Our new company logo is a man getting sucked into a toilet.
Our revised mission statement is "Forage during daylight. Hide at Night."
Scott Adams is firmly embedded in America's office space.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Is it just me or was it better when they sugar-coated?
Our new company logo is a man getting sucked into a toilet.
Our revised mission statement is "Forage during daylight. Hide at Night."
Scott Adams is firmly embedded in America's office space.
Friday, May 27, 2011
The Dandelion Dilemma
Over the years there's one thing I've learned about dandelions. You can scour your yard, removing one after another. You can cover the same ground multiple times. You can go right to left, then left to right. You can cover it along the borders, diagonally, even on your hands and knees, but you will never find all the dandelions.
I have a weed puller. It has a wooden handle that fits in my hand. Protruding from the wooden handle is a metal rod with an end shaped like a viper's tongue. It's designed to be able to get under weeds and help remove them from your yard. Even with this weekend weapon, I've had no luck eradicating the weeds.
Just recently I spent over an hour methodically scouring my yard removing dandelions. I was proud of my work and confident they were all gone. (See I've really not learned anything at all.) Yesterday as I backed the car from the driveway, I noticed one incredibly large — stalk? — protruding from the ground. What the heck? How did a lawn that had been weed free just two days ago become host to this monster?
Today I went back and found four more dandelions to remove. I suspect they are not the last.
How could I have walked this yard like a Federal Marshall looking for an escaped convict and miss so blatantly obvious a violator?
I went to Google for answers. Dandelions are well adapted to a modern world of disturbed habitats — that would lawns. They are difficult to eliminate and grow under more adverse circumstances than competitors. If you don't remove it completely it will regenerate.
The familiar white, globular seed bulb spreads breaks up in the wind and spreads the seeds far and wide. They regenerate a lot. The taproot is deep and if you don't get it all, it just grows back.
Just Like Problem Employees
My dandelion dilemma reminded me of problem employees. Just when you think you've identified them and taken actions to remove them from their jobs, they or someone curiously like them pops back up again. How does this happen?
In my experience the answer is quite similar to how a dandelion thrives.
First, they survive in disturbed habitats; dysfunctional organizations with disrupted cultures. It's not hard to separate them from the high performers but they can find protection among everyone else. You've seen this in your own yard. At the base of one of your healthy bushes is a weed that's hard to reach. You don't want to harm the healthy plant, but you know you need to remove the weed. But that weed is part of a team.
Yet we know that teams rarely are that. More frequently a few high performers are driving team performance. Always attached, at the base of the high performers, is one of the organizational weeds.
I saw this in graduate school. Early on in our first year we worked together to understand each other's strengths; finance, marketing, writing. We had a member whose strength was coasting, and he did it quite effectively through two years. Since well over half the grades posted were group grades, we chose to ignore the problem. He firmly rooted himself inside an otherwise high performing team and has a graduate degree on his wall — for no apparent reason.
Oftentimes the dandelion employee has been in one place so long, and has rooted so deeply, they are nearly impossible to remove. People simply have gotten so used to dealing with the problem, they assume it will never go away and get into the habit of looking past it. As a result organization integrity continues to deteriorate.
The Tap Root is the Key
A dandelion drops a deep tap root into the earth. If you don't remove it — all of it — the dandelion grows back. Eventually it blossoms and the white seed bulb sprays its seeds across the landscape. It shouldn't be hard to see where I'm going with this. Dysfunctional cultures are so because of people embedded in the business who are constantly spraying their negativity, their unpredictability, their lack of character, their unprofessionalism across the organization. The very top people — your healthy plants — have learned to ignore all of it, because time and time again, when brought to the attention of senior leadership, nothing was done about it.
I've had the good fortune to walk into more than one environment where the seed bulbs have been at work for some time. I say good fortune, because there is nothing more fun to tackle than a yard full of dandelions. After all, it's going to look a lot better in the short run even before we get to the really deep roots. With each season comes a new opportunity to remove the dandelions that are causing the problem.
The organizational tap root buries itself in a dysfunctional culture — a disturbed habitat. Fix the culture, set appropriate expectations, celebrate good examples, honor top performers and suddenly the weeds stick out so much you can't miss them, and neither can anyone else. Suddenly the employees you want to retain start looking around and think, "Someone is finally doing something about the poor performers and I really like the look and feel of this new yard."
Your Allies are Critical
Every one of us has been critical of human resources at some time in our career. I can honestly say that I have had the good fortune to be aligned with some amazing human resource professionals. They weren't amazing because they agreed with everything I said or were aligned with every tap root that I wanted to dig up. To the contrary, they were often savagely opposed to my point of view. Yet, we were aligned in our confidence in each other's ultimate goal: build a healthy culture characterized by recognition and reward of behaviors that would best serve the organization's long term interests. And for the most part, we were looking at the same weeds in the disturbed habitat.
Unfortunately we live in a litigious world where whistle blowing has become a career path all its own and no one was ever terminated for a good reason — in their own mind. Yet to build the culture you need to succeed, taking the lawsuits is an absolute must. Settlements are an unavoidable fact of life, but I argue that dysfunctional employees do so much damage that the legal cost is a small price to pay.
Aligning your top leaders is equally important. They and their staffs are hiring new employees every week, and the opportunity for a weed to re-enter the carefully maintained yard is high. Every person in the organization from human resources to training to the administrative assistants must be aligned with the culture and be aware of what a dandelion looks and acts like. Everyone's goal has to be to eliminate the disturbed habitat and build a healthy organizational lawn.
In my career I can name many, many people who today are building sustainable cultures that will support healthy organizations. They still have a lot of work ahead to build those three levels of succession, but I'm confident they'll achieve the goal. Every year brings a new opportunity for dandelions to regain their position.
The search never ends.
I have a weed puller. It has a wooden handle that fits in my hand. Protruding from the wooden handle is a metal rod with an end shaped like a viper's tongue. It's designed to be able to get under weeds and help remove them from your yard. Even with this weekend weapon, I've had no luck eradicating the weeds.
Just recently I spent over an hour methodically scouring my yard removing dandelions. I was proud of my work and confident they were all gone. (See I've really not learned anything at all.) Yesterday as I backed the car from the driveway, I noticed one incredibly large — stalk? — protruding from the ground. What the heck? How did a lawn that had been weed free just two days ago become host to this monster?
Today I went back and found four more dandelions to remove. I suspect they are not the last.
How could I have walked this yard like a Federal Marshall looking for an escaped convict and miss so blatantly obvious a violator?
I went to Google for answers. Dandelions are well adapted to a modern world of disturbed habitats — that would lawns. They are difficult to eliminate and grow under more adverse circumstances than competitors. If you don't remove it completely it will regenerate.
The familiar white, globular seed bulb spreads breaks up in the wind and spreads the seeds far and wide. They regenerate a lot. The taproot is deep and if you don't get it all, it just grows back.
Just Like Problem Employees
My dandelion dilemma reminded me of problem employees. Just when you think you've identified them and taken actions to remove them from their jobs, they or someone curiously like them pops back up again. How does this happen?
In my experience the answer is quite similar to how a dandelion thrives.
First, they survive in disturbed habitats; dysfunctional organizations with disrupted cultures. It's not hard to separate them from the high performers but they can find protection among everyone else. You've seen this in your own yard. At the base of one of your healthy bushes is a weed that's hard to reach. You don't want to harm the healthy plant, but you know you need to remove the weed. But that weed is part of a team.
Yet we know that teams rarely are that. More frequently a few high performers are driving team performance. Always attached, at the base of the high performers, is one of the organizational weeds.
I saw this in graduate school. Early on in our first year we worked together to understand each other's strengths; finance, marketing, writing. We had a member whose strength was coasting, and he did it quite effectively through two years. Since well over half the grades posted were group grades, we chose to ignore the problem. He firmly rooted himself inside an otherwise high performing team and has a graduate degree on his wall — for no apparent reason.
Oftentimes the dandelion employee has been in one place so long, and has rooted so deeply, they are nearly impossible to remove. People simply have gotten so used to dealing with the problem, they assume it will never go away and get into the habit of looking past it. As a result organization integrity continues to deteriorate.
The Tap Root is the Key
A dandelion drops a deep tap root into the earth. If you don't remove it — all of it — the dandelion grows back. Eventually it blossoms and the white seed bulb sprays its seeds across the landscape. It shouldn't be hard to see where I'm going with this. Dysfunctional cultures are so because of people embedded in the business who are constantly spraying their negativity, their unpredictability, their lack of character, their unprofessionalism across the organization. The very top people — your healthy plants — have learned to ignore all of it, because time and time again, when brought to the attention of senior leadership, nothing was done about it.
I've had the good fortune to walk into more than one environment where the seed bulbs have been at work for some time. I say good fortune, because there is nothing more fun to tackle than a yard full of dandelions. After all, it's going to look a lot better in the short run even before we get to the really deep roots. With each season comes a new opportunity to remove the dandelions that are causing the problem.
The organizational tap root buries itself in a dysfunctional culture — a disturbed habitat. Fix the culture, set appropriate expectations, celebrate good examples, honor top performers and suddenly the weeds stick out so much you can't miss them, and neither can anyone else. Suddenly the employees you want to retain start looking around and think, "Someone is finally doing something about the poor performers and I really like the look and feel of this new yard."
Your Allies are Critical
Every one of us has been critical of human resources at some time in our career. I can honestly say that I have had the good fortune to be aligned with some amazing human resource professionals. They weren't amazing because they agreed with everything I said or were aligned with every tap root that I wanted to dig up. To the contrary, they were often savagely opposed to my point of view. Yet, we were aligned in our confidence in each other's ultimate goal: build a healthy culture characterized by recognition and reward of behaviors that would best serve the organization's long term interests. And for the most part, we were looking at the same weeds in the disturbed habitat.
Unfortunately we live in a litigious world where whistle blowing has become a career path all its own and no one was ever terminated for a good reason — in their own mind. Yet to build the culture you need to succeed, taking the lawsuits is an absolute must. Settlements are an unavoidable fact of life, but I argue that dysfunctional employees do so much damage that the legal cost is a small price to pay.
Aligning your top leaders is equally important. They and their staffs are hiring new employees every week, and the opportunity for a weed to re-enter the carefully maintained yard is high. Every person in the organization from human resources to training to the administrative assistants must be aligned with the culture and be aware of what a dandelion looks and acts like. Everyone's goal has to be to eliminate the disturbed habitat and build a healthy organizational lawn.
In my career I can name many, many people who today are building sustainable cultures that will support healthy organizations. They still have a lot of work ahead to build those three levels of succession, but I'm confident they'll achieve the goal. Every year brings a new opportunity for dandelions to regain their position.
The search never ends.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Monday, May 23, 2011
Insider Treating: The New Executive Presence
Recently the Harvard Business School faculty conducted research that concluded that CEOs interacting with insiders - employees - had a profound effect on productivity.
"For every 1 percent gain in time (that a CEO spent) with at least one insider, (that employee's) productivity advanced 1.23 percent."
When I read this all I could think was "really?" The Harvard Business School faculty really spent time researching something so blatantly obvious? Was it just so they could apply a number to so predictably apparent an outcome? What they should be researching is why so few CEOs or any other titled management do it in the first place. It being spending time with an "insider". (They refer to insider to differentiate from outsider, ie. customer)
I've led a number of organizations and leading by being out of the corner office is standard operating procedure. It's a leadership style I've expected from the people who report to me. I've never needed to index productivity to prove to myself that being among my employees is a better way to guide an organization than hanging out behind a desk and waiting for people to come to me.
There are as many ways both formal and informal to stay close to your employees.
Formal forums such as town hall meetings or all-employee events or Webinars (my least preferred route, because it's the least personal) allow the widespread dissemination of information with consistency - everybody hears the same thing at the same time - and offers a stage for not just the business leader but his or her staff as well. Held frequently - worst case every 6 to 8 weeks - these forums are helpful. Assumed here is that the information delivered is credible and timely and comes with at least a nod to "insider" information. In other words if the session is nothing more than aping what has already been delivered in another forum, then it's a waste of everyone's time.
