he or she will need to be more directly involved than the CEO of a well staffed, smoothly running operation. But it is the CEO who should be delegating and isn’t that creates problems deep within the organization.

The signs here include a lack of clarity about roles and responsibilities between the CEO and his or her direct reports, a lack of trust among top managers, excessive numbers of meetings to review routine operating details, a lack of clear communication downward, and a lack of coordination among major departments.

7. Poor Communication

Poor communication is often cited as the reason for management failure when, in fact, other forces are at work. The CEO who tries to do all the work on a one-to-one basis is not only terribly busy, he or she is often guilty of communicating poorly. Because this management style involves a great deal of person-to-person interaction, the CEO is often surprised to hear he or she is not communicating well.

Signs of poor communication include too many bad surprises from the ranks, infrequent and poorly run staff meetings at the top, a critical management attitude which discourages people from bringing problems forward and a generalized unwillingness of the CEO to listen.

If you are in a situation that these are in you, you should address them. If you are in a situation where your leadership teams faces these issues, be careful as you may be in for a rocky time. In the recent past, when I saw these warning signs in the leadership that I reported to, I spoke up and stated my concerns and constructively gave feedback and areas of possible solutions. As one of the warning signs states, they did not want to hear feedback. So, you must be careful when providing constructive feedback to someone who may not want to hear it (i.e., they are not the problem, everyone else is).

Leading for Growth

Someone emailed this article to me on what are the "make up" of Growth Leaders and where can they be found. I thought this was interesting for those who want to be part of a growth agenda. It is excellent and many of the items highlighted have been topics of this blog.

When you look at leaders who have demonstrated substantial growth, what are the characteristics that you see? I think you will see many of those characteristics in this article. Good Reading!

My takeways for what makes a Growth Leader:
1. Think differently, head office does not always know best for your business
2. Growth is about uncertainity and seeing opportunities where others dont
3. Success breeds success (however, small to start)
4. Knowing how to manage risk
5. Start with the Customers, outside in, not inside out
6. Holding people accountable for results (while providing them the right environment to succeed)
7. Having Passion about the business and how it helps clients succeed
8. Being passionate about the success of the business and the team, it's not about them, the leader (there is no "I" in TEAM)
9. Making tough decisions, putting the right people in the right roles
10. Leaders are viewed as "caring," "motivating" and "inspiring."
11. Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission attitude

I encourage you to read the entire article

Leadership
In Search of Growth Leaders
Most companies have managers who can turbocharge results. The trick is finding -- and nurturing -- them.
By SEAN D. CARR, JEANNE M. LIEDTKA, ROBERT ROSEN and ROBERT E. WILTBANK
July 7, 2008

Organic growth. It's the Holy Grail these days of chief executives battered by global competition and eager to find new streams of revenue without always resorting to acquisitions. A cottage industry has sprung up to advise companies on how to achieve organic growth.

But many companies already possess the means to turbocharge their sales, break out of industry molds and capture new markets with innovative products and services.

Companies mandate growth from their managers but then put huge roadblocks in the way of achieving it. Jeanne Liedtka of the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate Schoool of Business talks with WSJ's Carol Hymowitz about where companies go wrong.

Indeed, powerful catalysts for organic growth often exist deep within an organization, hidden and untapped. We're talking about a special breed of midlevel managers -- men and women who possess the vision, leadership and entrepreneurial talents that together make up what we refer to as a growth leader.

Growth leaders produce above-average organic growth in mature organizations and markets and create better value for customers. They achieve this often despite corporate oversight as much as because of it. While some individuals figure out how to crack the growth code on their own, senior executives have more to learn about how to recognize and encourage such managers.

Our research has focused on understanding the role of midlevel managers in achieving organic growth. After soliciting nominations from thousands of corporate managers at hundreds of companies, we searched for the few who have been leading successful growth initiatives from within the belly of the corporate whale. What we found were 50 seemingly ordinary managers doing extraordinary things.

What follows -- the product of three years of interviews and testing -- is a look at the characteristics and strategies that distinguish growth leaders, as well as a guide to developing such managers in any company.

Rich in Experience

All of the growth leaders in our study had unusually varied experience early in their careers. Along the way, they acquired skills that eventually helped them explicitly in their launching of growth initiatives.

