Pretty Pictures... pretty paper... pretty cool....

So here's what I learned just now...



I learned how to link to images on my posts..

Seth Godin is a pretty smart guy. I read his books like Bibles. Buy some. You will be better at what you do.

What did you learn to do today?

Baby - please don't go...

Before we go any further... the names of the parties involved have been omitted to preserve their identities.

So this guy I know... let's call him Tim (I know.. I just said omitted, but I didn't want to refer to 'This guy'.. for the whole post), decided to hook up with a new company. This company, for years has touted itself as one if the greatest employers going. The company hired not to fill a position, but rather to position the company. The company purposely hired people who had no experience in this particular industry, believing (correctly - as an aside) that you hire for potential, and you can train specific skills. Tim was jacked. this company made everyone feel great, they partied as hard as they worked. All was well. Tim worked hard, and within a couple of months he was promoted to management. Wow!

Just under one year later, he quit. The magic died. For the first couple of months, they told Tim that if he worked hard, he can move up to management. I believe (if I'm not mistaken) they call that type of thing a goal. Once he reached that goal, they no longer mentioned a 'next step', so, with no goal, the career became a job... apparently... a dead end...

This company worked it's tail off. The problem was, it was for the short term. Good on them to have a succession plan. Bad on them to have only planned one step. Newsflash to all the employers - this is tough stuff. This is never ending. You'd better keep your top performers engaged. If not, you're going to lose them... yes, you ARE going to lose them. If they know how good they are, they will seek, or be sought.

The bottom line is... talent management is important. We are in a 'brawl with no rules' and the 'War for Talent' is on, in a big way. Employees in today's market are behaving in a manner similar to a free agent market. They go where the money is.. As an employer, you must operate like a chess game, always be thinking 2 or three steps ahead. Move faster than your top performer(s). You will keep them, and your organization will be better off for it.

How hungry are you?

So last night... don't laugh it was fascinating... I sat in my living room, looking out the front window as a dozen cars sat idling on the street outside. The house directly across the street was for sale, and there was a bidding war. What an unbelievable case study in sales. One unit for sale, 12 buyers, limited timbering. It went on for 5 hours. In and out, beautifully coordinated the agents went. One round, two, three.. You could feel the electricity. I finally went to bed.. I was exhausted.

My point is, how hungry are your sales people. Are they willing to stalk their target, restlessly for hours at a time, constantly out maneuvering the competition? Constantly upping the ante...?

On the other side, is your offering THIS enticing? Do people line up and pay MORE for it?

As a weird aside.. I recently bought a new briefcase... no, not Kenneth Cole, or some other fancy designer... I bought it at IKEA, for 9 bucks. It has the IKEA logo on it, and I'm proud to wear it. Yup,.. you knew it was coming... a book... after reading Less Is More I am a huge fan of IKEA's business model, and more importantly their Employee Value Proposition.. blah, blah... so to my point, is your sales force so driven that they will make offer after offer for the same target, and more importantly... is your offering so tempting that you have to build additional parking facilities because your existing lot is CONSTANTLY full just like IKEA? (heck people get married there!!!!)

Think about it... skip lunch today.. it will make you hungry...thrive on the rumble....

Hi, my name is...

So, for the past few weekends, I have been watching far too much MTV. No, not Newlyweds, or 'Til Death do us part, sadly those seasons are over. Lately, however, MTV has turned the reigns over to P. Diddy. Not only has he been pushing (hustlin') his new season of Making the Band, he has also been hosting a variety of shows dedicated to... yes, you guessed it... Bad Boy Records - most notably, his latest CD Bad Boy's 10th Anniversary: The Hits. If you don't know what Bad Boy, Rockafella, or Aftermath Records are - you better check yo' self.

If your organization is looking to emulate best practices, look no further than recent trends in the music industry. Most notably the following timeline...

Suge Knight launches Death Row records, he signs Dr. Dre...

Dr. Dre gets famous, sells millions of albums, becomes the Godfather of Rap...Suge gets a cut of Dre's royalties...