In my experience the audience expects to be given news both good and bad. They expect to be able to test the content elsewhere and not find out that it's at odds with a different truth. I've encountered settings where financial information has been withheld out of fear that it would be disseminated outside the company. Employees need to know the score and the only way to know the score is to know how the business is performing. Holding back the information also demonstrates a profound lack of trust.
Entertainment counts. No matter how many communication sessions you hold and no matter what the forum and the location and the content, boring is just that. A good way to insure that your sessions are poorly attended is to batter your employees with copious amounts of copy in a PowerPoint format. During an all-employee session we conducted, we had a group of entertainers - seemingly employees sprinkled throughout the audience - break into a "flash mob-type" song about the business that started as an employee questioning the veracity of my comments while I was on the stage. It surprised the heck out of everyone and was a great way to kick off the meeting.
I've been amazed over and over again that organizations hold information close to the chest yet are surprised when employees don't understand how the company is performing. When I arrived to lead an organization in Canada, I discovered that daily sales were only disseminated to about 20 people. When I asked why, I was told that employees wouldn't know what to do with the information and it could possibly end up in competitors' hands.
After I'd picked myself off the floor and the shock wore off, we devised a plan to teach the employees how to read the report, reminded them that it was confidential and meant to help them better understand and run the business then disseminated it to everyone. It even hung on the bulletin board in a unionized plant. Employees need to know the score. It's part of the interaction between management and employees.
Informal interaction, even impromptu events, have an even more profound effect. I want to share a laundry list of actions I've taken that over the years have made a huge difference in employee performance and morale.
I was assigned to lead a large division and the announcement went out on a Wednesday. I was living in another city, not due to start until a couple weeks later but was in town. As I was leaving, I decided to show up the day of the announcement - unannounced. I drove to the building where the division was located and literally went door to door, cubicle to cubicle. I simply walked in, shook hands and introduced myself. One young man, slouched in his seat in front of his computer, nearly hit the ceiling when I asked him if he was comfortable then introduced myself. It took about three hours to work the whole place, but I saw everyone who was working that day. It was pretty powerful.
While leading a Canadian organization with a diverse business portfolio, I found myself responsible for operations like R&D, manufacturing and the commercial operations of three major businesses spread across the country. I visited the plants regularly. I occasionally showed up at the distribution center in blue jeans and a work shirt, climbed into a truck and delivered product all day. ( I often learned more walking in the back door of a hospital than in the front door.)
Two days a month the cafeteria became my office. My secretary up on the third floor could easily reach me. Employees knew I was there and I was pleasantly surprised at how much less courage it took for employees to approach me in that setting than it took in the office - and my assistant was friendly to everyone! By the way I rarely ate lunch in my office. When I was in town, I bought my lunch - standing in line like everyone else, then dropped in on a different table. It was fun for me, and most of the time, fun for them.
As I walked the building one day, it struck me that the mood wasn't what it should be, so with my HR director we figured a plan to liven the place up. We announced Circus Day. We gave each department $25 dollars to create a ride or booth. Each dollar collected by the Circus would go to charity. We blocked off the parking lot one afternoon, provided free lunch to the employees and had a circus. I don't remember how much money we collected, but the whole place cheered up immediately.
On another occasion in a different location, it was clear that the departments in the organization were not communicating well so - in the middle of winter - we held a golf tournament. The holes covered four floors of the building. Each department had to design a hole that helped non-department members better understand what they did and each team had to be made up of four people who didn't work together. Everyone got into the game, and we had a wonderful afternoon that pulled the organization closer together.
Throughout my career, its not been uncommon to find me sitting in a product manager's office finding out about the product, the customers and what was keeping them from greater success. (Yes, at first it is intimidating, but when they learn that you're not playing "Gotcha!" and that the conversations aren't carried on to their boss, they become trusting and in fact come looking for you.) The bigger adjustment comes from their manager. The chain of command is important when it comes to HR issues but not when it comes to moving business information.
The clerical assistants have always been an important part of my world. In a couple of locations I created an assistants council to help keep me informed about issues in the building that were getting in our way. It was my experience that they saw more than they were allowed to share and had good ideas that were going untested. By the way, manufacturing employees are watching your products being made every day and have many ideas to share. Your distribution center employees are equally insightful.
In every organization I've run we've held weekly and monthly small group employee meetings - breakfasts or lunches - where we can share information about the business, field questions, quell rumors. They are very helpful especially for the employees in manufacturing or distribution operations, ones who are sometimes far removed from the commercial operations.
While leading a nutrition business we made it an annual event to visit our manufacturing plants located in remote sites throughout the US. During those visits each business unit head gave the plant management an update on our businesses. On one visit we worked on a Boys and Girls Club Recreation Center, painting and improving the site then played kick-ball with the kids at the end of the day. That was well received by the plant employees.
It is critical for business leaders to stay close to employees but also to employees' families. I can name the husband our wife of every staff member and in many cases, their children. We held a lot of family-centered events throughout the year. Work happens at work and happens at home and happens on vacation. The better the family feels about the senior management of the organization the easier it is when those unfortunate business intrusions cut short planned family time.
Handwritten letters are indispensable. As soon as you're done reading this, go to a stationery store and have letterhead made. Then go to the post office and buy a few sheets of first class stamps. Keep both in your office, in your brief case and in your home. Every time you see or hear about an activity that you want to reinforce, sit down and hand write a note to the employee. Send it to their home address not the office. Attach a first class stamp, not postal indicia. Drop it in the mail box. Congratulations, you've just left an impression that will never fade.
Never fail to send out a note to an employee on their work anniversary or other important event when ist comes to your attention.
While in Canada we had a number of Canadians overseas on expatriate assignments. Each year I sent them an update on the business "back home," the progress we made and how much we were looking forward to them one day returning. One year, I took that another step and sent a letter to all former employees - who'd left in good standing - keeping them abreast of our success and reminding them they could return should they have an interest and we have a job open.
A few times a year I traveled to various remote cities in the country and held what I called a President's Forum. It was a day-long session and all local employees from all the business units - including sales people - came for a business presentation from me and occasionally some of my staff and then they were allowed to make their own presentation and request increment resources. Everyone felt more informed and engaged when the day was over. When we returned we always funded at least one request if only to show we were listening.
For the past many years I've written a Seussian version of The Night Before Christmas highlighting the year we'd just completed and calling out employees who worked on the various businesses and the contributions they'd made. It was a lot of work. Typically I started writing in October with many, many edited versions. I had a great time presenting it in my Wal-Mart purchased Santa costume.
Over the years I've heard numerous references to "executive presence". I've read articles about how executives are supposed to behave; the right way to address; how to present yourself in the community.
Few have referred to the uncertainty that's come from one downsizing episode after another, uncertainty that plagues workforces in nearly every industry. Because of that uncertainty and the likelihood it won't abate anytime soon, it is more critical than ever that executive presence be defined as executives present on all fronts in all locations with their employees. Compassion, empathy and transparency are more important than ever before.
There are many ways for business leaders to demonstrate their interest in their business but none more dramatic than staying close to and genuinely caring for the people who make the company go and the families they support. The productivity advancement is a lot more than 1.23 percent.
So get out of your executive chair, out of your executive office and into the offices of those employees in your organization. Schedule regular all-employee meetings and make sure the information is fresh and presented in a clever and creative fashion. Think up as many ways as you can to demonstrate you care what your employees think then follow through by actually executing your ideas. Write notes, recognize achievement, go into the cities and towns where your employees live.
Insider trading may be criminal but insider treating - with admiration, respect and interest - isn't.
"For every 1 percent gain in time (that a CEO spent) with at least one insider, (that employee's) productivity advanced 1.23 percent."
When I read this all I could think was "really?" The Harvard Business School faculty really spent time researching something so blatantly obvious? Was it just so they could apply a number to so predictably apparent an outcome? What they should be researching is why so few CEOs or any other titled management do it in the first place. It being spending time with an "insider". (They refer to insider to differentiate from outsider, ie. customer)
I've led a number of organizations and leading by being out of the corner office is standard operating procedure. It's a leadership style I've expected from the people who report to me. I've never needed to index productivity to prove to myself that being among my employees is a better way to guide an organization than hanging out behind a desk and waiting for people to come to me.
There are as many ways both formal and informal to stay close to your employees.
Formal forums such as town hall meetings or all-employee events or Webinars (my least preferred route, because it's the least personal) allow the widespread dissemination of information with consistency - everybody hears the same thing at the same time - and offers a stage for not just the business leader but his or her staff as well. Held frequently - worst case every 6 to 8 weeks - these forums are helpful. Assumed here is that the information delivered is credible and timely and comes with at least a nod to "insider" information. In other words if the session is nothing more than aping what has already been delivered in another forum, then it's a waste of everyone's time.
In my experience the audience expects to be given news both good and bad. They expect to be able to test the content elsewhere and not find out that it's at odds with a different truth. I've encountered settings where financial information has been withheld out of fear that it would be disseminated outside the company. Employees need to know the score and the only way to know the score is to know how the business is performing. Holding back the information also demonstrates a profound lack of trust.
Entertainment counts. No matter how many communication sessions you hold and no matter what the forum and the location and the content, boring is just that. A good way to insure that your sessions are poorly attended is to batter your employees with copious amounts of copy in a PowerPoint format. During an all-employee session we conducted, we had a group of entertainers - seemingly employees sprinkled throughout the audience - break into a "flash mob-type" song about the business that started as an employee questioning the veracity of my comments while I was on the stage. It surprised the heck out of everyone and was a great way to kick off the meeting.
I've been amazed over and over again that organizations hold information close to the chest yet are surprised when employees don't understand how the company is performing. When I arrived to lead an organization in Canada, I discovered that daily sales were only disseminated to about 20 people. When I asked why, I was told that employees wouldn't know what to do with the information and it could possibly end up in competitors' hands.
After I'd picked myself off the floor and the shock wore off, we devised a plan to teach the employees how to read the report, reminded them that it was confidential and meant to help them better understand and run the business then disseminated it to everyone. It even hung on the bulletin board in a unionized plant. Employees need to know the score. It's part of the interaction between management and employees.
Informal interaction, even impromptu events, have an even more profound effect. I want to share a laundry list of actions I've taken that over the years have made a huge difference in employee performance and morale.
I was assigned to lead a large division and the announcement went out on a Wednesday. I was living in another city, not due to start until a couple weeks later but was in town. As I was leaving, I decided to show up the day of the announcement - unannounced. I drove to the building where the division was located and literally went door to door, cubicle to cubicle. I simply walked in, shook hands and introduced myself. One young man, slouched in his seat in front of his computer, nearly hit the ceiling when I asked him if he was comfortable then introduced myself. It took about three hours to work the whole place, but I saw everyone who was working that day. It was pretty powerful.
While leading a Canadian organization with a diverse business portfolio, I found myself responsible for operations like R&D, manufacturing and the commercial operations of three major businesses spread across the country. I visited the plants regularly. I occasionally showed up at the distribution center in blue jeans and a work shirt, climbed into a truck and delivered product all day. ( I often learned more walking in the back door of a hospital than in the front door.)
Two days a month the cafeteria became my office. My secretary up on the third floor could easily reach me. Employees knew I was there and I was pleasantly surprised at how much less courage it took for employees to approach me in that setting than it took in the office - and my assistant was friendly to everyone! By the way I rarely ate lunch in my office. When I was in town, I bought my lunch - standing in line like everyone else, then dropped in on a different table. It was fun for me, and most of the time, fun for them.
As I walked the building one day, it struck me that the mood wasn't what it should be, so with my HR director we figured a plan to liven the place up. We announced Circus Day. We gave each department $25 dollars to create a ride or booth. Each dollar collected by the Circus would go to charity. We blocked off the parking lot one afternoon, provided free lunch to the employees and had a circus. I don't remember how much money we collected, but the whole place cheered up immediately.
On another occasion in a different location, it was clear that the departments in the organization were not communicating well so - in the middle of winter - we held a golf tournament. The holes covered four floors of the building. Each department had to design a hole that helped non-department members better understand what they did and each team had to be made up of four people who didn't work together. Everyone got into the game, and we had a wonderful afternoon that pulled the organization closer together.