One manager in the chemical industry, for example, was able to take his company in a completely new direction: producing customized plastic pellets, which are melted and remolded into products such as plastic bags and auto parts. This manager succeeded not simply because he was brave enough to try, but because he knew every corner of his organization.

He had been trained as an engineer but branched out early and worked in nearly every function at the company, including manufacturing, marketing, and research and development. He also had worked on products ranging from consumer plastics to agricultural chemicals. Having seen how mass customization had worked in these other areas, he was able to transform pellets from a low-growth commodity into the company's growth engine.

Several growth leaders had trained as certified public accountants -- hardly the kind of background we had expected to be a training ground for innovation. But as our study progressed, it became clear that CPAs, in their roles as auditors, interact with a range of clients, industries and business models. Such breadth later gave them the ability to detect opportunities, recognize problems and find solutions that peers missed.

Along with diversity of experience, we found in our subjects a deep-seated belief in their own abilities and in their power to change the world around them. For them, life is a journey of learning. They thrived on accepting challenges, taking action and getting immediate results. These positive traits tended to reinforce one another in a virtuous circle (please see the accompanying graphic). This type of growth mindset prepared them to see and to chase opportunity.

Changing the Rules...

Most managers are programmed to think the way the head office does, to seek certainty and to rely on data with which to predict and plan. That approach can work well for an established business that knows its field and where surprises are few. But it is deadly in the world of growth, where what a company doesn't know is far more important than what it does know. Growth is all about uncertainty and how to work with it. Prediction and analysis have their place, but they can't be the only tools a business has.

Another way of looking at it is that growth leaders think like entrepreneurs. They're not averse to gathering data and conducting studies, but they don't rely completely on data to tell them about important market developments.


Brad Yeo
One executive from a major cable-television network said that a lot of managers get bogged down by seeking too much market data. A manager is never going to know everything, the executive said. At some point, a leader has to "flip that switch and say, 'OK, I've got enough. Let's get going. Here's where we're going.' "

A manager at a confectionery company agreed that speed can be just as important as quantity of knowledge. "Get the product into the marketplace," he said, "and then start to understand what works and doesn't work. If it doesn't work, either take another shot at it or cut your losses." That's the price of learning, he added.

Paradoxically, many organizations push management practices that make growth riskier than it needs to be. Often they demand big-payoff projects that move the needle right away, or they keep secrets from suppliers and share ideas with customers only late in the development process.

Growth leaders rejected such practices. Instead, they flew under the corporate radar by working with suppliers and customers to develop ideas. Many launched their initiatives in small ways that could be expanded later as they proved successful.

A manager who worked for a raw-glass manufacturer was interested in producing more refined products with higher profit margins. On paper, the expected return did not justify the investment that would be required. But instead of abandoning the idea, the manager found a large customer that was interested in the project. After the customer committed, the manager worked with supply-chain partners to get things moving quickly, with little capital investment on his company's part. In the first year of supplying just the one customer, the initiative generated $50 million in new sales, which grew to $80 million a year later, enabling the glass maker to become that customer's new No. 1 supplier.

...But Managing Risk

Although growth leaders embraced new ventures, they weren't risk seekers. In fact, they minimized risk wherever possible.

As the example of the glass manufacturer shows, while most managers are taught to approach new projects by calculating expected return on investment, growth leaders are more likely to estimate an acceptable degree of loss to start. This lets them pursue interesting opportunities without investing more than they can afford to lose.

A manager at an international energy company wanted to explore delivery of broadband Internet service over conventional power lines. Rather than conduct time-consuming feasibility studies and dig for data, he started a small business unit in Venezuela that initially would target only 100 customers. With support from a local mobile-phone partner to acquire and support those 100 customers, the team learned how to deliver the service and soon was reproducing it in larger markets faster than its competitors.

Preferring People to Data

Success was based more often on thoughtful exploration of customers' needs than on dry market data. The managers in our study personally sought detailed knowledge about individual customers, instead of just seeing them as data in market-research reports.

One manager told us he was not "customer-centric," he was "Cynthia-centric." Cynthia, he explained, was a single mother who had ordered his company's personalized candies to be delivered for her son's birthday party. Sadly, the product arrived a day late, and afterward, Cynthia, who had barely been able to afford the gift, called him in tears to express her disappointment. She became his constant reminder of what it means to be a day late in his business.

