Being systematic in 5 steps

Social Media Business Plan in 5 Easy Pieces

Posted: 23 Jun 2009

So social media (Facebook, Twitter, and blogging, for example) is fun; but is it business? If you're wondering, then it's about time to take a step back, breathe deeply, and revisit the fundamentals. Ask yourself some basic questions, like:

Does this this fit into your business? Where is it in the business plan? Does it stand alone, or as part of strategy? Is it good in and of itself, or in business context? How much time (and time is money) and money does it take?

After all, things you do in business have to serve business goals. Right?

Here's how to apply the basic principals of business planning to your social media activities. Start with a plan, then follow it up with plan review, course corrections, and, ultimately, management. Here's how to do that:

1. Set the review schedule

Never do any business planning without a review schedule. What matters is the planning, not just the plan. Your first step should be to set a regular time — the third Thursday of every month, for example — to track your progress towards goals.

Given that we're all just human, we need to have that schedule set up to make this really work for business. Reminders, ticklers, and, if more than just you are involved, commitments from the their people.

2. Set the business objectives

What would social media success look like, for you and your business? Would it be lots of friends, followers, and connections? More web traffic? More blog subscribers? Perhaps you're looking for getting early warning about new trends, or a window into what your customers say about your business?

It's not just social media for its own sake, right? It's a business activity, with a business purpose?

Define the objectives. Don't sweat the writing, the text format, or the tools. It's business, so form follows function. Leave it in draft-easy form as bullet points on your computer, just enough so you can track it later. But get it down so you can review it later.

3. Set specific concrete steps

So how do you achieve those objectives? Think about breaking the longer process down into shorter steps, so you can track those steps and your progress towards goals. Part of the benefit of planning is being able to think through the sequence, and coordinate related tasks.

Setting the steps in order doesn't mean you're necessarily going to follow them, no matter what. The advantage of having a plan, even in the rapidly changing world of social media, is being able to mark how things change as they change, and still keep track of the related steps.

It also helps you pull the plan down into practical reality, avoiding the danger of the blue sky plan with vague good ideas and platitudes, but no real way to track success or failure.

4. Match tasks to owners.

Hint: when you think of what has to be done, do you see the face of the person responsible? Is there a single person responsible? That's what we call ownership, meaning the clear assignment of specific responsibilities to specific people.

Without ownership, the likelihood of implementation goes way down. When it's to be done by a group or a committee, it's just not as likely to be done.

So for twitter, for example, who is responsible for which accounts? Who is doing what searches to find tweets related to those topics? Or in Facebook, who is responsible for page updates, and trolling the web for mentions? Who is doing which blog, and how often?

5. Develop useful metrics.

Planning by itself is not the object, it's the execution that matters; and that means metrics. Measurement. Metrics means specific, concrete numbers so you can track whether you're on plan or not. Avoid generalities, and look to specifics that will speak for themselves. Try to set your objectives in specific numbers.

How to measure results? For social media, it might be followers or connections, but it might also be new clients, presentations, leads, unique visitors to a website, or some other factor you can measure. It will be different for every business, but it will always have a connection to your objectives.

And even if it's just you, the one-person business, you still want metrics. And a dose of realism is a real good idea too. Think about bites you can chew. The good news, though, is that if you follow through with step one above, realism will happen over time.

Ready, set execute!

Having a plan is just the beginning. Review, correct, review, correct: it's called steering. With this social media plan as well as everything in business planning: don't fall into the trap of the mythical business plan document, singular, noun, probably lost and getting dusty somewhere.

All business plans are wrong, but nonetheless vital; because if you didn't have the plan, you wouldn't know how to correct, and how assumptions have changed. The result is steering, and management.

From OPEN Forum by American Express OPEN

Consultation as a Tool for Integrating Personal and Professional Life

Integrate Your Personal and Professional Life in Three Steps

Posted: 17 Jun 2009

We asked Wharton professor and author Stew Friedman how employers could integrate their personal and work lives to find a productive and comfortable balance. Tough as it is any time, balancing the two can be a huge challenge in a recession when challenges seems to spring from every corner.

After all, work isn't everything. On the other hand, some of us are more attached to our careers than others. And we don't all have the same outside commitments or interests.

So, how can you achieve your own best mix of the personal and professional? Most important, says Friedman, is to articulate your goals, get feedback and clarify what matters most to you. He offers the following tips:

1. Describe your legacy. "Write a short piece, one page or less," says Friedman.  "Fifteen years from now, what legacy do you want? What impact do you want to have on the world?" Take a little time and write down where you want to be in 15 years – professionally, personally, spiritually, financially or in whatever way you see it.
2. Learn what people expect of you. List the 10 most important people in your life. Note what each one expects of you and how you're doing at meeting their expectations. "Ask yourself how these expectations affect one another, so you begin to see your life as a system," says Friedman. Then, have a conversation with each one. "This is the part of the process that tends to frighten us," he says. "Most people approach these talks with trepidation because they are afraid of what they will hear." But the good news is that most people's understanding of what others expect of them is not quite accurate. "We tend to overestimate," says Friedman. "People don't expect as much from us as we think they do. In my experience eight out of 10 people discover that what others expect from them is a little less than what they had presumed." Armed with a realistic sense of what people expect from you, you're likely to have more time and energy for your own pursuits.
3. Talk with trusted friends. Discuss what is important to you. "Ask what small changes you can apply that are doable, practical and small," Friedman recommends. For example, walking away from your business to pursue a full-time career as a songwriter might not be a good idea. But devoting one morning a week to your music may enrich your life. "Small is very important, because it is in your control," says Friedman. "This is the best way to build confidence and competence in creating sustainable change."

After taking these steps, you should have a compelling image of an achievable future. Then, translate that future into an action plan that will get you there. "This builds competence and confidence," Friedman says, "to help us overcome the inertia, the inhibitions, the guilt and fear that hold us back from doing what we really want."

 

From OPEN Forum by American Express OPEN

 

Being pro-active in down-times [ATTENTIVENESS], [ZEAL], [INTELLIGENCE], [PURPOSEFULNESS]

How A Business Owner Can Sleep Like a Baby During Tough Times

Posted: 19 Jun 2009

Be scared.  You can't help that.  But don't be afraid. ~ William Faulkner

One of the classic ways to find out what is really going on with a business owner or top-level executive these days is to ask, "What's keeping you up at night?"  Being a small business owner and a formally trained facilitator, I decided to take a different approach and asked 20 presidents of small businesses in marketing, interior design, insurance and a variety of other industries what's allowing them to get a good night's rest.  Here are the highlights of what they shared.

1.  Put in a good day's work. Jumping out of bed, getting to work early, being productive an extra hour or two at the end of a normal day if needed and staying focused and committed to growing the business — these were, of all the pointers, the ones most commonly shared.  No one wanted to be seen as a slacker, indecisive, depressed or out of touch with what's going on in the world.  The word "leader" came up in nearly every conversation or email, as did the importance of being looked at as one.

2.  Connect with upbeat, enthusiastic, high-energy people who share similar business concerns and offer up a whole host of action-oriented solutions to extraordinary day-to-day problems.  One of the things I heard time and time again is that it costs nothing to smile, and oftentimes we forget to do just that (not in a fake way) on a daily basis.  When we don't smile, it can bring a whole operation down into the doldrums — even when it needn't be.