Throughout my career, its not been uncommon to find me sitting in a product manager's office finding out about the product, the customers and what was keeping them from greater success. (Yes, at first it is intimidating, but when they learn that you're not playing "Gotcha!" and that the conversations aren't carried on to their boss, they become trusting and in fact come looking for you.) The bigger adjustment comes from their manager. The chain of command is important when it comes to HR issues but not when it comes to moving business information.
The clerical assistants have always been an important part of my world. In a couple of locations I created an assistants council to help keep me informed about issues in the building that were getting in our way. It was my experience that they saw more than they were allowed to share and had good ideas that were going untested. By the way, manufacturing employees are watching your products being made every day and have many ideas to share. Your distribution center employees are equally insightful.
In every organization I've run we've held weekly and monthly small group employee meetings - breakfasts or lunches - where we can share information about the business, field questions, quell rumors. They are very helpful especially for the employees in manufacturing or distribution operations, ones who are sometimes far removed from the commercial operations.
While leading a nutrition business we made it an annual event to visit our manufacturing plants located in remote sites throughout the US. During those visits each business unit head gave the plant management an update on our businesses. On one visit we worked on a Boys and Girls Club Recreation Center, painting and improving the site then played kick-ball with the kids at the end of the day. That was well received by the plant employees.
It is critical for business leaders to stay close to employees but also to employees' families. I can name the husband our wife of every staff member and in many cases, their children. We held a lot of family-centered events throughout the year. Work happens at work and happens at home and happens on vacation. The better the family feels about the senior management of the organization the easier it is when those unfortunate business intrusions cut short planned family time.
Handwritten letters are indispensable. As soon as you're done reading this, go to a stationery store and have letterhead made. Then go to the post office and buy a few sheets of first class stamps. Keep both in your office, in your brief case and in your home. Every time you see or hear about an activity that you want to reinforce, sit down and hand write a note to the employee. Send it to their home address not the office. Attach a first class stamp, not postal indicia. Drop it in the mail box. Congratulations, you've just left an impression that will never fade.
Never fail to send out a note to an employee on their work anniversary or other important event when ist comes to your attention.
While in Canada we had a number of Canadians overseas on expatriate assignments. Each year I sent them an update on the business "back home," the progress we made and how much we were looking forward to them one day returning. One year, I took that another step and sent a letter to all former employees - who'd left in good standing - keeping them abreast of our success and reminding them they could return should they have an interest and we have a job open.
A few times a year I traveled to various remote cities in the country and held what I called a President's Forum. It was a day-long session and all local employees from all the business units - including sales people - came for a business presentation from me and occasionally some of my staff and then they were allowed to make their own presentation and request increment resources. Everyone felt more informed and engaged when the day was over. When we returned we always funded at least one request if only to show we were listening.
For the past many years I've written a Seussian version of The Night Before Christmas highlighting the year we'd just completed and calling out employees who worked on the various businesses and the contributions they'd made. It was a lot of work. Typically I started writing in October with many, many edited versions. I had a great time presenting it in my Wal-Mart purchased Santa costume.
Over the years I've heard numerous references to "executive presence". I've read articles about how executives are supposed to behave; the right way to address; how to present yourself in the community.
Few have referred to the uncertainty that's come from one downsizing episode after another, uncertainty that plagues workforces in nearly every industry. Because of that uncertainty and the likelihood it won't abate anytime soon, it is more critical than ever that executive presence be defined as executives present on all fronts in all locations with their employees. Compassion, empathy and transparency are more important than ever before.
There are many ways for business leaders to demonstrate their interest in their business but none more dramatic than staying close to and genuinely caring for the people who make the company go and the families they support. The productivity advancement is a lot more than 1.23 percent.
So get out of your executive chair, out of your executive office and into the offices of those employees in your organization. Schedule regular all-employee meetings and make sure the information is fresh and presented in a clever and creative fashion. Think up as many ways as you can to demonstrate you care what your employees think then follow through by actually executing your ideas. Write notes, recognize achievement, go into the cities and towns where your employees live.
Insider trading may be criminal but insider treating - with admiration, respect and interest - isn't.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Turn Your Strategies Upside Down . . . . . And Shake Them
About eleven hours into yet another seemingly endless trip between Japan and Chicago, about the time I'd read everything I could find including the label in my shirt, I was down to the rock-bottom of reading material — the ads in the closing pages of the United Airlines magazine.
It was there that I saw the single-column, six-inch long ad with the headline, Fly the Legend. Below the headline was the picture of a MiG-21 flying at a 45 degree angle toward the left side of the page.
Beneath the MiG was copy that read: Find a new love in Moscow. Break the sound barrier in a MiG-21, feel the power of the MiG-29 or reach for the stars in the MiG-25. Your life will never be the same! Call today for a free color brochure. Our incredible Adventures start at $3850.
I was fascinated by this on a number of levels. Hadn't we built an entire modern air force around fighting these very planes? Weren't these the same planes that every enemy of ours around the globe was flying? What must the Russian Air Force be thinking? What do you get for the "starting price" of $3850?
Then it struck me. We'd spent decades and literally trillions of dollars preparing to fight a war with the Soviet Union. Central to those plans had to be air superiority and key to the execution of whatever strategy we chose would be engaging and eliminating all those MiGs. Decades. Trillions of dollars. The best and brightest military strategists the US could assemble.
All that and more to confront . . . . . . . . an amusement park ride.
Guess we never considered that Russia might need US dollars more than they needed a dog fight.
I've used this story over and over again to illustrate the need to look at our absolutes and turn them upside down. Every business has what it believes are absolute truths, those things that will not change, cannot change, couldn't possibly change.
I believe if you'd proposed the scenario that MiGs would be amusement park rides to the Pentagon planners who labored so diligently to build war plans for any eventuality, that proposal would have gotten you laughed out of the room, out of the Pentagon and off the active duty roster. Any eventuality couldn't include Flying the Legend, because it was inconceivable.
During your next strategic planning meeting, force your teams to challenge the "absolute truths" in their plans. Turn them upside down. Look at the impossible, the improbable and ask yourself what you would do if those scenarios became real.
In attempt to diversify its business in the face of pressure from healthcare professionals attacking it's "unhealthy" menus, McDonald's announced today that it purchased Johnson & Johnson. Oh yeah, it could happen.
It was there that I saw the single-column, six-inch long ad with the headline, Fly the Legend. Below the headline was the picture of a MiG-21 flying at a 45 degree angle toward the left side of the page.
Beneath the MiG was copy that read: Find a new love in Moscow. Break the sound barrier in a MiG-21, feel the power of the MiG-29 or reach for the stars in the MiG-25. Your life will never be the same! Call today for a free color brochure. Our incredible Adventures start at $3850.
I was fascinated by this on a number of levels. Hadn't we built an entire modern air force around fighting these very planes? Weren't these the same planes that every enemy of ours around the globe was flying? What must the Russian Air Force be thinking? What do you get for the "starting price" of $3850?
Then it struck me. We'd spent decades and literally trillions of dollars preparing to fight a war with the Soviet Union. Central to those plans had to be air superiority and key to the execution of whatever strategy we chose would be engaging and eliminating all those MiGs. Decades. Trillions of dollars. The best and brightest military strategists the US could assemble.
All that and more to confront . . . . . . . . an amusement park ride.
Guess we never considered that Russia might need US dollars more than they needed a dog fight.
I've used this story over and over again to illustrate the need to look at our absolutes and turn them upside down. Every business has what it believes are absolute truths, those things that will not change, cannot change, couldn't possibly change.
I believe if you'd proposed the scenario that MiGs would be amusement park rides to the Pentagon planners who labored so diligently to build war plans for any eventuality, that proposal would have gotten you laughed out of the room, out of the Pentagon and off the active duty roster. Any eventuality couldn't include Flying the Legend, because it was inconceivable.
During your next strategic planning meeting, force your teams to challenge the "absolute truths" in their plans. Turn them upside down. Look at the impossible, the improbable and ask yourself what you would do if those scenarios became real.
In attempt to diversify its business in the face of pressure from healthcare professionals attacking it's "unhealthy" menus, McDonald's announced today that it purchased Johnson & Johnson. Oh yeah, it could happen.
When an Empty Truck is a Competitive Advantage
Before 1983, physicians purchased their office supplies from the same suppliers who served hospitals and nursing homes. Physician customers were on those same routes but only saw the supplier once or twice a month. This required them to carry excessive inventory so they didn't run out of things like syringes, table paper and tongue depressors.
Seeing an opportunity, Patrick Kelly started a Florida company called Physician Sales & Service (PSS). It offered faster service; taking orders and delivering them the very next day. They were able to charge more for their products, because the service was so valuable to the doctors they served.
As PSS expanded in Florida and into the southeast U.S., they ran into competition who matched their service, offering next day delivery. PSS upped the service level, providing laptop computers to their sales people who could transmit orders in the morning to have on trucks that afternoon.
Same-day service was a big hit and the company continued to grow. Ultimately they set their sight on being the first national physicians' supply company. Just as they set that goal, competitor Taylor Medical announced it would be the first nationwide physicians' supply company. The race was on.
Taylor Medical was located in Beaumont, Texas. They didn't offer same-day service in the markets they served. In 1991, PSS opened a branch in Houston. They also placed a sales representative in Beaumont, seventy miles away.
One day Kelly met with the Beaumont truck driver and recounted this conversation:
"Todd's (Todd Modi, the sales person) out in Beaumont today," he said. "He might not call in an order, because he probably won't sell anything. But at 11 o'clock you are to drive this van to the city limits of Beaumont. Then you can turn around and drive back."
About twenty minutes later the driver's manager approached Kelly.
"Pat, the driver says you told him to drive to Beaumont."
"That's right," Kelly replied.
"But there's nothing to deliver. He thinks you're crazy."
Kelly then pulled the driver and manager together to teach them two lessons.
First, the sales person needed to see that van coming to Beaumont every day and understand it's his responsibility to fill it.
The second lesson was less obvious but the most important. The truck had to go every day, because PSS's competitive difference was same-day service. They could never offer less.
"Suppose we hadn't sent the truck? And suppose one day the only order in Beaumont was for a single package of thermometers? Any manager would ship the package overnight rather than put it in an empty truck. But right there, our competitive edge would evaporate. Suddenly, we'd be no different from Taylor or any other competitor."
It was some time before those trucks to Beaumont were filled up. As Kelly said, "We always say we've shipped a lot of air from our warehouses to doctors' offices."
Air doesn't pay the bills but service unavailable elsewhere ultimately does.
The Beaumont branch exceeded $5 million dollars annual sales, and PSS acquired Taylor Medical and became the first national physician's supply company.
In an era when FedEx and UPS and the Postal Service are competing to see how inexpensively they can deliver products; when cost improvement trumps value improvement and when quarter to quarter earnings can make the difference between success and failure, the PSS story can sound right out of Mother Goose. I believe, however, that in a world where commoditization of products and services is making it difficult for customers to justify loyalty, there is room for a strategy like PSS's. Find that difference that matters to the customer and defend it. When someone matches it, be prepared with the next difference.
Seeing an opportunity, Patrick Kelly started a Florida company called Physician Sales & Service (PSS). It offered faster service; taking orders and delivering them the very next day. They were able to charge more for their products, because the service was so valuable to the doctors they served.
As PSS expanded in Florida and into the southeast U.S., they ran into competition who matched their service, offering next day delivery. PSS upped the service level, providing laptop computers to their sales people who could transmit orders in the morning to have on trucks that afternoon.
Same-day service was a big hit and the company continued to grow. Ultimately they set their sight on being the first national physicians' supply company. Just as they set that goal, competitor Taylor Medical announced it would be the first nationwide physicians' supply company. The race was on.
Taylor Medical was located in Beaumont, Texas. They didn't offer same-day service in the markets they served. In 1991, PSS opened a branch in Houston. They also placed a sales representative in Beaumont, seventy miles away.
One day Kelly met with the Beaumont truck driver and recounted this conversation:
"Todd's (Todd Modi, the sales person) out in Beaumont today," he said. "He might not call in an order, because he probably won't sell anything. But at 11 o'clock you are to drive this van to the city limits of Beaumont. Then you can turn around and drive back."
About twenty minutes later the driver's manager approached Kelly.
"Pat, the driver says you told him to drive to Beaumont."