Direct knowledge about customers also helped the managers see what was most important to the customers in terms of products and services. One manager with a home-electronics retailer went directly to the sales floor to find ways to serve small-business customers better. He talked to the customers himself, asking them about their businesses. When he met real-estate agents, for example, he learned how much time they spent in their cars. So, even though they had come to the store to buy, say, a personal computer, he steered them toward other products that could improve their efficiency on the road, such as a GPS navigational device or a cellphone-speaker system.

This frequent in-store dialogue taught him and other salespeople to see previously unidentified sales opportunities. Their experience, in turn, led to a companywide initiative to teach employees to acquire customer insights through interactions in stores.

Pragmatic Idealists

In assembling teams, growth leaders learned to combine two seemingly opposing forces: holding people ruthlessly accountable for results, and engaging their passion to build something great together.

Their overall approach was to be tough but fair. But they were adamant about acquiring staff with only the needed skill sets. Team effectiveness often depended on moving people quickly into positions that optimized their strengths, and removing people who did not fit or who lacked the necessary capabilities.

Groups pursuing new ventures were seen as no place for rookies. As one leader commented, growth initiatives should be about testing markets, not people. Yet despite this hard-nosed attitude, employees who worked for such managers invariably described them in terms such as "caring," "motivating" and "inspiring."

Managers in our study were also pragmatic in dealing with corporate bureaucracy: They didn't fight the organization; they saved their energy to fight in the marketplace.

Indeed, interviews with the growth leaders revealed little frustration about the corporate hierarchy. Instead, they were experts at avoiding corporate interference as they executed their initiatives. They found supportive bosses who provided cover as they skirted restrictive budgeting processes, purchasing policies and hiring procedures.

The managers tended to ask for forgiveness afterward instead of permission before.

My takeways again are:
1. Think differently, head office does not always know best for your business
2. Growth is about uncertainity and seeing opportunities where others dont
3. Success breeds success (however, small to start)
4. Knowing how to manage risk
5. Start with the Customers, outside in, not inside out
6. Holding people accountable for results (while providing them the right environment to succeed)
7. Having Passion about the business and how it helps clients succeed
8. Being passionate about the success of the business and the team, it's not about them, the leader (there is no "I" in TEAM)
9. Making tough decisions, putting the right people in the right roles
10. Leaders are viewed as "caring," "motivating" and "inspiring."
11. Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission attitude

Aftermath of the Vacation

The worse part of vacation is the returning from vacation. I dont know about you, but it takes a good few days to transition and realize, hey, I am on vacation mode. To prevent the piles of emails, I tried my best to spend time each day going through and responding to emails so I can be more relaxed during the vacation as not having to worry about facing tons of emails.

So, you take pictures during vacation and now its been a week to get the pictures developed (or printed if digital). On this vacation, we forgot our digital camera, so we had a decision to make, buy a new one or buy disposable cameras. We selected the latter, so had to get the pictures developed. Anyway, you review the pictures and there is a few things that always come up:

1. You bring back good memories.
2. There is always at least one picture where one of the kids is upset, angry or fighting
3. Your kids seem to get old way too fast
4. You seem to look older way too fast
5. There is always one picture, that you ask, now where was this from, or what is it?
6. You usually get a picture of a mystery person in the background who actually is looking at the camera when you take the picture (what's up with that)

We had a nice vacation, and have some nice pictures that we will always remember the great time we had.

Remember: Dont do something today if you can put it off till tomorrow!

Get Back UP!

So many times during your career (and mine), you will feel knocked down or frustrated or just plain stressed out because of a worry. Just face it, it is part of work (and life).

Vince Lombardi (famous American Football Coach) said "It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up".

Here are some things to do when frustrated or faced with disappointments.

Take a hike (or a run or a swim or a bike ride) to calm down, reflect and develop a strategy on how to address the issue. I run. It is amazing how fast the run goes by when you are thinking about addressing an issue (versus thinking how hard that hill ahead is going to be on your legs). Plus, you do come up with some dedicated time to think about the issue and I find innovative resolutions appear.

Never respond immediately to a frustrating email or someone's comment/action. Take a deep breath, count to ten and think about how others will take what you are going to do or say. As a leader, it is your responsibility to lead people out of disappointment rather than into it!