3.  Communicate with the executive team and employees as often as possible to convey what's going on and the steps that are being taken to keep the company strong.  Actively seek input from every paid employee on how to improve the company's performance while maintaining profit margins.  These business leaders are involving everyone in everything, something they said they had not done up until now because they didn't think the employees needed to know.  Well, now they do.  Their lifestyle or job is on the line.

4.  Obsess over listening to customers, employees, vendors, colleagues and friends, and actually take action on what is said.  The presidents even report back to those who shared their thoughts and ideas on exactly what they did differently because of the information.  Of all the tools, this one has helped them the most to sleep peacefully at night.  It's very empowering to everyone.   It shows they really care.  It humanizes them.  And that's a good thing during a downturn.

5.  Emphasize a back-to-basics approach on everything, from how they buy office products to choosing cleaning services (do-it-yourself mentality) to who gets wooed over lunch or dinner for new business initiatives.  The key question to ask before spending money is:  Do we really, truly need this?

6.  Enhance everything they do, from response time to continuous improvement (quality) to total flexibility in how they manage projects.  If they did something in fourteen days, they do it now in four days, with half the number of people.  If a client says, "We're not sure if this will be a marketing, advertising or PR push," they say, "We can be flexible until you decide because we have the expertise to handle all or any one of those areas."

7.  Eliminate unnecessary expenses, from telephone bills (e.g., call waiting, call forwarding) to credit card balances to daily doughnut runs.  They are squeezing out every last little penny to keep their organizations as lean as possible.  An employee at one of their companies said, "We've put the business on a treadmill to trim waste."  No fat, no worries.

8.  Learn to not just live with but love uncertainty, the unpredictability of what's yet to come.  There's a certain strength (oftentimes you don't even know you have it until in a crisis mode) that comes over you when you acknowledge that this might not pass and could be forever.  The business leaders said they look at it this way: It's not your last dance; it's your first, so get in step.

9.  Reconfigure how to become a more nimble, value-added, innovative product, service or market creator. You can't get ahead in an environment like this unless you disrupt industries, trends or markets.  Their intent is to get out there and fire away with untried and untested ideas.  If they don't work, so what?  They said they'd fail fast and move on.  The goal is to generate revenue with a profit wherever and whenever possible.

Don't think of surviving.  Think of thriving.  Action, not words, says it all.  Imagine yourself five years from now and where you will be.  If you can envision it, you can do it.

As Faulkner says, you can be scared, you can't help that, but don't be so afraid that you cannot take appropriate action to move your organization forward.  Sleep well, dear reader.

This article is a preview to what's to come in the new OPEN Forum, you can see this article on the new Open Forum here.  To see more new content and features – including the Connectodex^SM tool for business connections – go to beta.openforum.com.  Just use your Americanexpress.com User ID and Password to log in.  If not a Cardmember, you can still have access to all of the great content once the new site launches.

 

From OPEN Forum by American Express OPEN

 

Motivating one's team members

Re-Engaging Team Members
Turning Negative Back to Positive

	Engaged team members make a valuable contribution.
	©iStockphoto/dgilder

"Excuse me, I'm the new program office administrator, and I need to book a hotel for a meeting. Could you help me with that?" you ask another administrator.

"Uh, just go on the intranet," replies your colleague, who then turns back to the person sitting next to her and resumes her conversation about her weekend plans.

"Okay..." you might reply uncomfortably, even though you've already spent half an hour trying to find the right web page.

Sound familiar? You've just encountered a "disengaged" employee. If you had a workforce full of disengaged employees, how devastating would that be to your business?

Disengaged people exist in all types of businesses, across all industries. You can spot them by their indifferent, blasé attitudes. They don't care about the company, they probably don't like their jobs, and they send negative signals everywhere they go.

Disengaged people are like poison - they don't perform their own jobs well, they drive customers away, and they have a bad influence on your other staff. Yet few people start off disengaged. It's typically a process that happens over time, as employee and employer expectations grow further and further apart.

What Is an Engaged Team Member?

Fortunately, you can re-engage members of your team and build back their pride and commitment. But you'll need to make a continuous effort and a strong investment in positive human capital management techniques.

The first step is to understand what an engaged team member looks like: Engaged people go above and beyond their job descriptions to get things done. They're committed to the organization's success, and they're willing to do what's necessary to reach goals.

It's important to understand that while many "average" employees are not quite fully engaged, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're completely disengaged. However, these average employees need re-engagement as well.

To reach a level of full engagement, you must build a people-focused workplace - one that recognizes that your people genuinely are your most important resource.

Re-engaging People

To achieve this, you need to meet people's expectations and provide a great work environment. There are several key management practices that are fundamental to this process. By providing these workplace conditions and continuously reinforcing their practice throughout the company, you can re-engage people who have fallen out of step with your purpose and vision.

We can divide re-engagement approaches into four areas:

1. Fact-Finding - Activities that help you (a) understand disengagement and your current situation and (b) monitor your situation on an ongoing basis.
   
   

2. Establishing an Environment for Engagement - Activities that help engagement flourish.
   
   

3. Hygiene Factors - Activities that help avoid de-motivation by managing people's stress, putting people in the right jobs, and providing feedback.
   
   

4. Motivators - Practices that help increase motivation and engagement.

Not all ideas will apply to all situations however, as a whole, these are the conditions and practices that will help you build people's engagement. We'll now look at each of these in detail.

1. Fact-finding

• Ask yourself when you ever felt unenthused and unengaged. This is a good place to start your re-engagement process. When you understand the sorts of things that caused you to disconnect with your company in the past, you may gain some insight into what members of your team are feeling right now.
  
  

• Talk to your people about their expectations and issues. Having clear expectations is a fundamental factor in re-engaging people. If people feel that they've been treated unfairly or have not been provided with the employment conditions they expected, you need to know. Once discrepancies are found, work toward a resolution as soon as possible. This lets people know that you care and you take their needs seriously.
  
  And ask them about the situations and issues that may be upsetting them. Push beyond the issues that are immediately obvious - the problem may lie with issues that are entrenched and systematic, and that the person thinks are just part of the way things are.
  
  This step is particularly important when you become the new manager of a group of people who are already disengaged. Resist the temptation to blame the former manager – instead, focus on moving forward from where you are now, based on what you find out from talking to your new people.
  
  

• Schedule regular "one-on-ones" with members of your team. Talk with individual team members about what they believe is expected of them, and then clarify and make modifications as necessary. When you keep communication open, you can often avoid potential conflicts and misunderstandings that can grow worse and lead to major problems.
  
  

• Survey employee engagement on a regular basis. With any kind of change process, it's usually a good idea to regularly ask your people questions related to their dedication and commitment to the company. Use the issues you've identified as a starting point, and construct a questionnaire to discover what you're doing well and where there's room for improvement. Use the results to begin a re-engagement plan that will help you build a stronger and more devoted workforce.

2. Establishing an Environment for Engagement

• Be honest and forthright about your own role in people's disengagement. A little humility goes a long way toward re-engaging someone. What if your management practices have contradicted any of the above points? What if you've been weaker in your commitment recently, and you've contributed to the current situation? Admit it, apologize for your actions, and construct a solid plan to move forward. This is a great way to start rebuilding your team's trust and show how supporting one another can make huge differences for everyone. By demonstrating your commitment to your people, they will likely respond with a renewed commitment to you and the business.
  