Dr. Dre introduces us to a little guy named... EMINEM...

So this EMINEM guy gets amazingly popular, wins every award going....Dre gets a cut, and Suge gets a cut of Dre's...

EMINEM then finds some bullet riddled rapper named 50-Cent...

Now 50 wins every award going, gets listed on Hottest people alive lists, and makes millions...EMINEM gets a cut, Dre gets a cut from EMINEM, and Suge gets his cut from Dre...

Wouldn't you know it...50 gets a group of guys together... G-Unit...who is on their way up the charts....50 gets some, EMINEM gets some, Dre gets some, and Suge gets some....

The bottom line, each of these artists understands the concept of product life cycles..they are constantly looking for the next big thing, realizing that for the most part - it won't be them.

By the way.. all of this took place over 5 years... 4 product life cycles in 5 years...

Here's the kicker... while all these guys are getting famous, Dre is taking time to re-tool his own image (while making MILLIONS on the backs of EMINEM, and 50), and will launch his next album and be the biggest thing going.. so will EMINEM, so will 50-Cent... and so on.. it's about cycles...

Dre's doing it, Russell Simmons is doing it, Nelly is doing it, and P. Diddy is doing it. Are you?

How long is it taking you.. to change once? Are you looking for the next big thing? It probably won't be something you're doing now...

Will you be smart enough to work on your original proposition while your new breakthrough is raking in millions? Or will you rest on your laurels..?

In rap 'terms' - you better check yo' self before you wreck yo' self...

If you could tell your boss ONE thing!!!!

If you could tell your boss just one thing what would it be? Perhaps more importantly if your employees could tell you just one thing what would that be?

Why are we so resistant to asking our employees what they want and need to make their day to day jobs more effective, more exciting and more personally fulfilling? Perhaps we are afraid that we won’t be able to deliver on what they want, and that may well be the case. Or perhaps we believe that it doesn’t matter what employees want, and quite frankly that couldn’t be further from the truth. I believe that being perceived as apathetic towards the needs of your employees reduces their loyalty towards you which in turn reduces their productivity, efficiency and effectiveness. I believe that if you can identify and give an individual, group, or even all employees one or two key things that may seem small but are important to them, the return on investment can directly impact your bottom line. You may not in fact be able to provide each and every employee with exactly what they want but I guarantee that by asking them, with a true desire to find something of value to offer, you are setting the wheels in motion for an immediate increase in employee loyalty and morale.

My boss asked me what I needed upon returning from maternity leave. I told him that I needed to know that every day (or almost every day) I would be able to pick up my children with enough daylight hours left to laugh and play and eat and bathe and read without feeling rushed before putting them to bed. We worked out a schedule where I am able to leave work earlier in the day and dial in and work from home remotely in the evenings. Does it mean that some nights I will be up until the wee hours of the morning working while my husband and children slumber? Quite possibly. But if my company is willing to go out on a limb for me you better believe that I am going to go out on a limb for them when the opportunity requires it. I do understand that I work for a progressive organization and that this type of very individual arrangement isn’t possible in all situations but I do believe that it is an example of finding something to offer your employees that is valuable to them. If you do ask the question, and are able to deliver in any kind of way, it naturally follows that you will find yourself with employees that are fully engaged in working for you and not soul searching and job hunting on your company time

Reach down, slide your index fingers in to belt loops on either side of you and...

Pull up your jeans!!

So there I am this morning, meeting with a client, talking about lean organizations, and the implications therein. We talk at length about the company's associates working 90 hour work weeks, complaining that they can't keep up this pace for too long... Easy solution - hire more staff. Reality - that's not an option.

Turns our we're talking about another one of my favourite books Less is More by Jason Jennings. Through our discussion the topic of workload is ever present. I remind him of another situation we had with a client. The directors at this particular client were unable to focus on their 'Directorial' responsibilities as they had too much day to day hum drum to deal with. So we told them - get rid of it!! Give it to the people whose responsibility it is to actually do that work. Sure, it got into issues around trust and competence.. blah blah... bottom line, according to Pat Lancaster, chairman, Lantech "Anything that doesn't add value is waste. Good business managers have an obligation to constantly eliminate it." Thanks Pat, couldn't agree more.