Most of us are not in life or death situations, it is not the end of the world so dont act like it is. Be sure and maintain the proper perspective.

These are the pot calling the kettle black because I struggle with these myself from time to time, but it is top of mind.

Here is someone's suggestion for dealing with worries:

When you have a worry, write it down and place it into a jar and forget about it, until once a week, you open the jar and worry about your worries. When its no longer a worry, remove it from the jar. You will see less and less worries in the jar!

You need an Unlimited Vacation?

During one of my first performance reviews, I was told that I did not work enough. I was perplexed as I received the highest rating, so I asked, what did I deliver that I was suppose to if I did not work enough? He proceeded to tell me "how it works around there to get promoted", I needed more "face" time at the office, come in early, leave late, show up on weekends periodically . . . so I asked, do we have an output standard or an input standard? He answered "well, it is more important to delivery quality work, but you still need to show yourself". Yikes. From that day forward, I always promised myself that I would focus on the delivery of the work and not how much "time" it took. If someone worked smart and got the project done quickly and high quality, so be it, that is excellent. It would be up the manager to provide what they expected to be a reasonable delivery time.

I found this article about a company that provides unlimited vacation. Yes, you heard me! One note, the Europeans are excellent at provided the "real" level of vacation and they actually take it all. Many firms in the US, provide limited vacation (two weeks), which in my opinion is not enough.

The Case Against Vacation Policy
IT consulting firm Bluewolf lets employees take as much vacation as they want, whenever they want—as long as they meet their goals
by John Tozzi

Michael Kirven, 38, and Eric Berridge, 39, didn't worry about a vacation policy when they started Bluewolf, their New York IT consulting firm, in 2000. As the startup added employees, the founders let staff take paid time off for holidays, travel, and rest when they wanted, without asking permission—just letting managers know as a courtesy. About 18 months later, with 10 employees, they made their ad hoc policy official. "If you want to take a vacation, take it," Kirven says. As long as workers met their goals, they could take as much time as they wanted, when they wanted. In other words, no formal vacation policy.

Kirven doubted the startup could sustain the approach as the company expanded. "I didn't think it would scale when we were at 20, then 50, then 100, then 150 [employees]," he says. Now, with a staff of 200, satellite offices in San Francisco and North Carolina, and $18 million in revenue in 2007 (disclosure: BusinessWeek's advertising department was a Bluewolf client in 2004), he doesn't consider the loose vacation rules a risk that employees will shirk their duties.

Instead, Kirven sees it as a competitive advantage. He makes it clear no vacation policy doesn't mean unlimited vacation. He estimates most people take three to four weeks each year; six or more would usually make it hard to meet objectives, he says. But there's no pressure to put in a certain number of days or hours as long as the work is getting done.

Holdover from the Industrial Era
Bluewolf is part of a small but growing group of companies of all sizes that let employees manage their own time. The most visible example is Best Buy (BBY), where an employee-led movement toward results-only metrics transformed the company's culture (BusinessWeek.com, 12/11/06). Outdoor gearmaker Patagonia lets workers at its Ventura (Calif.) headquarters surf during the day and offers up to two months of paid leave (BusinessWeek.com, 8/21/06) for employees to work with environmental groups. But giving workers complete control over their schedules is rare enough that Kirven says human resources people tell him he's crazy.

Counting days and hours is a holdover from the industrial era that makes no sense for information workers who can do their jobs without being at their desks at set hours, proponents of such changes say. "The reason companies have a vacation policy or time-off policy is because of the way work is structured: 8 to 5, Monday through Friday," says Jody Thompson, one of the Best Buy HR managers who upended the company's attitude toward time. Thompson and Cali Ressler just published Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It, a manifesto for what they call the Results-Only Work Environment, or ROWE. "Work is something you do, not someplace you go," Thompson says. The pair now run a St. Paul (Minn.) consulting firm, CultureRx, to help companies switch to the model they pioneered at Best Buy.

The benefits for staff are clear. Workers at Bluewolf's Manhattan headquarters in a converted 15th-floor loft enthuse about the flexibility the company offers, and the bottom-up culture that supports everything from volunteer work to green initiatives to team trips to the gym. And when the vacation time isn't enough, Bluewolf accommodates workers who want to take unpaid leaves, including one who took a year off when each of her three children was born.