  

• Practice participative management. People usually want to participate and be involved. They want and need to feel that they matter and that their contributions are valued. To engage them, provide lots of opportunities for them to be involved with decisions. It's also important that people feel able to voice their ideas and raise issues - without judgment or fear of punishment. To re-engage people, help them feel confident that you'll welcome their contributions and that you'll really listen to what they say.
  
  

• Be a model for commitment to the organization. When employees believe their boss and senior management are committed to the company, that can provide proof that the company is indeed worth committing to. If you have doubts or express negativity toward the business, you can't expect members of your team to be totally dedicated and engaged. They take their cues from you, and they'll react to your opinions and actions.

3. Hygiene Factors

• Identify and manage stress and burnout. Overworked employees can have a difficult time engaging. They simply have too many competing needs, the greatest of which is their own survival. If you want engaged people, develop a genuine concern for their health and welfare. By using regular one-on-ones and staying connected to members of your team, you should be able to keep on top of their workload and stress factors. Do what you can to alleviate their stress by using the tools on our Stress Management pages, and refer your people for assistance as necessary.
  
  

• Put people in the right jobs. As you get to know members of your team through regular contact and feedback, think about ways to capitalize on their unique strengths and talents. Rather than focusing on a specific smaller problem or disciplining someone, look at the bigger picture: Does the person fit the job? You may need to regroup which tasks go with which jobs, or allow people to rotate jobs in order to enrich their learning opportunities. Work with members of your team to meet your company's needs. When people know you're dedicated to their success, they will, in turn, dedicate themselves to your success.
  
  

• Provide fair and regular feedback. Most people respond incredibly well to praise and recognition. For effective employee engagement, this can be difficult if you restrict yourself to a formal program or yearly performance appraisals. Make a conscious effort to observe when people are doing things right, and show them every day that they're appreciated. When you need to provide corrective feedback, make sure it's timely, and centered on a specific task.

For more on hygiene factors and motivators, see our article on Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory.

4. Motivators

• Provide growth opportunities. A big factor in employee engagement is building long-term commitment. This is important because it retains knowledge within the company and reduces turnover. Provide incentive for people to stay long term by discovering their talents and figuring out ways to use those talents within the organization.

This can be a powerful method of re-engagement. However, be careful that you don't try to re-engage someone by promising too much. Be genuine in your offers - otherwise, you can do much more damage to your reputation and to the person's welfare in the long run.

• Help people understand the big picture. Too often, people don't understand what's going on in the organization outside of the small world around their own jobs. When that happens, it's easy for them to become disconnected and disillusioned. Make sure that members of your team know the company's vision and strategy. They need to recognize the roles they play in the organization's success. To do this, keep people well informed, and make sure they stay focused on the big picture.
  
  

• Align personal and organizational goals. Make sure that people's goals are tied to departmental and company goals (this is related to understanding the big picture). A key part of engaging people is ensuring that the company's success matters to them. If you can link personal success and accomplishment to overall company goals, then you provide the basis for an engaged workplace.

Tip: If you've done all you can to engage someone, and they are still not engaged, you may need to take disciplinary action, either to emphasize the need for change or to remove someone who is blocking the team's progress. If you don't, you risk jeopardizing your whole team's progress. This is not an option to take lightly, so talk to your HR department as a first step.

Key Points

Employee engagement is a critical factor in a company's success. When you have people who are committed to your business, they'll stay with you long term and they'll work very hard to make the organization a success. It's extremely important, therefore, that you actively re-engage people who are disconnected with the company and that you work to build and maintain an engaged team. The keys to employee engagement are great management practices, including strong teams and a firm sense that what your people do on a daily basis matters to their boss and to the business as a whole.

The bottom line is that people need to feel wanted. Show them how much they're needed and why. Be honest and trustworthy - and acknowledge, with everything you do, that your people truly are the company's most valuable resource.

From Mind Tools mindtools.com

 

Say it now: "Thank you." Turn to the person beside and you say it to them. "Thank you." [THANKFULNESS], [UNITY], [GENEROSITY]

The Right Investment in the Right Bank

Posted: 16 Jun 2009

 

What investment is this?

• It's inexpensive by most definitions.
• No taxpayer money is needed.
• No regulations need exist much less even be enforced.
• It takes only a moment of time.
• And its ROI is truly priceless.

What is it? Two words, one phrase: Thank you or thank-you.  The recipient doesn't care how you use it. They just care that you did.

It takes only a moment of your time. And no money from your wallet is needed for it.

Say it now: Thank you. Turn to the person beside and you say it to them. Thank you.

Find a colleague in the hallway. Say it to them Thank you.

Maybe the first few times you do this, you're both surprised: you who said it and they who heard it said. They may look around, puzzled, not sure if they heard it right. If they do, say it again.

They will ask For what?

Be ready with an answer. That means you need to have looked and studied this person. Appreciated them.

There's plenty of reason to make this investment. Too often, we just haven't done the research.

Why is this important?

All of us face serious challenges right now. Some of it's tangible, from external sources like losing a job. Some of it's internal like the fear of losing a job.  We all face more demands for more change for more solutions for more creativity in the coming months.

Our personal, emotional, banks may be running low. OK. They are running low. And the least expensive means to insure we have sufficient emotional capital to keep our personal banks open…is this two-word, one-phrase: Thank you.  Saying it or hearing it. The first always leads to the other.

Eventually, you will want to expand your investment in the emotional banks of those around you. Here are some other investment vehicles using this two-word, one-phrase: Thank you. (Disclaimer: Past returns are not indicators of future performance. But…the compound interest on this investment is the highest, most consistent, of any investments when judged over time and in different markets, economies, companies, relationships.)

• Be specific. Thank them for a specific result.
• Share its meaning - I: Share with them how it helped you.
• Share its meaning - II: Share with them how it will help them.
• Memorialize it: Thank them again later, say at a review if you're a manager or leader.
• Go public: Rock their world and thank them publicly.
• Rock the joint: Do the above…for everyone in the room.
• House party: Goin' old school now, make it a house party. Make saying "thank-you" standard for your company meetings. Open the doors for everyone to invest. Allow time for everyone to say "thank you" to their colleague.

Each time you say this two-word, one-phrase: Thank you, you make a risk-free, no strings attached, investment in that person's emotional bank. At work, the returns from that continue long after those words have stopped echoing in your ears and theirs.

That's the right investment in the right bank.

Now's the right time to do it.

This article is a preview to what's to come in the new OPEN Forum, you can see this article on the new Open Forum here.  To see more new content and features – including the ConnectodexSM tool for business connections – go to beta.openforum.com.  Just use your Americanexpress.com User ID and Password to log in.  If not a Cardmember, you can still have access to all of the great content once the new site launches.

From OPEN Forum by American Express OPEN

Tracking progress and instituting accountability creates the discipline needed to effect change [INTEGRITY], [TRUSTWORTHINESS], [RESPONSIBILITY], [UNITY]

 

How to Get Your Back Covered

Guy Kawasaki of How to Change the World | June 16th, 2009

Keith Ferrazzi is the CEO of Ferrazzi Greenlight. Since his breakout first book, Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time, he has counseled the world's top enterprises on how to dramatically accelerate the development of business relationships to drive sales, spark innovation, and create team cohesion. His latest book is Who's Got Your Back: The Breakthrough Program to Build Deep, Trusting Relationships That Create Success—and Won't Let You Fail. In this interview, he explains how to ensure that your back is covered.