"That's right," Kelly replied.
"But there's nothing to deliver. He thinks you're crazy."
Kelly then pulled the driver and manager together to teach them two lessons.
First, the sales person needed to see that van coming to Beaumont every day and understand it's his responsibility to fill it.
The second lesson was less obvious but the most important. The truck had to go every day, because PSS's competitive difference was same-day service. They could never offer less.
"Suppose we hadn't sent the truck? And suppose one day the only order in Beaumont was for a single package of thermometers? Any manager would ship the package overnight rather than put it in an empty truck. But right there, our competitive edge would evaporate. Suddenly, we'd be no different from Taylor or any other competitor."
It was some time before those trucks to Beaumont were filled up. As Kelly said, "We always say we've shipped a lot of air from our warehouses to doctors' offices."
Air doesn't pay the bills but service unavailable elsewhere ultimately does.
The Beaumont branch exceeded $5 million dollars annual sales, and PSS acquired Taylor Medical and became the first national physician's supply company.
In an era when FedEx and UPS and the Postal Service are competing to see how inexpensively they can deliver products; when cost improvement trumps value improvement and when quarter to quarter earnings can make the difference between success and failure, the PSS story can sound right out of Mother Goose. I believe, however, that in a world where commoditization of products and services is making it difficult for customers to justify loyalty, there is room for a strategy like PSS's. Find that difference that matters to the customer and defend it. When someone matches it, be prepared with the next difference.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Speaking of Presentation Tips: Mellody Hobson Has a Few as Well
"I'm amazed by people who don't inject themselves into their presentation," says Mellody Hobson, president, Ariel Investments and Board Member of Estee Lauder, Starbucks and Dreamworks Animation SKG, "It's so bland. You want the uniqueness of who you are to come through."
Blog Note:
Your life is full of events that are easily transferrable into stories to assist you in making your points. Think about raising your children and teaching them new skills. For example, you taught your son and/or daughter how to ride a bike. That event is easily transferrable to your work environment.
My son Jack called us all around his bed the day he learned to ride a bike. He thanked his sister for letting him use her bike, since his still had training wheels on. He thanked me for teaching him. He thanked his mom for her love and support. I've told that story many times as a reminder to people to thank those who've helped them get better.
My son Jack called us all around his bed the day he learned to ride a bike. He thanked his sister for letting him use her bike, since his still had training wheels on. He thanked me for teaching him. He thanked his mom for her love and support. I've told that story many times as a reminder to people to thank those who've helped them get better.
Hobson also recommends a headline-like approach to beginning a presentation, much like a newspaper. Punch it up right at the start.Tell the audience where you're going to take them then deliver on the proposed journey.
Blog Note:
Along the way make rooms for surprises. Hey, it worked for you when you were a kid and your parents stopped at the giant peanut sculpture in Georgia during the twenty-hour drive to Florida. When I was a kid we were stuck for three days in Iuka, Alabama when the family car broke down. We couldn't wait to get out of there — kind of like your audience if your presentation sucks.
Hobson suggests keeping your presentation narrow. Like Steve Jobs she suggests talking about no more than three ideas and ideally, one theme. And, reading from the slides is "the kiss of death."
Blog Note:
As I said yesterday, visuals trump heavy copy every time. Of course, it will require more work for you, because the "word crutches" aren't setting on the PowerPoint slides. I guarantee, however, your audience will be fully engaged when you stand before artwork that doesn't do your job but only helps amplify your point. And you can't read off a picture of a mountain!
If you're comfortable with humor and the topic lends itself to humor, use it. Remind yourself the last time you sat through — slept through? — a word-heavy, boring, overly serious, lengthy, self-important presentation. Don't force your audience to do the same.
Check out Comedian Don MacMillan - below - doing a pretty good job of lampooning PowerPoint presentations.
Monday, May 16, 2011
The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs (and yes, you need to read this)
In late 1996 or early 1997, I was standing on a corner in Cupertino, California diagonally across from Apple's headquarters. Whatever date it was, it was the day NeXT was purchased by Apple and Steve Jobs returned as "interim CEO" to lead the company after John Sculley's dismissal. The stock traded around $17.12.
That evening I suggested to Mary Ellen we should invest in Apple. Jobs was such an outsized personality. His computing strategies seemed pretty compelling. Of course, we didn't. I looked at the "split several times since" price this morning and it was around $338.
Yes, Jobs was and is compelling and nobody drives innovation like him and nobody sells it better. That's why the rest of this is worth reading.
Carmine Gallo, a columnist for BusinessWeek.com prepared a document called The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs.
1. Plan in Analog. Jobs plans presentations in pen and paper. He "storyboards" the plot. The suggestion is to brainstorm, whiteboard, jot notes and outline before going to PowerPoint. You are telling a story and the narrative must be compelling. Heroes, villains, secret weapons, evil empires, a plot. Audiences are easily bored. Your job is to keep them engaged.
2. Create a Twitter-Friendly Description. This is known as a single-sentence description, one that will fit in a 140-character Twitter post. Before Twitter I'd refer to this as three sentences or less. The MacBook Air was introduced simply as "the world's thinnest notebook." Can you describe your product in one Tweet?
3. Introduce the Antagonist. Branding expert Martin Lindstrom says that great brands and religions have something in common: the idea of vanquishing a shared enemy. In Steve Jobs world the antagonist could be a competitor - IBM - or a problem — mobile phone problems the iPhone would solve. No one will ever forget the 1984 Apple television ad with IBM as the antagonist.
4. Focus on benefits. Listeners are always asking a simple question: why should I care? Put another way, nobody cares about your product, what people care about are their problems and how you're going to solve them. Don't leave your customers to figure out the benefits on their own, tell them.
Why buy an iPhone 3G? Because it's twice as fast at half the price.
5. Stick to the Rule of Three. Comedians know that three is funnier than four. Playwrights know three is more dramatic than two. Jobs knows that three is more memorable than five or six. An audience is only capable of holding a small amount of information in short-term memory. On September 9, 2009 Jobs returned to tell an audience he'd be focused on three things: iPhones, iTunes and iPods. Simple.
6. Sell Dreams, Not Products. Steve Jobs doesn't sell computers. He sells the promise of a better world.
Gallo notes that "passion, emotion and enthusiasm are grossly underestimated ingredients in professional business communications and yes they are powerful ways to motivate others."
Note: I've often used Far Side cartoons and other borrowed value items to surprise an audience. These unexpected visuals add humor and enthusiasm to often tired topics. Additionally I prefer very little type and a major emphasis on art.
I've often used a picture of an African Tick bird standing atop a Rhino to discuss the symbiotic relationships necessary to survive. The Tick bird alerts the Rhino to enemies. The Rhino's hide provides parasites for the Tick bird to eat. My finance department was always my Tick bird.
7. Create Visual Slides. (See above) The average PowerPoint slide has forty words. Jobs rarely uses any. It's a technique called "Picture Superiority". Jobs introduced the Macbook Air by showing it being slid inside a manila inter-office envelope.
8. Make Numbers Meaningful. Put large numbers in contexts that are relevant to the audience. Gallo notes that when the US Government bailed out the economy, $700 billion was a pretty incomprehensible number. However when you explain to people it's like spending one million dollars a day since the day Christ was born, it's easier to appreciate the magnitude.
9. Use Zippy Words. Jobs described the speed of the new iPhone 3G as "amazingly zippy." Jobs uses simple words not jargon are "suite speak". Gallo notes that Jack Welch once said, "Insecure managers create complexity." (Amen!)
10. Reveal the Holy Smokes! Moment. The emotionally charged event, notes Gallo, is the equivalent of a "mental sticky note that tells the brain, 'Remember this!'"
During Macworld 2007, Jobs introduced the iPhone as follows:
"Today, we are introducing three revolutionary products. The first one is a widescreen iPod with touch controls. The second is a revolutionary mobile phone. And the third is a breakthrough internet communications device...an iPod, a phone, an internet communicator...an iPod, a phone, are you getting it? These are not three devices. This is one device!"
Finally, practice, practice, practice. Steve Jobs spends hours practicing and preparing.
Note: I had the good fortune to present to my company's Board of Directors on several occasions. I always start outlining what I want to say and the likely source for material I'll need - so I didn't drive my staff crazy with last minute requests. I'm not good at formal rehearsals. The first time I attended one I discovered that my presentation was extremely negative as presented — not objective like I thought it was — and, second, it worked on paper but not in presentation. I got back on the plane and went home to start over.
From that point forward, I would spend hours writing and re-writing the content then test my presentation for both tone and content. I would have my assistant set up a computer in the conference room and I'd go into the office on Saturday and practice the presentation many, many times. Each time, I'd find a way to touch up the wording or the artwork or the flow. I always, always minimized the wording and numbers and maximized the visuals. Once I thought I was ready, I'd ask my staff to sit through the presentation and they always had suggestions to make it better. Frankly, many of them could have presented it just as well. It was their work, after all, that I was presenting.
Almost inevitably when I presented to an important audience like our Board I received good reviews, because of my preparation, knowledge of the material and the fun I'd have with the insights into our customers and industry that weren't available from secondary sources.
Every audience deserves the same preparation as a Board of Directors. Use Steve Jobs as a template. And remember, if you can't Tweet it, it needs more work.
That evening I suggested to Mary Ellen we should invest in Apple. Jobs was such an outsized personality. His computing strategies seemed pretty compelling. Of course, we didn't. I looked at the "split several times since" price this morning and it was around $338.
Yes, Jobs was and is compelling and nobody drives innovation like him and nobody sells it better. That's why the rest of this is worth reading.
Carmine Gallo, a columnist for BusinessWeek.com prepared a document called The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs.
1. Plan in Analog. Jobs plans presentations in pen and paper. He "storyboards" the plot. The suggestion is to brainstorm, whiteboard, jot notes and outline before going to PowerPoint. You are telling a story and the narrative must be compelling. Heroes, villains, secret weapons, evil empires, a plot. Audiences are easily bored. Your job is to keep them engaged.
2. Create a Twitter-Friendly Description. This is known as a single-sentence description, one that will fit in a 140-character Twitter post. Before Twitter I'd refer to this as three sentences or less. The MacBook Air was introduced simply as "the world's thinnest notebook." Can you describe your product in one Tweet?
4. Focus on benefits. Listeners are always asking a simple question: why should I care? Put another way, nobody cares about your product, what people care about are their problems and how you're going to solve them. Don't leave your customers to figure out the benefits on their own, tell them.
Why buy an iPhone 3G? Because it's twice as fast at half the price.
5. Stick to the Rule of Three. Comedians know that three is funnier than four. Playwrights know three is more dramatic than two. Jobs knows that three is more memorable than five or six. An audience is only capable of holding a small amount of information in short-term memory. On September 9, 2009 Jobs returned to tell an audience he'd be focused on three things: iPhones, iTunes and iPods. Simple.
6. Sell Dreams, Not Products. Steve Jobs doesn't sell computers. He sells the promise of a better world.
Gallo notes that "passion, emotion and enthusiasm are grossly underestimated ingredients in professional business communications and yes they are powerful ways to motivate others."
Note: I've often used Far Side cartoons and other borrowed value items to surprise an audience. These unexpected visuals add humor and enthusiasm to often tired topics. Additionally I prefer very little type and a major emphasis on art.
I've often used a picture of an African Tick bird standing atop a Rhino to discuss the symbiotic relationships necessary to survive. The Tick bird alerts the Rhino to enemies. The Rhino's hide provides parasites for the Tick bird to eat. My finance department was always my Tick bird.
8. Make Numbers Meaningful. Put large numbers in contexts that are relevant to the audience. Gallo notes that when the US Government bailed out the economy, $700 billion was a pretty incomprehensible number. However when you explain to people it's like spending one million dollars a day since the day Christ was born, it's easier to appreciate the magnitude.
9. Use Zippy Words. Jobs described the speed of the new iPhone 3G as "amazingly zippy." Jobs uses simple words not jargon are "suite speak". Gallo notes that Jack Welch once said, "Insecure managers create complexity." (Amen!)
10. Reveal the Holy Smokes! Moment. The emotionally charged event, notes Gallo, is the equivalent of a "mental sticky note that tells the brain, 'Remember this!'"