But what's the business case for tossing the vacation policy? For companies rooted in the information economy, like Bluewolf, which is adding staff quickly, the freedom helps attract and retain motivated workers, especially Gen Yers who resist punching clocks.

linkedin connections Kirven says the company's turnover is next to nil—so low that three people who left recently decided to return. Bluewolf has no HR staff. Instead, it relies on a quarterly audit from a lawyer to make sure the company complies with labor laws. And Kirven estimates the company saves $250,000 a year by not having bean-counters tracking time.

Identifying Goals is Key
To make it work, everyone is measured on performance goals that contribute to Bluewolf's bottom line. That means financial targets for salespeople, billable hours for analysts and project managers, and client retention rates for customer service people. Tim Johnson, Bluewolf's sales director, hasn't had a problem with people taking too much time off or with grumbling from co-workers left behind. "Everyone understands you have to work harder when people take off," he says. They're rewarded with the same freedom their colleagues have, regardless of position or seniority. And the time off is real time off—while many Bluewolf workers telecommute, when they go on vacation they're encouraged to leave their laptops and BlackBerrys behind.

Working this way is not for everybody, and it can backfire if the company doesn't have clear and measurable targets for each employee. "The key to making this work is helping your management to be able to identify good goals," says Bob Kustka, president of Fusion Factor, a Norwell (Mass.) workplace-productivity consultant. "There are those people who need structure, who left to their own devices will not do what they need to do." But plenty of companies offer highly structured work environments, and Kirven positions Bluewolf's flexibility as a differentiator that attracts talent in a competitive IT labor market.

A Growing Trend?
It also keeps people from burning out. While Kirven estimates he takes only about two weeks of vacation a year, he appreciates the culture of work-life balance that Bluewolf has built. "I don't want to work 80 hours a week and travel all over the globe. I have small kids myself," he says.

Such a policy isn't realistic for every company. Kirven and Berridge funded Bluewolf without any outside equity investors; Kirven imagines many VCs would quash a vacation policy like Bluewolf's. But the formula seems to be working. Bluewolf is projecting $31 million in revenue for 2008, up from $11 million two years ago. And Kirven thinks the approach won't be unusual for long. He sees more companies adopting similar policies, and not just in IT but in professions like law, where much of the work can be done on flexible schedules. "My prediction is that in 10 years, this will be what most people are doing," he says.

Now, hurry up and finish that project so you can take a few more days off!

Joke of the Weekend XI

Well, you need a slight understanding of algebra for this Joke on the
Value of human capital (then why do you search for knowledge so much?)

Engineers and scientists will never make as much money as business executives. Now a rigorous mathematical proof that explains why this is true:

Postulate 1: Knowledge is Power.
Postulate 2: Time is Money.

As every engineer knows,

Work
---------- = Power
Time

Since Knowledge = Power, and Time =Money, we have

Work
--------- = Knowledge
Money

Solving for Money, we get:

Work
----------- = Money
Knowledge

Thus, as Knowledge approaches zero, Money approaches infinity regardless of the Work done.
Conclusion: The Less you Know, the more money you Make.

Swallow your Pride

Okay, yes, I am competitive. There is a true story that I was running a 10K with a colleague (one who does Ironman Triathlons, and double marathons) in Boston, MA and with about 200 meters to go (about 200 yards for US readers), I point to a building behind us and asked what is that building. Well, being a semi-local, he looks back and stares and asks which exact building, in the meantime, I have started run full out so I can get to the "finishing line" before he does. Needless to say, I "won" but not because I was faster, because he was laughing too hard to catch up . . . Yes, I like to win if playing casually . . . sorry, there is just something inside that makes me that way, and I can not stop it.

Well, it did come to a sort of stopping.