1. Question: Why do people fail to perceive how badly they are performing?

   Answer: People tend to fall victim of what scientists call "self-serving" bias. This means that when we succeed, we congratulate ourselves. When we fail, we blame someone else. Therefore, we learn less from our failures than we could or should, and that's why we need people to help us complete the feedback loop.

2. Question: You don¹t really think CXOs can let down their shields, accept feedback, and change, do you?

   Answer: I sure do—I've worked with many execs who've done that, and it's served them well. This is the kind of leader who will thrive in today's economy and serve as the model for a new generation of CXOs. We need leadership focused on collaboration, cooperation, and candor, not isolationism and ego.

   Jamie Dimon, the president and COO of JP Morgan, turned the company on a dime in the financial crisis. He knows the value of relationships and of candor. He lets his employees tell him straight out when he has a dumb idea, and they respect him all the more for it. Candor and accountability are absolutely essential if we're to rebuild this economy and this country. And you can't be truly candid without being willing to "let down your shield" and be vulnerable.
   

3. Question: What are the signs that they need others to "watch their back"?

   Answer: There's lack of transparency; unwillingness to admit—and often to recognize flaws; unwillingness to ask for help; scarcity mindset resulting in knowledge and resource hoarding; and failure to act and/or take responsibility for actions. There are also a number of behavioral bad-habits that people develop. One of my favorites is what I call "The Shamer;" this is a person who tends to shame, embarrass, or humiliate others to cover up for his own fear of failure.

4. Question: Can we receive feedback in a purely digital way via email, tweets, Skype, video-conferencing, etc?

   Answer: Sometimes it surprises me, but I've seen people on my Greenlight Community become incredible lifelines for each other via digital channels. Lifeline relationships involve people who have your back by being generous, vulnerable, and candid with you and hold you accountable to change. That said, I'm a big believer in making that deep connection in person during a time dedicated to relationship-building—like a date, but not a romantic one. I call that a "long slow dinner." After that, technology is a great way to keep the relationship going.

5. Question: What¹s the first step to getting help?

   Answer: Oprah, the queen of respected vulnerability, once said that opening up to others started with one admission to one person. And that's exactly right—you've just got to take one risk and build out from there. But my recommended best practice is to start by adopting generosity as a core relationship-building trait. Unexpected generosity shakes people from their prejudices and established norms of behavior and affords you the permission to start interacting on a deeper level. Putting generosity first is what saves you from the overshare.

6. Question: What are the qualities of a good "buddy"?

   Answer: A great lifeline relationship embraces The Four Mindsets: generosity, vulnerability, candor, and accountability. Generosity means they're supportive, encouraging, and committed to your success. Vulnerability means they're able to listen and share on a deep level; this also means they trust you, and you them. Candor means they'll tell you when you have your head up your butt. Accountability means that they make sure you pull your head out.

7. Question: What is the process of building a team of buddies?

   Answer: I recommend people start with one, and build to a group of three or four. How formal or informal your team works together is up to you, but the more formal, the greater the likelihood of sustainability.

8. Question: Why do people fail to change?

   Answer: The fail to track progress and don't institute accountability. Discipline isn't easy, when we have so many demands on our time and attention. Having committed partners in that process is what can make the difference.

9. Question: Who would you hold up as great examples of leaders?

   Answer: I already mentioned Jamie Dimon. Another great leader is Harvard professor and former CEO Bill George; he is a huge advocate of peer support and authenticity in leadership. And of course President Obama radiates authenticity and has been able to establish an unprecedented level of connection with voters, even those outside of his base.

10. Question: Who would you hold up as the worst examples of leaders?

    Answer: Darth Vader comes to mind— but terms like "best" and "worst" is overly simplistic. We have a pantheon of American leaders heroized for their self-reliance—the John-Wayne type—but that's a model for leadership we need to move away from. We need a new class of heroes whose leadership springs from their courage to engage and connect with others, both to end a growing American epidemic of isolation and to help foster better decision making, stronger ethics, and more positive outcomes.

From OPEN Forum by American Express OPEN

 

Email-tiquette Guide

 

The Yahoo! Email-tiquette Guide in association with Jean Broke-Smith

Posted: 23 Apr 2009 01:07 PM PDT

After tabulating the results of the survey about email pet peeves that we ran last month on this blog, it turns out that your biggest email bugbear is the use of text speak in the body of an email. In fact, more than 1 in 5 of you think so. Here's a list of the top five email pet peeves as voted by you our loyal blog readers:

1. Use of text speak such as LOL and BTW (22%)
2. Mass distribution emails to 5 or more recipients (16%)
3. Use of 'shouting' CAPITAL letters (15%)
4. No entry in subject line (12%)
5. Read receipts (10%)

With those results in mind, we've teamed up with leading etiquette expert Jean Broke-Smith to put together the rules of email engagement. This guide should help you use email more effectively, and show you how you can get the most out of email.

Here it is the definitive guide to email etiquette and don't forget to share it with your m8s ;-)

Do….create the right impression and banish the BTWs. People react to email within seconds of receiving it. As the Yahoo! research shows, text speak can be very annoying and shows a lack of correct spelling ability and laziness. It won't impress!

Don't… offend. Using capitals is the email equivalent of SHOUTING and is perceived as being extremely rude, so make sure your caps lock is switched off.

Do…. include a subject line. You've got three seconds to grab attention when an email appears and by not including a subject in the email, the chances of it being read are greatly reduced. Use the subject line for the purpose it was made and tell people what the email is about.

Don't… use read receipts. Read receipts demonstrate a distinct lack of trust, so avoid where possible. Follow up with a phone call if you want to ensure your message has reached the right person.

Do… remember the recipient. The failsafe method for emailing is to imagine you are writing a succinct letter. Address the recipient in the correct manner and title. You can be light hearted and humorous as in any written communication, it is a just a matter of judgment. But if you don't know the recipient, don't be over familiar and sign off with the right degree of formality.

Don't…. use CC and BCC unnecessarily. The no. 2 email bug bear is mass distribution of emails, so exercise constraint when it comes to copying people in. If the email is important to other people, simply forward to them at the end, rather than them being caught up in a never-ending email trail. Likewise use the BCC button wisely, again forward emails separately rather than 'hiding' other recipients.

Do… take your time. Because of the instant nature of emails it is tempting to deal with them immediately, but rushing an email can lead to errors. Deal with them promptly but don't panic and reply in haste and always check what you have written before you hit send.

Don't… over use 'importance'. Before you even consider using a red exclamation mark, ask yourself is this really important? Only use when it is vital that the email is read, otherwise you are drawing unnecessary attention to yourself and it is a quick way of irritating recipients.

Do…save the kisses. Over familiarity towards your boss or work colleagues is bad etiquette, keep the love and kisses for very good friends.

Don't… email when angry. If you receive a 'harsh' email, read it through, then close it and walk away. Consider your response and if necessary ask someone else to read your reply before you send it, don't fight fire with fire.

Do… choose a sensible email address. Common sense tells you that you are less likely to land a job if you use a frivolous email address, such as, crazychick@yahoo.co.uk. Think about what your email address says about you as it's an insight into your personality.

Don't… hide behind email. It is often easier to write something in words than it is to say it out loud, but don't say something on email that you wouldn't say in person. Emails have longevity and it can come back to haunt you!