During Macworld 2007, Jobs introduced the iPhone as follows:
"Today, we are introducing three revolutionary products. The first one is a widescreen iPod with touch controls. The second is a revolutionary mobile phone. And the third is a breakthrough internet communications device...an iPod, a phone, an internet communicator...an iPod, a phone, are you getting it? These are not three devices. This is one device!"
Finally, practice, practice, practice. Steve Jobs spends hours practicing and preparing.
Note: I had the good fortune to present to my company's Board of Directors on several occasions. I always start outlining what I want to say and the likely source for material I'll need - so I didn't drive my staff crazy with last minute requests. I'm not good at formal rehearsals. The first time I attended one I discovered that my presentation was extremely negative as presented — not objective like I thought it was — and, second, it worked on paper but not in presentation. I got back on the plane and went home to start over.
From that point forward, I would spend hours writing and re-writing the content then test my presentation for both tone and content. I would have my assistant set up a computer in the conference room and I'd go into the office on Saturday and practice the presentation many, many times. Each time, I'd find a way to touch up the wording or the artwork or the flow. I always, always minimized the wording and numbers and maximized the visuals. Once I thought I was ready, I'd ask my staff to sit through the presentation and they always had suggestions to make it better. Frankly, many of them could have presented it just as well. It was their work, after all, that I was presenting.
Almost inevitably when I presented to an important audience like our Board I received good reviews, because of my preparation, knowledge of the material and the fun I'd have with the insights into our customers and industry that weren't available from secondary sources.
Every audience deserves the same preparation as a Board of Directors. Use Steve Jobs as a template. And remember, if you can't Tweet it, it needs more work.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Commencement Season: Another Thoughtful Message from the Archives
Anna Quindlen's Commencement Address at Villanova
The following is from Pulitzer Prize winning author Anna Quindlen's commencement address to Villanova University, June 2000It's a great honor for me to be the third member of my family to receive an honorary doctorate from this great university. It's an honor to follow my great-uncle Jim, who was a gifted physician, and my Uncle Jack, who is a remarkable businessman. Both of them could have told you something important about their professions, about medicine or commerce.
I have no specialized field of interest or expertise, which puts me at a disadvantage, talking to you today. I'm a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know. Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work. The second is only part of the first.
Don't ever forget what a friend once wrote Senator Paul Tsongas when the senator decided not to run for reelection because he'd been diagnosed with cancer: "No man ever said on his deathbed I wish I had spent more time in the office." Don't ever forget the words my father sent me on a postcard last year: "If you win the rat race, you're still a rat." Or what John Lennon wrote before he was gunned down in the driveway of the Dakota: "Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans."
You walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree; there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your life on a bus, or in a car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your minds, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul.
People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is a cold comfort on a winter night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you've gotten back the test results and they're not so good.
Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my profession stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the center of the universe. I show up. I listen, I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my friends, and they to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cutout. But call them on the phone, and I meet them for lunch. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh.
I would be rotten, or at best mediocre at my job, if those other things were not true. You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are.
So here is what I wanted to tell you today:
Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast? Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze over Seaside Heights, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water gap or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a cheerio with her thumb and first finger.
Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Each time you look at your diploma, remember that you are still a student, still learning how to best treasure your connection to others. Pick up the phone. Send an e-mail. Write a letter. Kiss your Mom. Hug your Dad. Get a life in which you are generous.
Look around at the azaleas in the suburban neighborhood where you grew up; look at a full moon hanging silver in a black, black sky on a cold night.
And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Once in a while take money you would have spent on beers and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister.
All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good, too, then doing well will never be enough. It is so easy to waste our lives: our days, our hours, our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the color of the azaleas, the sheen of the limestone on Fifth Avenue, the color of our kid's eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of live. I learned to live many years ago.
Something really, really bad happened to me, something that changed my life in ways that, if I had my druthers, it would never have been changed at all. And what I learned from it is what, today, seems to be the hardest lesson of all. I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the world and to try to give some of it back because I believed in it completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned. By telling them this:
Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness because if you do you will live it with joy and passion, as it ought to be lived.
Well, you can learn all those things, out there, if you get a life, a full life, a professional life, yes, but another life, too, a life of love and laughs and a connection to other human beings. Just keep your eyes and ears open. Here you could learn in the classroom. There the classroom is everywhere. The exam comes at the very end. No man ever said on his deathbed I wish I had spent more time at the office. I found one of my best teachers on the boardwalk at Coney Island maybe 15 years ago. It was December, and I was doing a story about how the homeless survive in the winter months.
He and I sat on the edge of the wooden supports, dangling our feet over the side, and he told me about his schedule; panhandling the boulevard when the summer crowds were gone, sleeping in a church when the temperature went below freezing, hiding from the police amidst the Tilt a Whirl and the Cyclone and some of the other seasonal rides. But he told me that most of the time he stayed on the boardwalk, facing the water, just the way we were sitting now even when it got cold and he had to wear his newspapers after he read them.
And I asked him why. Why didn't he go to one of the shelters? Why didn't he check himself into the hospital for detox? And he just stared out at the ocean and said, "Look at the view, young lady. Look at the view."
And every day, in some little way, I try to do what he said. I try to look at the view. And that's the last thing I have to tell you today, words of wisdom from a man with not a dime in his pocket, no place to go, nowhere to be. Look at the view. You'll never be disappointed.
A Cautionary Tale About Change: David Burrell and the Vidalia Onion
This weekend in Lake Bluff, the Shriners are selling sweet Vidalia onions to raise money for its charities. As I drove by where they were sitting I was reminded of a speech I wrote in 1999. It was about David Burrell, the innovation he brought to the onion growing industry and the resistance that innovation encountered.
I shared it with my Canadian organization because I was on the front end of making significant organizational changes, and it struck me this story was pretty relevant.
The story is about onions - Vidalia onions - sweet, mild, easy-to-eat Vidalia onions and about an inventor named David Burrell. Most important it's a story about change and how people respond to it.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Vidalia onion, it was popularized when then President Jimmy Carter made gifts of one of his home state's most famous products. From Georgia to Georgetown and around the world, President Carter made the Vidalia onion famous and made millionaires of Vidalia onion growers. In spite of that success, all was not as sweet as it might have appeared in Vidalia.
Over time soil variation was causing some Vidalias to not be sweet but rather hot - quite hot. (An onion's hot taste comes from elevated sulfur content in the soil. That sulfur overwhelms the sugar content.) Onions delivered to retailers often were hotter than advertised. In the words of one grower,
"We're killing the goose that laid the golden egg with all these hot onions."
Enter David Burrell. He developed a laboratory test to measure the sulfur content of onions. He then used GPS technology to map a field's sulfur content. Finally, through his work, there was a way to avoid the soil variation causing the problem. And if that wasn't heroic enough, growers selling certified sweet Vidalias - certified by David Burrell's laboratory - could get an extra four cents per onion. Spreading that four cents per onion over a thousand-acre farm would generate an additional $500K.
Mr. Burrell's certified sweet onions, distributed in bushels stamped "Certified Sweet" were soon in hot demand by major grocery chains throughout North America.
"We had been getting complaints about hot onions," said a produce buyer for a large chain. "This test is a way to validate sweetness and tell our customers that we are going out of the way to make sure they get the best onions."
An incredible story, right? A product performance guarantee for an onion - actually a performance guarantee for an economy - the Vidalia onion economy. And the outcomes were as sweet as those guaranteed sweet onions. Customers would line up to buy - nay! - demand the Certified Sweet onions. There was increased value at every step of the distribution process. The value equation having shifted to the retailers over the years, shifted back to the growers.
The onion was re-invented, quality control was insured and a potentially damaging trend was averted. Everyone in Vidalia celebrated, right?
Wrong.
Seven days after the tested, certified sweet onions began to ship, twenty growers filed suit claiming Burrell was confusing customers over what a real Vidalia onion was. A state judge issued a restraining order stopping testing. The state agricultural commissioner promised to do whatever possible to prevent Burrell from ever again testing onions.
As I read about Burrell in a Wall Street Journal article I imagined how my customers would respond were I able to offer a guaranteed outcome but couldn't sell the product because it threatened the status quo.
Change is threatening. Even when it's a change that offers better outcomes and value to customers.
"Why change what we're doing?" your employees will ask, "Things are going great."
On that day and maybe some others, they're probably right, but the Vidalia onion growers were ignoring a growing problem, an erratic supply of sweet onions mixed with hot onions. Their product promise was being diluted.
Your employees who think everything is fine are ignoring a reality as well, the one that demands organizations constantly change to improve.
Successful organizations are always being watched and pursued by others who want to share - or supplant - their success. If you choose the status quo, you're doomed to fall behind.
The good news for Vidalia onion lovers around the world came in 2005 when a Georgia Superior Court ruled in Burrell's favor and in favor of testing. Today you can buy Certified Sweet onion from Vidalia, Georgia.
Be on the look-out for the David Burrell's in your industry. They may not be popular but they could well be the difference between success and failure.
I shared it with my Canadian organization because I was on the front end of making significant organizational changes, and it struck me this story was pretty relevant.
The story is about onions - Vidalia onions - sweet, mild, easy-to-eat Vidalia onions and about an inventor named David Burrell. Most important it's a story about change and how people respond to it.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Vidalia onion, it was popularized when then President Jimmy Carter made gifts of one of his home state's most famous products. From Georgia to Georgetown and around the world, President Carter made the Vidalia onion famous and made millionaires of Vidalia onion growers. In spite of that success, all was not as sweet as it might have appeared in Vidalia.
Over time soil variation was causing some Vidalias to not be sweet but rather hot - quite hot. (An onion's hot taste comes from elevated sulfur content in the soil. That sulfur overwhelms the sugar content.) Onions delivered to retailers often were hotter than advertised. In the words of one grower,
"We're killing the goose that laid the golden egg with all these hot onions."
Enter David Burrell. He developed a laboratory test to measure the sulfur content of onions. He then used GPS technology to map a field's sulfur content. Finally, through his work, there was a way to avoid the soil variation causing the problem. And if that wasn't heroic enough, growers selling certified sweet Vidalias - certified by David Burrell's laboratory - could get an extra four cents per onion. Spreading that four cents per onion over a thousand-acre farm would generate an additional $500K.
Mr. Burrell's certified sweet onions, distributed in bushels stamped "Certified Sweet" were soon in hot demand by major grocery chains throughout North America.
"We had been getting complaints about hot onions," said a produce buyer for a large chain. "This test is a way to validate sweetness and tell our customers that we are going out of the way to make sure they get the best onions."
An incredible story, right? A product performance guarantee for an onion - actually a performance guarantee for an economy - the Vidalia onion economy. And the outcomes were as sweet as those guaranteed sweet onions. Customers would line up to buy - nay! - demand the Certified Sweet onions. There was increased value at every step of the distribution process. The value equation having shifted to the retailers over the years, shifted back to the growers.
The onion was re-invented, quality control was insured and a potentially damaging trend was averted. Everyone in Vidalia celebrated, right?
Wrong.
Seven days after the tested, certified sweet onions began to ship, twenty growers filed suit claiming Burrell was confusing customers over what a real Vidalia onion was. A state judge issued a restraining order stopping testing. The state agricultural commissioner promised to do whatever possible to prevent Burrell from ever again testing onions.
As I read about Burrell in a Wall Street Journal article I imagined how my customers would respond were I able to offer a guaranteed outcome but couldn't sell the product because it threatened the status quo.
Change is threatening. Even when it's a change that offers better outcomes and value to customers.
"Why change what we're doing?" your employees will ask, "Things are going great."
On that day and maybe some others, they're probably right, but the Vidalia onion growers were ignoring a growing problem, an erratic supply of sweet onions mixed with hot onions. Their product promise was being diluted.
Your employees who think everything is fine are ignoring a reality as well, the one that demands organizations constantly change to improve.
Successful organizations are always being watched and pursued by others who want to share - or supplant - their success. If you choose the status quo, you're doomed to fall behind.
The good news for Vidalia onion lovers around the world came in 2005 when a Georgia Superior Court ruled in Burrell's favor and in favor of testing. Today you can buy Certified Sweet onion from Vidalia, Georgia.