Vacationing in Bar Harbor, Maine (for one of my favourite commenters to a blog, yes, that is in the USA), I had to swallow my competitor nature. By the way, if you get a chance, it is a nice spot in the world (from someone who has traveled around the globe). Here is the scenario: My wife, two sons, and I went for a sunset cruise tour on kayaks. Now, I have kayaked many times before and enjoy kayaking on the lakes/rivers in and around Austin, Texas. While I have kayaked on the sea before it is different than lake or river kayaking. Anyway, we have two two-seater sea kayaks and I have my youngest son with me (thinking that we would not be paddling too much). Well, we were the best team, the tour guide would point to where he wanted us to go and by golly we were the first there! The tour guide kept asking our kayak to slow down, but it was not easy to because of the slight wind and current, but we did our best. Then we were finishing our tour and saw our ending point, and the tour guide said "go for it", well, we started and then realized my wife and son #1 were way behind. So what does a good husband/father do, finish in first place or return and make sure they are doing okay? Yes, I turn our kayak around and go back to see if all's okay. (The son in my boat who happens to be a little competitive and disagreed with my strategy). So, we go back and then somehow we get stuck on some rocks, and then we are behind everyone, as we get off the rocks, we are facing the wrong direction and the wind picks up and makes it very difficult to turn this ship (as we drift out to Nova Scotia). So, I am paddling as hard as I can (my son was too tired to paddle any more). The tour guide notices us struggling (since think he was not too happy with us that we were going so fast to begin with), and he comes back to us and proceeds to tie a rope from his one person kayak to ours . . . oh my, how embarrassing, I thought about arguing and challenging the guide a race to the finish line, and instead swallowed my pride (it was his responsibility to get us back safe and sound), so we paddle in together to the wonderful smiles and laughter of all the other kayakers who had already finished the tour.

The lesson that I learned . . . Nice Guys Finish Last! So, if I happen to be running with you or playing some game and you fall or get injuried, forget about it, I am continuing!!!! Oh, not really, but sounded good!

Team Motivation

I have always viewed change as opportunity and not a negative . . . however, there are those that continue to embrace the old ways and dont want to go in another direction (especially when things are not going well). It is difficult to change directions because people are comfortable in the current ways things are done. With any growth agenda, you must be flexible and change directions. It is has interesting for me in that in just a few months, our directions have changed (although continued to same vision), so it is important that you remain grounded in what the end result is but also be flexible to change directions to reach that point (because some times there is "traffic" or "construction" that block your current path).

Here is an interesting article in regards to changing direction and motivating people to adopt the changes.


9 Ways to Develop Team Motivation
Take a cue from the ancient Greeks to help steer your employees to success.
By Nilofer Merchant

When we work with teams, we often find that members agree in principle, yet may not support the direction of the company.

How often has this type of scenario unfolded at your smaller business: The company decides to move sales (or marketing, or finance, or any other unit) in a new direction. An announcement goes out, a meeting is held, heads nod in agreement. Then day two merges into week two and that soon becomes month two. Somewhere in there you realize that no one is supporting the new direction. And there's no talk about it -- life goes on just as it did before. It's as if all the planning, meeting, and strategizing never happened.

First you're mad, then you blame yourself, then you wonder what you could have done to get the point across and keep things on track.

Thucydides, in his "History of the Peloponnesian War," wrote about the solution one general came up with in ancient Greece: "...burning their boats so as to have no hope except in becoming masters of the country." This legendary military decision eliminated all possibility of retreat. The troops knew there was no way out but through, and performance occurred because the situation narrowed the options to perform or die.

Now, business isn't basic training and you can't act like a Marine drill instructor at Parris Island to motivate your employees (much less burn down the office), but you can set the stage for excellent performance. How? Here are nine ideas any smaller business leader can start using immediately:

Specify the Destination
Your team needs to know what the new destination is and how to get there. How you communicate that influences whether you'll get there. Why that destination? Why is it important? Make sure the goal is worth pursuing, announce the new move, and make sure there is a specific launch -- a particular date and even an event will help your team remember that a large change occurred.

Make the Move Necessary
Those who want to hang onto the old boat will burn up with it. There must be a penalty for clinging to the old. For example, the point of demarcation might be a change in procedure. For example, changing the form of ID required to enter the building; after a certain date, you can't get in without the new. Mark the change with tangible and intangible elements to reinforce the desired behavior in all areas of the company.

Dismantle the Old Infrastructure
Don't continue to support the old business. If you've decided to let go of your router business, consider selling it, renaming it, or some other way of making it clear that things have changed in a fundamental way. Don't feed the old systems by providing them a large slice of the budget, mentioning them in company-wide meetings, or including them in sales off-site. They're gone -- bury them.