Happy emailing,
Andrew - Yahoo! Mail Team

 

From Yahoo! Mail Blog

 

Six Ways to Improve Employee Morale Without Breaking the Bank [ENCOURAGEMENT], [SINCERITY], [OPENNESS]

 

Six Ways to Improve Employee Morale Without Breaking the Bank

Posted: 11 Jun 2009

Happy, engaged employees are the lifeblood of any small business.  Sure, there are the folks that always do their job happily and with great quality (keep them at almost all costs!) and the folks that aren't happy no matter what you do (weed them out!), but most of your employees are somewhere in the middle.  If they're engaged and happy, they do great work and produce great value for you.  If they're unhappy, they don't work nearly as well – and the value produced for you is much less.

Obviously, there are a lot of ways to directly motivate employees: the bottom dollar.  A cash bonus for the employee of the month can work, as can nice perks during the work day.

In my experience, though, the best techniques for improving everyone's morale comes from outside the wallet.  Try these six techniques and keep your checkbook and charge cards focused on other areas, like building your business infrastructure and promoting it to potential customers.

Eat lunch with your employees.  Eat what they eat – if they brown bag it, you brown bag it.  Listen to what they have to say and offer up mostly positive comments and humor.  If your employees eat in regular groups, rotate from group to group – don't keep a group of "favorites."  Lunch is a great time for building camaraderie and trust.

Learn about your employees and follow up. Know about the interests of your employees.  Learn about their families and their dreams.  More importantly, follow up on the things you learn – ask regularly about their mother's health or their son's soccer team.  If you're like me and have trouble remembering such information, especially at first, keep a notebook on it.  Keep a list of such information about each employee and refresh yourself regularly if you need it.

Be candid about how things are going. If things are going well, be sure your employees are aware of the success.  If things aren't going well, talk about the problems early on and nip any gossip right in the bud.  Gossip is the enemy of the happy workplace – and candor is the best way to fight it.  Plus, when you're open about problems, happy employees will often go the extra mile to help pull you through.  Don't be afraid to tell the truth.

Give plenty of opportunities for their candor as well. On a regular basis (I do it weekly), touch base with every employee or contractor in your small business.  Just stop in, ask them how they're doing and if they're having any troubles, and listen to what they have to say, even if you disagree or don't like what they're telling you. Take notes, especially when normally-happy employees observe a problem – there's usually something that needs to be fixed.

Give compliments on good work, both individually and publicly. Make an effort to compliment everyone on their work in individual situations, particularly when you can point out specifics.  When someone really does well, point it out to the group – but don't point out the same person every single time.  Highlight a variety of people and give them public recognition.

Implement reasonable suggested changes whenever you can. Employees often suggest little things that they'd really like to see in the workplace.  If you can implement these things, it goes a huge way towards making that employee feel more empowered, involved, and happy.  If an employee suggests starting a community coffee pot, do it.  If an employee suggests a better arrangement for the office supplies, try it.  If someone suggests a better way to handle meetings, give it a try.  Every time you execute a reasonable suggested change, it greatly raises one employee's morale and gives a small lift to everyone.

Good luck at putting all this newfound employee productivity to good use!

 

From OPEN Forum by American Express OPEN

Management Lessons on an Aircraft Carrier at Sea [EXCELLENCE], [COOPERATION], [COMMITMENT]

Top Ten Lessons from the US Navy: Management Lessons on an Aircraft Carrier at Sea

Posted: 09 Jun 2009

This is a guest post by Bill Reichert, my colleague at Garage Technology Ventures. He and I recently joined other bloggers for an overnight trip on the USS Nimitz. The USS Nimitz is an aircraft carrier that's named after Chester Nimitz (Nimitz signed the US/Japan surrender terms that at the end of World War II). The Nimitz has a crew of approximately 3,000 men and women. When an air wing is deployed on it, the total number of personnel becomes 5,000. It is part of Carrier Strike Group 11.

---

Very few people have the opportunity to experience life on a nuclear aircraft carrier up close and personal. Recently, I had the extraordinary experience of spending a day and a night at sea in the Pacific on board the USS Nimitz. I was part of a Navy outreach program to give ordinary landlubbers like me a perspective on the mission and operations of a naval strike group.

I was excited. Who would turn down a chance to get on top of a nuclear power plant driving 100,000 tons of steel through the ocean, with 5,000 men and women handling scores of aircraft, carrying thousands of pounds of bombs and missiles, burning thousands of gallons of jet fuel a day, with margins measured in inches, and tolerances of seconds? What could possibly go wrong?

As a Prius-driving, granola-eating, anti-gun, Left-Coast Californian, I do not fit the stereotype of the typical armed forces booster. I am inclined to favor green technology over weapons of mass destruction. But I discovered during my visit that many of us who are working in non-military organizations, and who may not have given a second thought to the Navy as a model, would do well to understand how a small city floating on the ocean works. From startup entrepreneurs to seasoned executives, we can learn a lot from the U.S. Navy, from the enlisted men and women as well as from the commanding officers.

When we got to the Naval Air Station on Coronado Island in San Diego, we received a quick slide presentation before we flew off to the Nimitz, a hundred miles or so off the coast. Then again, when we met with the admiral on the ship that evening, we got another slide presentation. There were five or six dot points on the powerpoint slides outlining the mission of the Navy, but frankly I can't remember them all. All I can remember is the impression that, fundamentally, the mission of the U.S. Navy is to make the world safe. It's a pretty ambitious objective. You may approve or disapprove of this as the best use of taxpayer money, but if you spend any time on a nuclear aircraft carrier, you have to admit they do a pretty impressive job.

During about thirty hours of immersion with sailors and pilots (and public affairs officers), I realized that were several principles at work that make the Navy so successful—principles that are not at all unique to running an aircraft carrier—representing important lessons for everyone interested in entrepreneurship, innovation, teamwork, and management:

1. Inspiration: Having a big, meaningful goal is a tremendous force for inspiration, motivation, and cohesion. The Navy's mission is not some vague, abstract, feel-good paragraph in a business plan; it is very concrete, and very easy to understand and internalize. In addition to defending America, fighting terrorists, and rescuing victims of piracy, the Navy takes enormous pride in their role in helping the tsunami victims in 2004, and in helping the Katrina victims in 2005. While everyone I talked with had his or her own particular story, everyone had a distinct and powerful pride in what they had accomplished and in the people around them. It was frankly astounding. Even in the best organizations, in my experience, such a core consistency of pride is extremely rare. Of course, most organizations don't have a mission as inspirational as the U.S. Navy.
2. Perspiration: If everyone buys into the goal, you can get an amazing amount of work done, including regular sixteen hour days with very low pay. The Nimitz does not offer a 9-to-5 workday. Some days, crews are on the flight deck for fourteen or sixteen hours, into the wee hours of the morning, inhaling noxious fumes and making sure every plane gets back safely. And then after the planes get back at midnight, the maintenance crew is still at work making sure the planes are ready for the next day. A maintenance chief told me that, given the age of the planes and the stress of carrier flying, it is typical that a plane requires twenty-five hours of maintenance for every hour of flight time. That seems inefficient, but the alternative is unacceptable. You don't want to fly a plane that is anything less than 100 percent maintained.
3. Teamwork: As much as the movie Top Gun created the impression that it's about competing to be Number 1, the ethic in an actual operating situation is intensely about team performance. Watching the crews maintain, fuel, setup, and pilot F-18s for flight, it's clear it's not about who's the hottest dog on the deck. Every single person counts on other members of the team to enable them to get their part of the job done, and no one person can take credit for success, or benefit from another's failure.
4. Recruiting and training: There is a common misperception that the military attracts the lower performers in our society who have no other choices. The Navy is very fortunate to have more people who want to join than there are available slots. But more important, the men and women who make it through training are astoundingly competent people. The lesson here is that it's not about fancy degrees and prior polish; it's about a commitment to excellence in each individual, and the willingness to work to exhaustion to make sure you live up to your commitment.
5. Accountability and continuous improvement: There is no contradiction between an intense ethic of teamwork and the need for individual accountability. In the Navy, everything is monitored and measured. Every system has to perform at 100 percent, and for every system there is a person responsible for making sure that happens. Every cycle of take-offs and landings is measured and scored. And every score is assessed to figure out a way to do it better. During launch cycles, the drill is to get a plane catapulted off the deck every sixty seconds. According to our hosts, during the training exercise we watched, the greatest variation off that was fifteen seconds. Wouldn't it be cool if O'Hare could match that?
6. Respect: In the Navy, if you don't like someone because of their race, or creed, or whatever, you have the opportunity to change your mind, because that person may be living in the bunk fourteen inches away from you. Respect isn't just an altruistic ethic, it's a necessity. More so than any other institution, the U.S. military has been successful at integrating America's young men and women. I'm sure the Navy is not perfect in this regard, but when I looked around the bridge and saw the incredibly diverse team of men and women who were calmly, confidently, and competently running this multi-billion dollar acme of American technological accomplishment, I thought why can't all of America be more like this? Actually, most high tech companies are well integrated when it comes to race and creed (less so gender), but when it comes to respect among individuals, most organizations have a lot to learn.
7. Overcoming fear: On a busy aircraft carrier, there are a lot of things that happen that are really scary, and people die. Despite the macho prototype of the Navy pilot, in private these pilots admit that landing a jet on a moving carrier at night is a downright terrifying experience. Watching a series of jets land at night, you get the impression that it must be pretty easy, because they do it so well. But it isn't easy, and even with years of practice and experience, it's nerve-wracking. And you do it, because it's your responsibility and that's the only way the mission gets accomplished.
8. Work/Life balance: It's hard to imagine how people in the military handle being away from their families for months at a time, in environments that are almost entirely work. It's clear that it is not easy for most. My impression is that the Navy tries to ease the strain by creating a work environment that is much looser and more casual than we expected. We thought the crew aboard the ship would be much more heavily starched than they were, and that the interactions between subordinates and superiors would be much stiffer. We were amazed at how relatively easygoing everyone was, considering that they were responsible for one of the most massive concentrations of firepower on the planet. When you are on the line, there is no slack, and there is no room for anything less than 100 percent. But when there is a break in the action, you can relax and be human.
9. Reverence and irreverence: The week before our visit, the Nimitz lost five crew in a helicopter accident. These were not strangers; these were co-workers and friends. Among the pilots, it seems that everyone has at least one story of a good friend who was lost. For these men and women, death is all too real. There are memorials around the ship to remind everyone of those who have given their lives in the service of their country. At the same time, there is an irreverence that pops up quite frequently, sometimes when you wouldn't expect it. The captain, in welcoming us, referred to the aircraft carrier as being "kind of like a jail, except there's the possibility of drowning." Not exactly what you would expect to hear. And the whole call sign culture—pilots with nicknames like "Freak Show" and "Booger," to make sure no one takes themselves too seriously and everyone appreciates that even the best of the best are human.
10. One-hundred percent performance: From moment to moment, the operations on board a nuclear aircraft carrier expose the crew to an extraordinary degree of danger. A simple mistake can result in death, and much of what is being done on the ship and in the air is not at all simple. But they make it look simple. We watched scores of planes take off and land on a moving platform without a hitch. The key is training, training, training, and total focus and dedication when you are on the line. The activity on the flight deck looks a little random and pretty informal—no stiff spines or tight formations. But in the end, you realize you've watched an amazingly choreographed ballet, with an underlying intelligence and efficiency that comes from a lot of people working together to optimize the total performance of the organization.

Those are my top ten lessons from the U.S. Navy. Some of my colleagues on the trip have some additional perspectives to add. (You can see links to their travelogues below.) But all of us discovered that we can learn a lot from the U.S. Navy.

Certainly the Navy is not perfect. As in any organization, there are egos and frustrations and resentments. And people make mistakes, and bad things happen. Not everyone agrees with every decision made up the chain of command, or back in Washington, DC. The Navy understands that it is not well-served by squashing free thought, but everyone in the Navy appreciates that there is a time and a place for debate, and the deal is that you are signed up to do what the organization needs you to do once you are on the line.

Not every entrepreneur wants to model his or her organization and culture on the Navy. For many entrepreneurs, indeed, that is a very unappealing concept, but that's because they don't really understand what makes the Navy one of the most effective organizations on the planet. Like any other successful organization, it's about the people, not about the technology. The key is harnessing the incredible potential of every individual through inspiration, training, and teamwork.

Honor. Courage. Commitment. Not bad principles for any company.

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Here are links to the blogs of others on the visit:

• Guy Kawasaki
• Dennis Hall
• Carroll "Lex" LeFon (USN, ret.)
• Charlene Li
• Jenny Lawson
• Pamela Slim
• Jennifer Jones
• Jen Leo
• Robert Scoble

From OPEN Forum by American Express OPEN

Overcoming objections: provocative, enlightening, and winning questions

(Excerpt:)

Open-ended probes that earn you the right to probe further

General Probes:

· Run me through your thinking on this

· How did we get to these assumptions?

· Tell me more about how you (moved from these facts to your conclusions)

· When you said… did you mean…?

 

Curiosity: the most powerful way to overcome objections

Posted: 10 Jun 2009

Successful business owners are addicted to two really powerful hallucinogens: their own stuff, and being right. I've been addicted to both in the past, so I know what I'm talking about.

Here's how it works: we spend hours working up a sales proposal, bolstered by our own expertise, facts, research and opinions from other smart people.

Maybe we spend more hours writing a document or the ubiquitous Death by PowerPoint presentation, with graphs, and exhibits. Perhaps two or three other people in our organization look at our work, give us their received wisdom, and we rewrite it maybe two-three times, more if it's for a big contract.

Then we present it.

So let's suppose someone in the audience at your presentation disagrees with you. Do we engage in a thoughtful exchange of views? Heck no! We argue the point with the customer, in effect telling him or her how wrong they are, and how right we are, because we have so much invested in our proposal we can't give up being right.

When was the last time you spent a lot of money with someone who told you how wrong you were about your own business?

I'm with an old boss of mine who said, "Let's be wrong all the way to the bank." Let's give up being right, and start focusing on winning the order.

Here's how: be curious! Don't tell, ask. People do business with people they know, like and trust – and who better than someone who's so interested in your point of view he or she gets you talking about it?

Here are some questions people have found provocative, enlightening, and winning:

Open-ended probes that earn you the right to probe further

General Probes:

· Run me through your thinking on this

· How did we get to these assumptions?

· Tell me more about how you (moved from these facts to your conclusions)

· When you said… did you mean…?