Be on the look-out for the David Burrell's in your industry. They may not be popular but they could well be the difference between success and failure.
Friday, May 13, 2011
The Devil Sucks
My wife still hasn't seen The Exorcist - too frightening. And the lead up to this very clever promotion may have you covering your eyes, but.....the payoff is way too good to miss. This is one of the best uses of a brand name and demonstration of a product feature I believe I've ever come across. Thanks To Dale Taylor for passing along this beauty.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Buckley's Cough-Syrup: Tastes Like Hippie-Festival Runoff....But It Works!
From the annals of WSJ's Media & Marking section comes a 2007 article by Jeanne Whalen. (See below)
Buckley's Cough-Syrup is a foul tasting concoction akin to drinking the water that has been stored for three weeks in your brother's ten-year-old tennis shoes. (This is a set up for the rest of the story.)
November, 2007 Novartis began a nationwide marketing campaign for Buckley's Cough Mixture, an 88-year-old product owned until 2002 by a Canadian company. Available since 1919 it was the "best selling but worst tasting" cough medicine any Canadian had ever encountered. (Neither sugar nor alcohol - taste enhancing ingredients - are added to the camphor, pine needle oil, menthol and Canadian fir balsam gum that make up Buckley's.)
With a tag line, It Tastes Awful. And It Works, Buckley's had bucked market trends. Despite being dramatically outspent by competition and tasting a whole worse, it grew its Canadian market share over ten points on the back of this decidedly quirky campaign. As the new owner, Novartis decided to build on Buckley's successful work for its U.S. launch.
There were a variety of components to the tastes bad, works good campaign. Television ads featured a woman sipping from a cup marked "Buckley's" and another marked "Used Mouthwash" before asking someone whether they were the same. Other comparative cups were marked "Public Restroom Puddle", "Trash Bag Leakage" and "Snail Trail Accumulation" with Buckley's faring about equal to all.
According to Jose Rodriguez, vice president of marketing for Novartis's North American OTC division, the campaign was targeted at adults who wanted efficacy over taste.
My favorite component of the campaign was a radio spot featuring a recorded voice on a Buckley's hotline:
"If you are inquiring about your cough mixture tasting like expired milk, trash-bag leakage, a postpedicure foot bath, a state fair porta-potty, decomposing meat fat, monkey sweat, used denture soak, New Jersey, or hippie-festival runoff, please hang up. Your cough will be gone shortly."
Blog Note:
In Canada, this humorous and singleminded campaign worked. From 1987 when it began until 1996, the brand recovered from a decline to a 2 share to a 12.3 share in a highly competitive environment.
If you check out the Buckley's web-site you'll see them still working a variation on this approach.
The point of sharing this is a reminder to be honest with yourself when you're evaluating your product's unique selling proposition. If Novartis had focused their campaign on efficacy, it likely would have led to a consumer response of "yeah, but at what price?"
This campaign worked and works because it's smart enough to poke fun at itself and then credibly deliver the punch line that the bad taste is well worth it, because that nagging cough that's keeping you up all night and terrifying your fellow workers is about to get its butt kicked.
I loved this approach in 2007 and love it today.
Buckley's Cough-Syrup is a foul tasting concoction akin to drinking the water that has been stored for three weeks in your brother's ten-year-old tennis shoes. (This is a set up for the rest of the story.)
November, 2007 Novartis began a nationwide marketing campaign for Buckley's Cough Mixture, an 88-year-old product owned until 2002 by a Canadian company. Available since 1919 it was the "best selling but worst tasting" cough medicine any Canadian had ever encountered. (Neither sugar nor alcohol - taste enhancing ingredients - are added to the camphor, pine needle oil, menthol and Canadian fir balsam gum that make up Buckley's.)
With a tag line, It Tastes Awful. And It Works, Buckley's had bucked market trends. Despite being dramatically outspent by competition and tasting a whole worse, it grew its Canadian market share over ten points on the back of this decidedly quirky campaign. As the new owner, Novartis decided to build on Buckley's successful work for its U.S. launch.
There were a variety of components to the tastes bad, works good campaign. Television ads featured a woman sipping from a cup marked "Buckley's" and another marked "Used Mouthwash" before asking someone whether they were the same. Other comparative cups were marked "Public Restroom Puddle", "Trash Bag Leakage" and "Snail Trail Accumulation" with Buckley's faring about equal to all.
According to Jose Rodriguez, vice president of marketing for Novartis's North American OTC division, the campaign was targeted at adults who wanted efficacy over taste.
My favorite component of the campaign was a radio spot featuring a recorded voice on a Buckley's hotline:
"If you are inquiring about your cough mixture tasting like expired milk, trash-bag leakage, a postpedicure foot bath, a state fair porta-potty, decomposing meat fat, monkey sweat, used denture soak, New Jersey, or hippie-festival runoff, please hang up. Your cough will be gone shortly."
Blog Note:
In Canada, this humorous and singleminded campaign worked. From 1987 when it began until 1996, the brand recovered from a decline to a 2 share to a 12.3 share in a highly competitive environment.
If you check out the Buckley's web-site you'll see them still working a variation on this approach.
The point of sharing this is a reminder to be honest with yourself when you're evaluating your product's unique selling proposition. If Novartis had focused their campaign on efficacy, it likely would have led to a consumer response of "yeah, but at what price?"
This campaign worked and works because it's smart enough to poke fun at itself and then credibly deliver the punch line that the bad taste is well worth it, because that nagging cough that's keeping you up all night and terrifying your fellow workers is about to get its butt kicked.
I loved this approach in 2007 and love it today.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
We Ultimately Are Measured by What We Stand For
In 1958 I was a six-year-old boy hooked - like most six-year-old boys of my generation - on baseball, and my favorite team was the St. Louis Cardinals.
I grew up with the future Hall of Fame broadcasters Harry Cary and Jack Buck describing the game so vividly that my parent's couch may as well have been a box seat behind home plate.
That year the Cardinals acquired a young ballplayer named Curt Flood - Curtis Charles Flood. Six years later, I sat in that same living room, probably on the same couch - we weren't in the habit of buying new furniture very often - listening to Cary and Buck describe the Cardinals beating the Yankees in the '64 World Series.
Patrolling center field was Curt Flood, by then one of the best outfielders in baseball and one of its most consistent hitters. He stood alongside Bob Gibson and Lou Brock and Kenny Boyer and Bill White. Tim McCarver, too.
By the time I was sixteen the Cardinals had played in two more World Series and Flood was being celebrated as one of the greatest outfield of his era. In fact, the August 19, l968 issue of Sports Illustrated called him baseball's best center-fielder. He'd won seven Gold Gloves, appeared in three All-Star games and owned two World Championship rings. His career batting average hovered near .300.
Shortly before I turned eighteen Flood's career came to an abrupt end. When the '69 season ended, the Cardinals traded him to Philadelphia. In January, 1970, Curt Flood - thirty-two-year-old Curt Flood - accused baseball of violating the thirteenth amendment barring slavery and involuntary servitude. He refused to report to the Phillies, a refusal that stunned the baseball world.
At the time, baseball was protected by something called the Reserve Clause, a legal exception that bound players to the club with which they signed their first contract and allowed that club to transfer ownership at will. While it made for an orderly and predictable game for the owners, it ignored the American ideals of self-determination and freedom.
His action was met with disbelief by fans and fellow ballplayers. He took an unpopular position. He lost his income. He lost a sure enshrinement in the Hall of Fame. He lost baseball.
If you don't know baseball or even if you do, you probably don't know much about Curt Flood, but you should. He believed in something more important than running down fly balls. He was willing to sacrifice his career to protect his principles; to stand for something.
The late Marvin Miller, then executive director of the player's union, said "At the time Curt Flood decided to challenge baseball's reserve system he was perhaps the sport's premier center fielder, and yet he chose to fight an injustice knowing that even if by some miracle he won, his career as a professional player would be over."
Flood's challenge made it's way to the U.S. Supreme Court where Major League Baseball won - that day. Ultimately Flood's principled leadership led to free agency for as Miller put it "those who would come after him."
He drifted around after the Supreme Court ruling, first to a bar in Majorca, Spain where alcohol filled his days, before finally returning to his native Oakland, California where he operated a center for disadvantaged youth.
On January 20, 1997, twenty-seven years after he learned he was to be traded to Philadelphia, twenty-five years after the Supreme Court ruling and twenty-one years after free agency finally came to baseball, Curt Flood died.
At his funeral, baseball historian George Wills likened Flood's move against baseball to Rosa Parks refusing to move to the back of the bus in segregated Alabama. Curt Flood cast a shadow that covered not just baseball but America.
When I was forty two, I met Curt Flood.
I was attending a Cardinals' fantasy camp. We were in Busch Stadium warming up. I was scheduled to play the first three innings in right field. I looked into the dugout where I saw Flood sitting in the corner, cigarette in his right hand, his glove at his side.
I worked up the courage to ask if I could wear his glove when I went into the outfield that morning. It was like asking Ansel Adams if you could use his camera to snap a photo of your dog or Michael Jordan if you could wear his sneakers to take the trash out. Incredibly - to me - he said "Yes."
Flood's glove had the perfect pocket, dark from years of neatsfoot oil rubbed hard into the leather and round as the ball itself; saturated with the disappointment of hitters whose fly balls found the second stop on a round trip from the pitcher and back again. Flood's glove was like a black hole in space. It was where dreams of singles and doubles and triples went to die.
On that day, I was twelve-years-old again and summer was forever. I was off the couch and in the field. Where were Cary and Buck when I needed them?
I caught one fly ball before my three innings were complete. I slowly walked over to Flood, handed him the glove and asked if he would sign a baseball. He did. It sets on my bookcase today.
The next I heard of him was that he'd died.
Today, fifty-three years after the first time I heard Curt Flood's name, forty-seven years after listening to my first World Series on my parent's couch, forty-one years after Curt Flood refused a trade because of his principles, I am reminded that we ultimately are measured by what we stand for.
I grew up with the future Hall of Fame broadcasters Harry Cary and Jack Buck describing the game so vividly that my parent's couch may as well have been a box seat behind home plate.
That year the Cardinals acquired a young ballplayer named Curt Flood - Curtis Charles Flood. Six years later, I sat in that same living room, probably on the same couch - we weren't in the habit of buying new furniture very often - listening to Cary and Buck describe the Cardinals beating the Yankees in the '64 World Series.
Patrolling center field was Curt Flood, by then one of the best outfielders in baseball and one of its most consistent hitters. He stood alongside Bob Gibson and Lou Brock and Kenny Boyer and Bill White. Tim McCarver, too.
By the time I was sixteen the Cardinals had played in two more World Series and Flood was being celebrated as one of the greatest outfield of his era. In fact, the August 19, l968 issue of Sports Illustrated called him baseball's best center-fielder. He'd won seven Gold Gloves, appeared in three All-Star games and owned two World Championship rings. His career batting average hovered near .300.
Shortly before I turned eighteen Flood's career came to an abrupt end. When the '69 season ended, the Cardinals traded him to Philadelphia. In January, 1970, Curt Flood - thirty-two-year-old Curt Flood - accused baseball of violating the thirteenth amendment barring slavery and involuntary servitude. He refused to report to the Phillies, a refusal that stunned the baseball world.
At the time, baseball was protected by something called the Reserve Clause, a legal exception that bound players to the club with which they signed their first contract and allowed that club to transfer ownership at will. While it made for an orderly and predictable game for the owners, it ignored the American ideals of self-determination and freedom.
His action was met with disbelief by fans and fellow ballplayers. He took an unpopular position. He lost his income. He lost a sure enshrinement in the Hall of Fame. He lost baseball.
If you don't know baseball or even if you do, you probably don't know much about Curt Flood, but you should. He believed in something more important than running down fly balls. He was willing to sacrifice his career to protect his principles; to stand for something.
The late Marvin Miller, then executive director of the player's union, said "At the time Curt Flood decided to challenge baseball's reserve system he was perhaps the sport's premier center fielder, and yet he chose to fight an injustice knowing that even if by some miracle he won, his career as a professional player would be over."
Flood's challenge made it's way to the U.S. Supreme Court where Major League Baseball won - that day. Ultimately Flood's principled leadership led to free agency for as Miller put it "those who would come after him."