Talk About the New
With every meeting, there should be a conversation that acknowledges and brings the new product or department into focus. You've got to reiterate how important these new people, new roles, new products, or new processes are to bringing in revenue. Relate them to current operations; spend a disproportionate amount of time talking about the new. As a leader, you signal to your team what's important to you (consciously or unconsciously) by how much time you spend on it. If you tune in and talk about it -- the team will, too.

Only Hire in the New Focus
Look for people that match the new way of doing business, the new line of products. If engineering needs to regroup around Linux, don't hire lots of experts in Ajax or Perl. Make sure that every new hire extends your reach into the new space by providing knowledge and capabilities that will help you get where you're going.

Reward People Based on the New Focus
Compensation can sharpen performance. Salespeople in particular have an amazing ability to focus on their compensation plan. Use the plan to guide behavior so that your company reaps the rewards and gets the kind of results you wanted when you first determined what the new destination would be.

Minimize Maintenance of the Old
In the midst of a large change, it's easy to spend too much time and money on a product you're trying to move to life support. Determine the appropriate level of maintenance so that customers are taken care of, but don't spend a dollar more. Refer them to new models and services so that they migrate to what your organization is fully involved with.

Create a Crisis
Recently, an executive I know brought in Bain consultants to tell their board of directors why their current business has limited growth. The executive needed a third party to carry the message and signal loudly that the old business wasn't performing. This was a big company, but the idea holds true for smaller businesses as well. The board got the message because they saw the "suits" walking around holding meetings, which sent the signal more loudly than she could have done herself.

Put a Process Behind It
A process concentrates thinking and sends a subliminal message to the team that "this is valuable and it's here to stay." Make sure the team knows you think the new services offering is important by using a process for reinforcement. Eliminate support for the ad hoc methods that provide patchwork results. Stick with what's measurable and repeatable.
Your team certainly picks up what you say in meetings, on the phone, in e-mail, and over the course of the day. Additional input comes from what you do. Show people you're serious about burning the boat and taking a measured risk on that shiny new product, process, or initiative -- your revenue depends on it.

Being an Entrepreneur

A comment on one of my postings ask me to write on what I am doing. Well, I am an Entrepreneur. I get asked many times, wow, you are lucky, no politics, not having to deal with a big company, rewarded for your effort. . . well, all is true, but again, it is not all perfect either. I found this article that hit home on being an entrepreneur. Is it in you?


The Realities of Being an Entrepreneur
It's not all rosy, but it's certainly rewarding.
By Tamara Monosoff

I'm often surprised when I talk to people interested in starting their own businesses. When asking about my experience as an entrepreneur, they'll say, "You're so lucky," or "It must be great to be out of the rat race." Statements like this make me smile because they couldn't be less true. Luck has nothing to do with it. As for the rat race, while different, it's faster than ever.

That's why I wanted to share the realities of being an entrepreneur. First, a disclaimer: At the end of every day, I wouldn't trade my current situation for any other option, and I'm grateful to be able to do what I truly love. However, being an entrepreneur isn't the easy, carefree career path that many believe it to be; it's actually quite the opposite. When everything is invested in your own business--time, money, passion and creativity--it can border on obsession. And when you work from home or your spouse or family members work with you, you rarely, if ever, leave the office--at least from a mental standpoint.

Let me start with a few hard truths of being an entrepreneur:

1. It's stressful. If you think meeting a boss's deadlines or demands is tough, try meeting your own, especially when your personal savings are on the line. Maybe you've already taken out a second mortgage and your credit cards are maxxed out. Or maybe you've borrowed money from family and friends and you're on the hook to pay them back, ASAP. This type of pressure lights a fire under even the most laid-back personalities. Not only will you feel the pressure to get your business off the ground, but you'll also feel the added pressure to do so quickly to regain some semblance of financial security.

2. It's never-ending. Yes, it can be thankless to work for someone else, knowing your skills and talents are ultimately making someone else a bundle. But in most jobs, you can leave the work behind when you go home to enjoy your family, friends or hobbies. As an entrepreneur, the workload can be intense, especially during the early stages when you are the CEO, CFO, HR person, sales staff, marketing guru, tech guy, office manager, and janitor. With all these roles, there's rarely a moment that you feel your work is "done" for the day. There's always something more you could be doing, like researching new markets, writing press releases, contacting new media, cold calling new sales outlets, developing new products and the list goes on. And that can eat away at time formerly devoted to family, leisure activities, workouts or relaxation. It's a difficult balance to strike.