Issue Probes:

· What's the most significant issue you currently face?

· What would you like to accomplish with this (program, idea, information)?

· To what extent is (growth, budget, deadlines, staffing) important?

· What other challenges do you foresee?

Implication Probes

· How do you calculate (how much money being late is costing you)?

· How does (system downtime) affect (your customers)?

· What would happen if (worst case scenario)?

Closed ended probes that demonstrate your competence

Asking intelligent and relevant questions tells clients you offer a higher level of competence, credibility and value. Prove you are an expert the customer can trust by asking technically demanding questions. As a marketing professional, I might ask:

· If you compare the top 20% of your revenue and profit to the bottom 20%:

o What accounts for the top 20%? Your bottom 20%?

o How do your distribution and associated costs compare?

o How does the buyer for the top 20% differ from the buyer from the bottom 20%?

· Describe your cost structure for each segment

You've find good reading on this subject in Secrets of Question Based Selling by Thomas A. Freese.

 

From OPEN Forum by American Express OPEN

 

Ten Tips to Improve Your Brain

 

Ten Tips to Improve Your Brain

Posted: 08 Jun 2009

Dr. Richard Restak is a clinical professor of neurology at George Washington Hospital University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. He also is also a member of the clinical faculty at St Elizabeth's Hospital Overhoiser Division of Training, Department of Psychiatry, Washington, DC, and maintains a private practice in neurology and neuropsychiatry in Washington, DC. His most recent book is Think Smart: A Neuroscientist's Prescription for Improving Your Brain's Performance.

He provided me with this list of the top ten ways to improve your brain's performance:

1. Take up video-gaming. Action video games improve eye-hand coordination, improve spatial visualization skills, and increase the number of things that you can visually attend to simultaneously.
2. Strengthen your memory. Memory is our most vital mental faculty. Strengthening memory is an important component in lessening the odds of developing Alzheimer's disease.
3. Learn a new word every day. Learning new words not only enriches one's understanding of the world, but also enhances the brain's language centers and the prefrontal lobes where judgement and executive function are mediated. [You can learn a new word every day by subscribing to this feed from Answers.com.]
4. Engage in spelling exercises. Spelling forces you to mentally "see" the word prior to speaking it or writing it down. This exercises several language-related brain areas and circuits.
   
5. Monitor your moods, fantasies, and self-talk. If you find yourself immersed in upsetting or stressful scenarios, change your brain activity by switching to something that doesn't involve just your own concerns.
6. Work off stress with increased physical activity. A healthy brain requires good general health. You can decrease the harmful effects of stress on general health by exercising daily, but you should choose an exercise that appeals to you and that won't be considered a tiresome chore. Even just walking is fine. Walking four miles per week cuts down on the chances of later developing dementia by fifty percent.
7. Take a twenty-minute nap every afternoon that you can manage it. A daytime nap will produce nearly as much skill-memory enhancement as a whole night of sleep. So after you have taken a class or engaged in some other learning situation in the morning, consolidate that information by napping for a brief time in the afternoon after lunch when you're most likely to feel tired and fall asleep easier.
8. Solve puzzles. Different parts of the brain will be exercised depending on what kind of puzzle you choose. Crossword puzzles challenge the language and memory areas while jigsaw puzzles provide exercise for the parietal lobes. When you get proficient do the crossword puzzles in your mind without writing anything down and do the jigsaw puzzles with the picture side turned over so that you're working with shape and form alone.
9. Work with your hands. Few people other than musicians and surgeons are skilled in fine finger control. Whenever you perform an activity requiring finger dexterity you enhance your brain. Knitting, model-ship or model-train building are fine—taking up a musical instrument is even bettter.
10. Pay more attention to your sensory experiences. One of the most common causes of forgetting and poor memory relates to failures to register what is going on during the original experience. Practice sharpening your senses by identifying by name all of the herbs and essences you encounter in everything you eat. Challenges are as readily available as the nearest garden, spice-rack, and wine-tasting group.

As a small business owner, you certainly can't let your brain fade, so take Dr. Restak's advice.

 

From OPEN Forum by American Express OPEN

Five requirements for getting a senior team ready to embrace change leadership and drive better performance

 

Center for Creative Leadership

Change Your Mind Before You Change Your Company

John B. McGuire, 05.27.09, 07:00 PM EDT
Organizational change never works on its own.
 

Your organization has likely been charting a new course to get through today's economic turmoil. But is your new direction getting you there? History shows that change initiatives--realignment, restructuring, re-engineering and the rest--succeed only one time out of every four.

Why so much failure? Because senior leaders blame their organizational problems on faulty structures, systems and processes, and those are the things they try to fix. They are partly right, but there is usually another, more powerful, factor at work too: the company's culture.Change in operations, especially dramatic change, doesn't work without deeper and more subtle change in corporate culture and in how leaders think. The systems, practices and beliefs that drove yesterday's success--in other words, the organization's culture--are always deeply ingrained. And they're usually not what you need to move forward in a radically altered economic and competitive world. Change leadership, far more than skilled management, is what truly transforms organizational culture and drives bottom-line results.

To successfully change a business in the face of the huge complexities of today, senior leaders need to have bigger minds. Not all executives and leadership teams are ready for that, and the intense operational pressures of the moment can make it even more difficult. But some leaders do make bold moves even in the most trying circumstances. At the Center for Creative Leadership, we have identified five requirements for getting a senior team ready to embrace change leadership and drive better performance.

1. The executive team must be engaged--really engaged. How often have you seen executives announce a new initiative, rally everyone to get on board with the change--and then fail to follow through themselves? When executives don't genuinely change, no one will. Why should others take on the risk when senior leaders won't?

It's better not to go through the motions at all if your team has little commitment to making it all happen. Dismal change efforts only breed cynicism, and they make any future attempts less likely to succeed.

2. The team must know and value leadership development. To change a culture, you must believe in the value of developing both individual leader capacity and organizational leadership capability. Key people in the organization have to strongly support learning, and the organization needs to have experience with and show appreciation for leadership development.

One of our clients realized this early in his tenure as chief executive officer of an aerospace company. He knew the organizational culture had to change before the company could become more competitive and responsive. But the gap between his vision and the experience of his longtime employees was too great. So he focused first on individual learning and creating a shared, new view of leadership development. Since then, his managers have been getting more comfortable with learning, with giving and receiving feedback and with questioning assumptions--which are all core elements of change leadership.

3. Senior leaders must understand that leadership at the top is a missing essential. "We have gone as far as we can with change management within operations," a hospital CEO told me. "Now we believe the real change must be in our leadership and the culture, but we just don't know how to do it."

This CEO had a problem. He clearly needed to improve operations, but his change management wasn't doing it thoroughly enough or fast enough. He knew instinctively that he had to improve the human element, building talent and altering the culture--key elements of change leadership.

4. The senior team must be willing to take on new, different work. Changing an organization's culture can never be done by formula or guarantee specific results. The senior team has to develop its ability to tolerate uncertainty and ambiguity, in terms of both business variables and human variables. A critical element of this is the willingness to dedicate time to wholly new challenges.

At a manufacturing company we've worked with, the executives recognized that developing a culture that could welcome change would require considerable learning. But taking time out for it from focusing on manufacturing seemed bizarre and foolish to many. "Stop to do what? To talk? That's nuts!" a few leaders said. Changing that attitude was a very big undertaking. But the senior team was determined to make it happen, and the process took root and led to positive and permanent changes in business performance.