He drifted around after the Supreme Court ruling, first to a bar in Majorca, Spain where alcohol filled his days, before finally returning to his native Oakland, California where he operated a center for disadvantaged youth.
On January 20, 1997, twenty-seven years after he learned he was to be traded to Philadelphia, twenty-five years after the Supreme Court ruling and twenty-one years after free agency finally came to baseball, Curt Flood died.
At his funeral, baseball historian George Wills likened Flood's move against baseball to Rosa Parks refusing to move to the back of the bus in segregated Alabama. Curt Flood cast a shadow that covered not just baseball but America.
When I was forty two, I met Curt Flood.
I was attending a Cardinals' fantasy camp. We were in Busch Stadium warming up. I was scheduled to play the first three innings in right field. I looked into the dugout where I saw Flood sitting in the corner, cigarette in his right hand, his glove at his side.
I worked up the courage to ask if I could wear his glove when I went into the outfield that morning. It was like asking Ansel Adams if you could use his camera to snap a photo of your dog or Michael Jordan if you could wear his sneakers to take the trash out. Incredibly - to me - he said "Yes."
Flood's glove had the perfect pocket, dark from years of neatsfoot oil rubbed hard into the leather and round as the ball itself; saturated with the disappointment of hitters whose fly balls found the second stop on a round trip from the pitcher and back again. Flood's glove was like a black hole in space. It was where dreams of singles and doubles and triples went to die.
On that day, I was twelve-years-old again and summer was forever. I was off the couch and in the field. Where were Cary and Buck when I needed them?
I caught one fly ball before my three innings were complete. I slowly walked over to Flood, handed him the glove and asked if he would sign a baseball. He did. It sets on my bookcase today.
The next I heard of him was that he'd died.
Today, fifty-three years after the first time I heard Curt Flood's name, forty-seven years after listening to my first World Series on my parent's couch, forty-one years after Curt Flood refused a trade because of his principles, I am reminded that we ultimately are measured by what we stand for.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Obstacles Aren't to be Avoided
One day a young man noticed a cocoon lying on the ground. He picked up and with a little research discovered it was the cocoon of an Emperor Moth.
After watching the cocoon over several days, he noticed a small opening had appeared. Over the next several hours, as he watched and waited, the moth began to appear and struggled to force its body through the small hole.
After a while its progress appeared to stop. It seemed as if it had gotten as far as it could. The boy decided to help. Taking a pair of scissors, he snipped off the remaining piece of cocoon and the moth easily emerged.
It's body was badly swollen; its wings were small and shriveled. The boy watched intently expecting the body to shrink and the wings to expand. Neither happened. In fact, the moth only crawled around with a swollen body and shriveled wings, unable to fly.
What the boy didn't understand was the restricting cocoon caused the moth to struggle to exit and that struggle forced the fluid from its body into its wings. Once it had escaped, it would be free to fly.
This struggle - the obstacle the moth faced - was designed for a reason. Without that obstacle, the moth was crippled. Obstacles give us the opportunity to learn and grow. Without them, we'd never be able to realize our true potential.
The biggest obstacle a boat faces is water, but without it there'd be no reason for the boat. The biggest obstacle a bird faces is the wind, but without it, the bird cannot soar.
Remind yourself and your organization that obstacles are not to be avoided or lampooned. They force us to find ways over, under or around them so we can move on and achieve our goals. And through the solutions we arrive at to overcome the obstacles, we become stronger.
After watching the cocoon over several days, he noticed a small opening had appeared. Over the next several hours, as he watched and waited, the moth began to appear and struggled to force its body through the small hole.
After a while its progress appeared to stop. It seemed as if it had gotten as far as it could. The boy decided to help. Taking a pair of scissors, he snipped off the remaining piece of cocoon and the moth easily emerged.
It's body was badly swollen; its wings were small and shriveled. The boy watched intently expecting the body to shrink and the wings to expand. Neither happened. In fact, the moth only crawled around with a swollen body and shriveled wings, unable to fly.
What the boy didn't understand was the restricting cocoon caused the moth to struggle to exit and that struggle forced the fluid from its body into its wings. Once it had escaped, it would be free to fly.
This struggle - the obstacle the moth faced - was designed for a reason. Without that obstacle, the moth was crippled. Obstacles give us the opportunity to learn and grow. Without them, we'd never be able to realize our true potential.
The biggest obstacle a boat faces is water, but without it there'd be no reason for the boat. The biggest obstacle a bird faces is the wind, but without it, the bird cannot soar.
Remind yourself and your organization that obstacles are not to be avoided or lampooned. They force us to find ways over, under or around them so we can move on and achieve our goals. And through the solutions we arrive at to overcome the obstacles, we become stronger.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
How Can I Help the Guy Next to Me?
As I sat down to read Saturday's Wall Street Journal, I immediately noticed on the upper left hand corner, a rather forbidding set of eyes set beneath three words, The SEAL Sensibility.
Eric Greitens is a SEAL and the author of the book "The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL." (see video below) The WSJ article highlights the intensity of SEAL training, but I was particularly interested in the following excerpt:
What kind of man makes it through Hell Week? That's hard to say. But i do know -generally - who won't make it. There are dozens of types that fail: the weight-lifting meatheads who think that the size of their biceps is an indication of their strength, the kids covered in tattoos announcing to the world how tough they are, the preening leaders who don't want to get dirty, and the look-at-me former athletes who have always been told they are stars but have never been pushed beyond the envelope of their talent to the core of their character. In short, those who fail are the ones who focus on show. The vicious beauty of Hell Week is that you either survive or fail, you endure or quit, you do - or you do not.
Some men who seemed impossibly weak at the beginning of SEAL training - men who puked on runs and had trouble with pull-ups - made it. Some me who were skinny and short and whose teeth chattered just looking at the ocean also made it. Some men who were visibly afraid, sometimes to the point of shaking, made it too.
Almost all the men who survived possessed one common quality. Even in great pain, faced with the test of their lives, they had the ability to step outside of their own pain, put aside their own fear and ask: How can I help the guy next to me? They had more than the "fist" of courage and physical strength. They also had a heart large enough to think about others, to dedicate themselves to a higher purpose.
How can I help the guy next to me? That was the question that had me reading these few paragraphs a couple more times so I could digest what Greitens was writing.
During the '80s I had two occasions to try to get to the top of Mt Rainier. I failed both times. I have two memories that have pushed aside all the others. The first is of a good friend who thought training was watching someone else run. I had spent months trying to prepare - at sea level - to reach the over 14,000-foot summit. And when I arrived in Seattle I still wasn't the kind of ready I needed to be. My buddy was far less ready. We were joined by some other friends and business associates.
During our first day climb to Camp Muir, a brief rest stop - just north of 10,000 feet - before the night time summit attempt, my friend lagged badly behind. I was afraid he wouldn't make it. I stayed back with him and we talked our way up to Muir. Neither of us left for the summit and those who did were driven back by a summer snow storm effectively ending the attempt. Yet, I remember us badgering each other up to Muir and for that year it was our personal victory.
In the months that followed, I trained even harder, endowed with the learning that came with that first failed attempt. This time, however, my friend wasn't along. Instead I was accompanied by a few of the others from the previous summer. But we'd vowed to make sure all of us reached the summit.
I arrived in Seattle in the best shape of my life and I flew up to Camp Muir ahead of the pack. I was well prepared to reach the summit. Unfortunately the crampon on my left foot broke in half and became ineffective during a critical part of the mountain - around 12,000 feet - and I spent two hours effectively hiking on one crampon. By the time we stopped for a rest I was exhausted. As I took myself off my rope team, I couldn't hide my disappointment. The rest of them made it to the top of Rainier as three of us returned to Muir to await their return.
What I remember about the second year was no one was their to help me push through my exhaustion and fight my way to the top. No one set aside their own personal ambition to help the three of us left behind challenge ourselves to "push beyond the envelope" of our training. There was no one there to hang back and talk me up to the summit. Maybe I was too exhausted and maybe this article just awoke second guessing and covered it in regret.
I learned a lot about people on that trip and while the rest of "my team" made the summit, in my mind they came down more diminished than accomplished. The goal for all of us to get to the summit was quickly forgotten once we were on the upper reaches of Rainier.
These two episodes came back to me the minute I read How can I help the guy next to me?
Throughout my career the organizations, the people, the teams who have been most effective are those who reveled in each other's successes and always stopped to help each other when help was needed. I was blessed with wonderful staff members when I was given the opportunity to lead an organization, but in every case, upon arrival they were neither as cohesive as they needed to be or as compassionate as they would become. Both would took time and encouragement. There are lots of ways to accomplish both.
While in Canada I had the leader of each business unit write and present a different unit's business plan for the upcoming year. They learned to empathize with each other's issues.
I developed a leadership program called Leadership on the Edge, a combination of experiential learning and answering challenging personal questions - I went on every trip - the first was in the remote Yukon -and I always answered the tough questions first to let them know it was safe to be open and honest.
In every case, I included spouses in our social events. Work issues rarely - never - stay behind in the office. We made life-long friends not only with employees but with their families.
While in Canada we held our staff meetings in places as remote as Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia. On every trip and as we spent more time together we learned more about each other and found ways to work better together.
I've always found that charity is a great way to build the level of compassion and empathy in a team. I've employed it at every stop.
Most recently, after taking on the task of rejuvenating a business under a lot of stress, I found that communication, lots of it and frequently and to depths not previously employed, was a force multiplier in building a staff for whom trust was an alien concept. During my early days on the job, we lost a young, but talented, high potential product manager. I asked her to stop by my office and help me understand why she was leaving. She'd been in the same job for an unreasonable length of time, and her new company was offering a better opportunity to grow. Then she told me there were a lot of other talented people feeling the same frustration. I asked for a list of names, and she gave it to me.
Over the following weeks and months, I met each person for lunch or breakfast to learn more about them and for them to understand what I hoped to achieve. Eventually I was joined by members of my staff whose organizations these individuals were in. In no time, we were learning more about each other and building trust horizontally and vertically.
Over the years there have been casualties, people who simply couldn't make the necessary changes. One business had experienced little to no growth for nearly a decade and attempts to infuse it with people outside the company were failing. I inherited those people and despite repeated efforts, they were unable to change and had to leave. Their replacements and their teammates ultimately drove the business to success that greatly outperformed and became the model for the entire industry.
Every one of you has experienced the work place equivalent of the "weight-lifting meatheads, the kids covered in tattoos, the preening leaders and the former athletes." These are the people you need to identify and remove to achieve success.
From my experience I'd call them the Book Smart but Street Stupid, the All Tag (what golfers refer to as the guys whose bag is adorned with tags from Pine Valley, Augusta, Cyprus Point, Merion, but whose game is more like Bushwood), the Manage Up Because There's Someone Up There Who Actually Believes the Crap I'm Pitching, the Couldn't Identify a Customer in a Phone Booth types and the Consultant Body Snatchers, the ones whose points of view are those of the consultant they most recently spent time with. I don't want to leave out the Mole People, the ones who go underground when change is in the air figuring they've survived all previous change management efforts, and they can damn well survive this one.
Yet at the same time, how many of you have been surprised by someone who at first glance was the marketing equivalent of a business reply card only to turn out to be the marketing campaign of the year?
The "puking, teeth rattling shivering" guys Greitens refers to. Only in this case, these are the solid people who've watched the Book Smart but Street Stupid types sell one nonsensical but PowerPoint laden proposal after another to management. They've had to sit and listen to the Consultant Body Snatchers go from initiative to initiative, each one guaranteed to solve whatever problem that consultant identified. They've scratched their heads as the All Tag types, hollow but well appointed shells, get promotions.
When you go to find them, you have to look among the Mole People not because they've gone underground to wait out this latest leadership change, but because they've given up out of frustration and exasperation. They take longer to convince.
I'm no Navy SEAL. In fact, about a month ago the Discovery Channel had a two-hour special on the two weeks of hell that allow the survivors to qualify for special forces training. I was dehydrated just watching it. But I know that the survivors of SEAL training understand that only when they've learned self sacrifice, only when they've learned compassion for each other, only when they've learned to look out for the guy next to them do they have the capacity to go into a foreign country, at night, when the only difference between success and failure is having each other's backs and succeed in their mission.