3. It's frustrating. Maybe you've partnered with someone who doesn't have your best interests at heart. Or you've received a shipment of damaged products that you need for a trade show the next day. Or the media appearance you spent days preparing for is suddenly cancelled due to a natural disaster. As an entrepreneur, these types of situations happen on a regular basis. (I speak from experience; all of the above happened to me.) The truth is that you never know what's around the corner and it can be extremely frustrating when you've planned to spend a day on product development, only to find out that you have to repair the cases of product packaging that came apart during shipping.

So with this kind of stress, pressure and workload, why, then, would anyone subject themselves to being an entrepreneur? The answer is simple: the positives outweigh the negatives:

1. It's rewarding. When you're successful, you reap both financial and emotional rewards. There's no better feeling than seeing a product you've worked hard to develop on store shelves, or when you've provided successful service for a grateful client. It's exciting to make a sale or win a new client when you know it's from your own hard work; it's gratifying when customers tell you that your product, service or example has made a difference in their lives. And of course, turning a profit and knowing your business is financially stable are extremely rewarding as well.

2. It's flexible. Once you work for yourself, it's common to feel you could never work in a conventional 9-to-5 environment again. I believe it's mostly due to the flexibility. Yes, you may work more hours, but you can do so on your own terms. You can stop work at 3 to pick up the kids from school without asking your boss for permission. You can work from midnight to 4 a.m. if you're a night owl. You can work from home or your own office with daycare on-site. When you're the boss, you call the shots, and the new freedom can be exhilarating.

3. It's the chance to create. Many entrepreneurs are driven by the need to build something great, help other people, or leave something behind. Perhaps it's a business that your children can join and grow; maybe it's the legacy of creating something that will be around long after you're gone. No matter what the motivation, creating something from nothing that grows and develops through the years can be almost like raising a child; it's your baby, and you've nurtured it to its current level of success. That type of fulfillment is difficult to duplicate in most other career paths.

I would add that the frustration for me is the (1) not be able to move fast enough (patience is not my middle name) and (2) you dont get the initial respect that you do when you have a big name company on your business card, you have to earn it more. The reward in this is that I feel that I can be as successful as I want to be if I work hard and do a good job, the sky is the limit!

Don't Look Back!

How many times have you seen when someone leaves an organization, it seems that anything and everything that went wrong and goes wrong over the next year is that departing person's fault? It has become such a common theme in our business environment that it is just expected. Blame the person who left (it's that easy). It is even worse when a senior leader departs, it seems that whatever good has happened in the past or continues to happen is because of the people remaining and everything that had gone wrong in the past or goes wrong (even after departure) is the fault of the departing leader, including such things as gas price increases, the economy faultering, and heard even global warming was to blame.

As a leader, it is important to stop this view, this makes no one accountable for any problems within the organization because all problems were the responsibility of a particular person who is no longer within the organization. Things go wrong in business all the time, no business is perfect. It is important to focus on resolution of any particular problem or issue with the team you have in place. Placing blame does no good. After resolution, debriefing on how the issue can be prevented in the future is the most productive time spent. (anyway, the people pointing the blame are usually the ones who are really to blame and covering up their issues).

I just wish that people would speak up before any departure about issues and address them at that time versus conveniently waiting until someone leaves and then "only one side of the story is told" and that becomes fact. Time and time again, I have stated, do the right thing even if in the minority. Standing up to wrongful blaming is one of those times because reputations are on the line.

I say to all, it is not worth looking back, focus on the future, people will say whatever they will say, you have no control over history (or those who like to revisit history). The facts are the facts even though some might misinterpret them! Actually, they are sometimes amusing (I know of one case that everybody who could spell the initiative was the inventor of it, how could 100 people come up with one invention I dont know but hey people take credit sometimes for something that they were on the fringes for but no real impact). When you leave (not if you leave, but when), leave because you are running towards an exciting opportunity versus running away from something, because when you run towards an opportunity you wont look back, but running away, you will constantly be looking back . . . Focus on the Future! There are lots of exciting opportunities out there, if you did good things in one place, you will do it again in another place (and maybe even be rewarded this time).