5. The senior team must recognize the need to work across boundaries. Change leadership requires frequent crossing of functions, alliances, suppliers, partners and even whole chains of activity. It is about flexibility, collaboration and having less bureaucratic relationships--and it is at odds with hierarchical command and control. Such boundary-spanning or boundary-busting work is becoming more and more common, but it remains a challenge for many managers and organizations.

You can transform your organization's culture. Businesses can and do evolve to face new challenges. Individuals, teams and entire organizations can change their belief systems and attitudes and learn new behaviors. Minds can grow bigger to solve bigger problems. The first step is to understand where you are as an individual and as part of a leadership team. Are you ready?

John B. McGuire is a senior faculty member at the Center for Creative Leadership, a global provider of leadership education and research. He is co-author of Transforming Your Leadership Culture, published in March 2009 by Jossey-Bass. This article is the second in a series from the Center for Creative Leadership; read the first one, "The Three Fundamentals of Effective Leadership," here.

 

Source: http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/27/change-management-innovation-leadership-managing-ccl.html

 

Evernote will index all words it finds in pictures you upload

 

Why you should digitize 'everything'
How a lifestyle experiment and a disaster made me realize the value of turning atoms into bits
Mike Elgan
 
 May 9, 2009 (Computerworld) Two events this week, one personal and another that is making international headlines, made me rethink what can, and should, be digitized: Everything. If you're a regular reader of this column, you'll remember my piece "Paperless office? Ha! How about a paperless life?" In that column, I talked about my quest to eliminate paper in favor of electronic alternatives. But this week I realized that some things other than paper documents and media can, and should, be digitized.

The first event that sparked this epiphany was my transition to semi-nomadic living. My idea was to take the monthly expense for a big house and divide it between a small studio in California and hotel rooms, bungalows, huts - whatever -- as my wife and I travel around the world for much of each year.

The challenge: What to do with all our stuff? Our goal: Get rid of half our "stuff" by selling it, donating it or throwing it away; place about one quarter into storage; and move the remaining quarter into the studio.

The second event I mentioned was a disaster in my city. I live in Santa Barbara, Calif., which as I write this is surrounded by raging wildfires. At press time, some 30,000 people have been evacuated. Many had to get out with less than 20 minutes' notice.

Which raises the question: What do you give up when you streamline, downsize and go digital nomad? And what do you lose when your house burns in a fire?

Furniture and buildings can be replaced. But what about old family pictures? Paintings your children made in kindergarten? Trophies? Award plaques? Objects passed down from previous generations?

Like everyone else, I suppose, we've got boxes of ill-defined "stuff" stored away -- papers, clippings, memorabilia.

Because much of our stuff was poorly organized, we slogged through every possession, every box, every drawer and considered what to do with every possession we owned. Besides being extraordinarily time-consuming, the process was also very difficult. When it comes to deciding whether to keep or discard something, where do you draw the line? Old holiday and birthday cards? OK, those can be discarded. Mother's Day cards from kids? Hmmm. Trophies? Yikes! There are a million items that make you feel a loss when you toss, but if you keep them, they'll be buried unseen for decades.

It's these same items that are irreplaceable after an unexpected fire, flood, hurricane or other regional or personal disaster.

The solution is to digitize everything. Here's how.

1. Capture
Set up an old digital camera on a tripod, or a newer one set at a lower megapixel size. (You don't want gigantic images to process; 3 to 5 megapixels is about right.) You might point the camera down at a table, or set up some kind of easel. But make it easy and quick to set something down, snap a picture and move to the next item.

Then, do what we did. One by one, go through every box, drawer and item in your house that could contain something of value, and take a picture of it. Photographs. Awards. Scrapbook items. Clippings. Whatever. Don't agonize, just take a picture of everything that might be of value later on.

Then, grab that camera and walk around the house snapping pictures of everything you own of value -- furniture, jewelry, cars. These pictures could help you with the insurance company if tragedy does strike.

2. Index for search
Now, sign up for an account with Evernote. Download the desktop application, and drop all your pictures into the application. Evernote will upload them all to its servers, and -- here's the best part -- index all words it finds in the pictures, which makes them searchable. Later, you can just search Evernote as if it were Google, and find pictures of just about any item. You can also categorize, tag, sort or file everything in any way you choose.

Evernote allows 40MB of uploads per month for free. If you pay $45 per year, you get 500MB per month.

If you want to stay under the free limit, then pace yourself, uploading 40MB per month until everything is uploaded.

3. Share
Some of your digitized items are boring documents. But others have sentimental family value. You'll want to upload these to Flickr or some other service (I personally prefer SmugMug, but that costs at least $40 per year), and share them with friends and family.

4. Backup
You can probably trust Evernote and your photo-sharing service to not lose your valuable images. But "probably" isn't the same as "definitely." Make sure you've got an off-site backup going.

I prefer Carbonite, but there are many online backup services available. Carbonite costs $55 per year, but you get unlimited storage. And it's brain-dead easy to use. You simply install it, and everything is backed up automatically.

5. Discard
Here's the best part: Shred, recycle, burn or discard most of this stuff you digitized.

Doing this can save you money on storage and later moving costs, and simplify your life. You've already got digital versions of everything captured, uploaded, indexed and backed up. What good is keeping the physical object buried in a box where nobody will ever see it?

Throwing away things of value feels counterintuitive, but let me share with you something pretty extreme that we did.

My son is a martial artist. Years ago, he competed nationally and racked up an enormous number of trophies (many of them six feet high). We moved years ago and packed them all into giant boxes probably numbering in the dozens. They remained in those boxes for several more moves. Nobody ever saw them, but they took up enormous space and made our moves more expensive.

It turns out that my son is an even more extreme digital nomad than I am, so he readily agreed with our project: Photograph all the trophies (at least the ones that weren't damaged in the moves), and then get rid of them all. So we lined them up in the backyard, my son posed for the pictures, and I snapped away. We then donated most of the trophies to a local karate instructor who teaches small children. He removed my son's name and other details on the trophies and gave them to the kids in school tournaments he held.

 
Take digital photos of all your important possessions. Mike Elgan used this photo to show his son's accomplishments in martial arts, while also clearing his house of all the trophies.
For the first time ever, all my son's friends and family members have now seen his trophies, thanks to Facebook and photo-sharing sites. Which raises a philosophical question: Are the trophies gone now? Or were they "gone" before?

And we no longer have to manage all those boxes. Best of all, neither fire, nor time nor neglect can destroy the photographs we took of them.

We did the same thing with various plaques, awards, certificates of achievement by all members of the family.

Other items, such as old family pictures, we digitized but did not discard.

So now we've downsized. And while we're worried for friends who have evacuated the fire areas, and worry that they will lose everything they own in the fire, we don't have to worry about our own personal stuff we digitized.

So whether you're a digital nomad, want to simplify your life or just want to protect your most valuable possessions in case of disaster, digitize everything. It's cheap, easy and definitely worth the effort.

Mike Elgan writes about technology and global tech culture. He blogs about the technology needs, desires and successes of mobile warriors in his Computerworld blog, The World Is My Office. Contact Mike at mike.elgan@elgan.com, follow him on Twitter or his blog, The Raw Feed.

Source: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9132739