So here's my point...

Stop complaining you have too much to do. Phewf... someone had to say it, I'm glad it was me.

Newsflash: We live in a new 'reality' that expects way more from you than in any other time in history.

Sorry.. don't like it.. tough. The point is, nobody expects you to work 70+ hours a week. They just expect the job to get done. If it takes you less than 40 hours fine.. you'll get more, but that's a whole other story...

Newsflash: Technology, and Collaboration will lead you to freedom.

If you seek out alternate ways of doing things (namely on computers, or through your team) you can accomplish everything you need. Lean organizations are only going to get leaner. Your job is to get smarter. As you get smarter about how you go about your responsibilities, your jeans will get looser... keep pulling them back up....Time to get on with getting on...

Do you have a fear of success?

Yesterday Steve entered a blog called "Act On - Don't Just Talk About Changing" and he said he believes two of the major impediments to change are fear of failure and the fear that acting on a commitment to change would then require an amount of work. I agree with this and also believe that "fear of success" plays a big role in holding people back.

James W. Newman talks about fear of failure and fear of success in his book "Release Your Brakes". We understand fear of failure immediately but fear of success might require a little reflection. Do you hold back or, more importantly, do your employees hold back because of a fear of sustaining the new standard? And - once you have been successful in doing something new or to a new standard - will you be expected to do it again and again and even better the next time? Not only will people start expecting more, they might actually depend on you for more and your radius of responsibility will increase.

In the spirit of continual learning and growth it is worth thinking about the fear of success and the impact that might be having. Are you holding back or causing others to set the bar a little lower than they could?

Guess how many times I've been to Home Depot in the last 8 weeks....

Phewf.. I survived. 8 weeks of basement renovations. Sure, sounds easy, but if you knew the postage stamp sized house I live in with 2 kids, and 2 dogs.. and everything from the basement upstairs.. you'd pat me on the back too...

So here's my point. Now that the basement is done, I can get something off my chest. Not to be complaing about the new space, it's how the general contractor approached the situation. If you've ever been to my place (if you haven't stop by some time) you know that we like a slightly more classic style. Our house is 100 years old, and we like that. Our decorating style is geared to that. So.. when it came time to design our basement, the contractor kept trying to push his 'modern' style on us. "You'll love what I'm going to do over here... it will be so modern..." or something of that nature... each time we told him that we're not 'modern' people. Granted I love the finished product, however, I had to keep on top of the project almost daily trying to keep things from getting out of hand.

Bottom line, make sure you're selling what your customers want to buy, not what you want them to buy.

Skiing and Leadership

I love to ski.

Now, that is not quite the same as saying that I am good at it - just that I love it and was Saturday ever a great ski day! Lots of sunshine; blue sky; great snow and fresh air.

So why then, as I am sitting on the chairlift with one of my three daughters, am I thinking about work?

Well, for whatever reason, it occurred to me as I was looking down on the skiers below that while everyone more or less gets up the hill in a well organized fashion, it is when they are coming down that things "fall apart". As they get off the chair, the previously well organized masses quickly splinter into groups of differing style, capability and proficiency. Some head straight down; some zig and zag; some head for the Snow Park others for the moguls. Some race; many fall and occasionally some don't make it at all.

Perhaps, in business, too much time is spent organizing people to get "up the hill" in an orderly and efficient manner and not enough time in helping them get down to the bottom. It seems to me that organization after organization spends so much time and effort drafting their Strategic Plan and Vision (the chair lift to the summit) and then sits back and wonders why people just don't seem to be able to ski down to the bottom the way they should.

Well, it doesn't work that way. Improving the "lift" will not help people get down the hill better only get them to the top quicker. Try putting more effort into grooming the slopes and improving the ability of your ski team. Then, remember the most important thing of all, people will still want to come down their own way, at their own speed and within their own comfort zone. Some will ski, some will blade some will board. Can you live with that kind of diversity?