Monday, when you return to work, ask yourself:
How can I help the guy next to me?
Eric Greitens is a SEAL and the author of the book "The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL." (see video below) The WSJ article highlights the intensity of SEAL training, but I was particularly interested in the following excerpt:
What kind of man makes it through Hell Week? That's hard to say. But i do know -generally - who won't make it. There are dozens of types that fail: the weight-lifting meatheads who think that the size of their biceps is an indication of their strength, the kids covered in tattoos announcing to the world how tough they are, the preening leaders who don't want to get dirty, and the look-at-me former athletes who have always been told they are stars but have never been pushed beyond the envelope of their talent to the core of their character. In short, those who fail are the ones who focus on show. The vicious beauty of Hell Week is that you either survive or fail, you endure or quit, you do - or you do not.
Some men who seemed impossibly weak at the beginning of SEAL training - men who puked on runs and had trouble with pull-ups - made it. Some me who were skinny and short and whose teeth chattered just looking at the ocean also made it. Some men who were visibly afraid, sometimes to the point of shaking, made it too.
Almost all the men who survived possessed one common quality. Even in great pain, faced with the test of their lives, they had the ability to step outside of their own pain, put aside their own fear and ask: How can I help the guy next to me? They had more than the "fist" of courage and physical strength. They also had a heart large enough to think about others, to dedicate themselves to a higher purpose.
How can I help the guy next to me? That was the question that had me reading these few paragraphs a couple more times so I could digest what Greitens was writing.
During the '80s I had two occasions to try to get to the top of Mt Rainier. I failed both times. I have two memories that have pushed aside all the others. The first is of a good friend who thought training was watching someone else run. I had spent months trying to prepare - at sea level - to reach the over 14,000-foot summit. And when I arrived in Seattle I still wasn't the kind of ready I needed to be. My buddy was far less ready. We were joined by some other friends and business associates.
During our first day climb to Camp Muir, a brief rest stop - just north of 10,000 feet - before the night time summit attempt, my friend lagged badly behind. I was afraid he wouldn't make it. I stayed back with him and we talked our way up to Muir. Neither of us left for the summit and those who did were driven back by a summer snow storm effectively ending the attempt. Yet, I remember us badgering each other up to Muir and for that year it was our personal victory.
In the months that followed, I trained even harder, endowed with the learning that came with that first failed attempt. This time, however, my friend wasn't along. Instead I was accompanied by a few of the others from the previous summer. But we'd vowed to make sure all of us reached the summit.
I arrived in Seattle in the best shape of my life and I flew up to Camp Muir ahead of the pack. I was well prepared to reach the summit. Unfortunately the crampon on my left foot broke in half and became ineffective during a critical part of the mountain - around 12,000 feet - and I spent two hours effectively hiking on one crampon. By the time we stopped for a rest I was exhausted. As I took myself off my rope team, I couldn't hide my disappointment. The rest of them made it to the top of Rainier as three of us returned to Muir to await their return.
What I remember about the second year was no one was their to help me push through my exhaustion and fight my way to the top. No one set aside their own personal ambition to help the three of us left behind challenge ourselves to "push beyond the envelope" of our training. There was no one there to hang back and talk me up to the summit. Maybe I was too exhausted and maybe this article just awoke second guessing and covered it in regret.
I learned a lot about people on that trip and while the rest of "my team" made the summit, in my mind they came down more diminished than accomplished. The goal for all of us to get to the summit was quickly forgotten once we were on the upper reaches of Rainier.
These two episodes came back to me the minute I read How can I help the guy next to me?
Throughout my career the organizations, the people, the teams who have been most effective are those who reveled in each other's successes and always stopped to help each other when help was needed. I was blessed with wonderful staff members when I was given the opportunity to lead an organization, but in every case, upon arrival they were neither as cohesive as they needed to be or as compassionate as they would become. Both would took time and encouragement. There are lots of ways to accomplish both.
While in Canada I had the leader of each business unit write and present a different unit's business plan for the upcoming year. They learned to empathize with each other's issues.
I developed a leadership program called Leadership on the Edge, a combination of experiential learning and answering challenging personal questions - I went on every trip - the first was in the remote Yukon -and I always answered the tough questions first to let them know it was safe to be open and honest.
In every case, I included spouses in our social events. Work issues rarely - never - stay behind in the office. We made life-long friends not only with employees but with their families.
While in Canada we held our staff meetings in places as remote as Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia. On every trip and as we spent more time together we learned more about each other and found ways to work better together.
I've always found that charity is a great way to build the level of compassion and empathy in a team. I've employed it at every stop.
Most recently, after taking on the task of rejuvenating a business under a lot of stress, I found that communication, lots of it and frequently and to depths not previously employed, was a force multiplier in building a staff for whom trust was an alien concept. During my early days on the job, we lost a young, but talented, high potential product manager. I asked her to stop by my office and help me understand why she was leaving. She'd been in the same job for an unreasonable length of time, and her new company was offering a better opportunity to grow. Then she told me there were a lot of other talented people feeling the same frustration. I asked for a list of names, and she gave it to me.
Over the following weeks and months, I met each person for lunch or breakfast to learn more about them and for them to understand what I hoped to achieve. Eventually I was joined by members of my staff whose organizations these individuals were in. In no time, we were learning more about each other and building trust horizontally and vertically.
Over the years there have been casualties, people who simply couldn't make the necessary changes. One business had experienced little to no growth for nearly a decade and attempts to infuse it with people outside the company were failing. I inherited those people and despite repeated efforts, they were unable to change and had to leave. Their replacements and their teammates ultimately drove the business to success that greatly outperformed and became the model for the entire industry.
Every one of you has experienced the work place equivalent of the "weight-lifting meatheads, the kids covered in tattoos, the preening leaders and the former athletes." These are the people you need to identify and remove to achieve success.
From my experience I'd call them the Book Smart but Street Stupid, the All Tag (what golfers refer to as the guys whose bag is adorned with tags from Pine Valley, Augusta, Cyprus Point, Merion, but whose game is more like Bushwood), the Manage Up Because There's Someone Up There Who Actually Believes the Crap I'm Pitching, the Couldn't Identify a Customer in a Phone Booth types and the Consultant Body Snatchers, the ones whose points of view are those of the consultant they most recently spent time with. I don't want to leave out the Mole People, the ones who go underground when change is in the air figuring they've survived all previous change management efforts, and they can damn well survive this one.
Yet at the same time, how many of you have been surprised by someone who at first glance was the marketing equivalent of a business reply card only to turn out to be the marketing campaign of the year?
The "puking, teeth rattling shivering" guys Greitens refers to. Only in this case, these are the solid people who've watched the Book Smart but Street Stupid types sell one nonsensical but PowerPoint laden proposal after another to management. They've had to sit and listen to the Consultant Body Snatchers go from initiative to initiative, each one guaranteed to solve whatever problem that consultant identified. They've scratched their heads as the All Tag types, hollow but well appointed shells, get promotions.
When you go to find them, you have to look among the Mole People not because they've gone underground to wait out this latest leadership change, but because they've given up out of frustration and exasperation. They take longer to convince.
I'm no Navy SEAL. In fact, about a month ago the Discovery Channel had a two-hour special on the two weeks of hell that allow the survivors to qualify for special forces training. I was dehydrated just watching it. But I know that the survivors of SEAL training understand that only when they've learned self sacrifice, only when they've learned compassion for each other, only when they've learned to look out for the guy next to them do they have the capacity to go into a foreign country, at night, when the only difference between success and failure is having each other's backs and succeed in their mission.
Monday, when you return to work, ask yourself:
How can I help the guy next to me?
Thursday, May 5, 2011
A Special Homeland Security Alert
On the heels of the non-stop Osama Bin Laden is dead - or is he? - news. It's appropriate, I think, especially with the rising risk of reprisal to remind ourselves that terrorists lurk among us. Heed this Terrorist Alert message. Be on the lookout for..........
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
H-A-M: An Acronym for Change Management
Two winters ago, my family and I were cross-country skiing in a fairly remote region of the Colorado Rockies. (Candidly we would be returning that afternoon to one of the great Dude Ranches -Vista Verde - see attached video)
But this day we were remote enough to need a guide. An hour or so into the trip as the guide pointed to a hole where a hibernating ground squirrel had been dug up by a fox, he introduced us to an acronym: HAM.
He told us there were only three ways to survive in the hostile Colorado winters: Hibernate...Adapt...or Migrate.
As I listened to him, I couldn't help but think about how relevant that was to nearly every other environment we could possibly experience.
Business for example.
Most of you have been operating in a severe climate beset by economic, regulatory and legal woes, and some days it can feel as rough and uncharted as a remote Colorado winter. Whether you're in the industry I know so well, healthcare, or another and whether you've been working one year or twenty, the landscapes we operate in have been redrawn.
In healthcare, for example, reform, patient and product access, regulatory change, shifting influence between physicians and payers and patients, aggressive FDA enforcement have all been part of this redrawn landscape. We've witnessed fundamental change, and there is no turning back.
So where does that leave us?
It comes back to H-A-M.
You can hibernate; fatten up, go underground, live off your fat then hope everything is better when you wake up.
You can migrate; go far away, hang out, return again and, like the hibernators, hope things are better when you reappear.
Or you can adapt -- not only survive difficult times, but gain strength and become more adept through that survival.
My advice, clearly, and I know something about this, is to adapt; make the necessary changes so that you can thrive in the environment emerging stronger and more determined than ever before to deliver the best results possible for your employees and your customers.
How you adapt is the art, but HAM is an acronym that makes sense to employees and to organizational leaders.
But this day we were remote enough to need a guide. An hour or so into the trip as the guide pointed to a hole where a hibernating ground squirrel had been dug up by a fox, he introduced us to an acronym: HAM.
He told us there were only three ways to survive in the hostile Colorado winters: Hibernate...Adapt...or Migrate.
As I listened to him, I couldn't help but think about how relevant that was to nearly every other environment we could possibly experience.
Business for example.
Most of you have been operating in a severe climate beset by economic, regulatory and legal woes, and some days it can feel as rough and uncharted as a remote Colorado winter. Whether you're in the industry I know so well, healthcare, or another and whether you've been working one year or twenty, the landscapes we operate in have been redrawn.
In healthcare, for example, reform, patient and product access, regulatory change, shifting influence between physicians and payers and patients, aggressive FDA enforcement have all been part of this redrawn landscape. We've witnessed fundamental change, and there is no turning back.
So where does that leave us?
It comes back to H-A-M.
You can hibernate; fatten up, go underground, live off your fat then hope everything is better when you wake up.
You can migrate; go far away, hang out, return again and, like the hibernators, hope things are better when you reappear.
Or you can adapt -- not only survive difficult times, but gain strength and become more adept through that survival.
My advice, clearly, and I know something about this, is to adapt; make the necessary changes so that you can thrive in the environment emerging stronger and more determined than ever before to deliver the best results possible for your employees and your customers.
How you adapt is the art, but HAM is an acronym that makes sense to employees and to organizational leaders.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Crownfire Posts
I took down some documents from the blog due to some concern about my rights to post articles from magazines and newspapers. A friend of mine sent me a message about a blogger being sued for posting a copyrighted photo even though the blogger removed it when he understood the exposure. I'll keep dropping information on the blog, but it will come without attached articles until I have some clarity.
I've experienced the legal system up close and personal and I never again want to be up close or personal with the legal system.
I've experienced the legal system up close and personal and I never again want to be up close or personal with the legal system.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Something to Sleep On
Abraham Lincoln kept three documents near his desk.
The King James Bible, the Constitution, the works of Shakespeare.
One of his favorite passages was from Henry V. The Welsh Captain Owen Glendower brags about his leadership to Hotspur saying,
"I can call spirits from the vasty deep."
"Well so can I and so can any man," Hotspur replied, "but when you call them will they come?
The King James Bible, the Constitution, the works of Shakespeare.
One of his favorite passages was from Henry V. The Welsh Captain Owen Glendower brags about his leadership to Hotspur saying,
"I can call spirits from the vasty deep."
"Well so can I and so can any man," Hotspur replied, "but when you call them will they come?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)