Tales from an XOD

All Done

2010-12-02T14:17:00.003-05:00

"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading." Lao Tzu

Five new posts in the past six months. Yep, I've lost interest. I don't know if there's anyone still out there. Actually, I don't know if there ever was.

I started this blog three years ago as a way to offload as this stuff that was cramming up my neural ports and as a send off I just read all of the posts starting with the preamble.

There's some pretty good posts out there. Ten Simple Rules, You Can't Fix Stupid, Greg Shrugged, The Pleaser's Dilemma among them.

Then I wrote the eight-part chronicles about starting the wine bar, starting with this one The LBV Chronicles.

And I got to use this space to miss Bonnie.

But now I'm done and it's beyond just needing a break or needing material. I run across things each week that make for good blog fodder but I have no interest in composing.

So, if you were ever out there. Thanks for indulging me. It was very good and important to me once upon a time.

Updating the Rules

2010-11-01T17:07:00.003-04:00

“The first rule is not to lose. The second rule is not to forget the first rule.” Warren Buffett

Back when I started blogging – you know, when I actually posted more than once every couple of months – I published “Ten Simple Rules”. It stands today as my personal favorite and still the one I’ve gotten the most comments about.

I’ve always been proud of the fact that it’s short and factual. There’s just not a whole lot to disagree with. But it’s time for an update.

There’s nothing in the fundamental set of 10 that I would alter, but I am going to add a thirteenth bonus rule.

13. Treat Social Media sites as the thin-ice, potentially toxic, personal and career altering quagmires that they are.

OK Strouse, you always have a story. What’s this one?

Glad you asked.

I was talking to a guy today who had just lost his job because of something he posted on Facebook about his job. It wasn’t overly derogatory, though to be fair neither was it flattering. But in it he posted a picture of a white board with some company info on it.

Bang!

Didn't even get that second cup of coffee in.

Although this doesn’t break Rule #2:

Never (ever, ever)….(ever, ever, ever) lie, cheat or steal. It will create a stigma that can never be overcome.

It dances up close enough.

South Park had a great episode on Facebook titled “You have zero friends”. You can see a clip here: Zero

Look, I like Facebook. I follow my kids and grandkids through it. I use it for my business, BUT, I rarely post anything and when I do it’s benign. And I’ll tell you something else, anytime I’m wanting to check out a potential new employee, client, whatever, I go look them up on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, et al. And if they’re posting what I consider to be goofy stuff I pay attention. FWIW.

Anyway, as with the other rules, do what you want but just know…they’re out there and they’re watching and they’re paying attention.

No Tone

2010-09-23T13:49:00.003-04:00

All of us learn how to write in the second grade. Most of us go on to greater things”. Bob Knight

I’ve been exchanging a series of business emails with a guy who continuously starts many of his mails with “No tone” at the beginning.

I asked him the other day what that meant and he told me that since voice inflections and physical moments (such as an eye wink) are impossible in written communications that sometimes people can misconstrue the meaning of things said (written). Thus sarcasm and innuendo can get lost and the reader can imply anger or disappointment when none is meant.

Tone.

OK, I get it. I guess.

But it makes me wonder. Written communication has been around a long time. Long before telephones were invented and even long after people got letters. Business was conducted through the use of the written word. I’m old enough that I’ve gotten thousands of letters in my lifetime and I don’t remember one of them starting with “No Tone”. Yes, it does mean that you have to be thoughtful in what you write and how you write it, but so what?

Now THAT got me wondering if No Tone actually means “Tone”, kind of the modern equivalent of starting a statement with “I don’t want to offend you”. Yes you do. Or “I’m not being nosy”. Yes you are. Or “I have to be truthful with you”. Do you now?

So I’ve decided the next time I get an email from him that starts with “No Tone” I’m going to reply back that I find his constant use of that phrase to be stupid, insulting and highly irritating and if he doesn’t stop using that idiotic phrase I’m going to ram his laptop up his nose.

No Tone, of course.

Birthday Wishes

2010-07-12T15:14:00.006-04:00

“When you lose someone you love, you die too, and you wait around for your body to catch up.” John Scalzi

Today is Bonnie’s birthday – she would have turned 58. Now approaching two years since her death it still seems inconceivable that she’s gone. So much for it getting easier. I think watching the grandkids grow makes it hard. They’re so damned cute and will forever miss out on the massive amounts of love and spoiling that would have been theirs. I know it’s tough on the kids too. Thankfully they’re all grown, responsible, and stable and have great sets of in-laws around them. But it’s still hard.

Her birthday can’t roll around without thinking of her 55th, just a little over a year before she died. She always wanted a Sheik of Arabic theme so the kids organized and built one. It was a blast and something she enjoyed immensely.

I’m hosting a fundraiser on August 1st with the proceeds going to the International Myeloma Foundation. The IMF provided incredible knowledge and support to Bonnie and me throughout the 4 years she suffered with it. I have attached a link to the International Myeloma Foundation here – IMF - who has included a flyer for the event on their website. I hope those of you that are local can attend. I know many of you are remote and will be unable to come; I would really appreciate any donation that you may be able to give so that we can help find a cure for this horrible disease. Please help me in this journey as I continue to help get the word out about Multiple Myeloma and to help raise funds for a cure.

Lisa Roberts, a friend who used to live here in Michigan and now resides in Florida, blogged about Bonnie the other day. Very sweet – you can read it here – Bonnie.

If you have a moment today or whenever you read this give Bonnie a “Happy Birthday”, she’ll enjoy it.

Finding Mark Knopfler

2010-07-07T14:34:00.005-04:00

"You win some, you might get lucky now and then". Mark Knopfler

My buddy Brian took me to see Mark Knopfler in Ann Arbor at the Michigan Theater. It’s a great venue just off campus, nice and small with only 1,700 seats.

I have never really followed Knopfler. I knew him from Dire Straits but only their radio and MTV stuff – never owned an album.

So I go see him and POW, I realize I’ve been missing out on music of the type and style that I love. He’s a bluesy, folksy, kind of a C&W for the Celtic set with great lyrics, big voice and of course world-class guitarist.

So instead of being happy to make this discovery I’m pissed! I can’t believe I’ve been missing out for all these years. He has 8 solo albums plus all the ones with Dire Straits. Throw on to that the litany of composing for movies and it turns into a lot of catching up to do.

So now along with downloading his music to my iPod I have a Mark Knopfler station on Pandora.
It’s kind of crazy when you discover something that’s been all around you and then become a little obsessed with it.

So naturally I applied this little eye-popper to the business world. How many Knopfler moments have or do exist? Are there clients/solutions/people all around that you just haven’t discovered? This came about the other day when my Seattle-based company was looking for a particular, kind of hard to find, talent for a project and discovered one right here in the town where I live in Michigan.

It’s somewhat human nature to think all the good stuff must be somewhere else. We do it all the time whether it’s driving to other towns to eat as people in those towns drive to yours. In business we relocate newly hired people because they must be more qualified than anyone close (or god forbid inside the company). Or let’s spend zillions of dollars opening a new international market rather than increase our existing market share with people in places we already know.

Really, we all need to get better at paying attention to what's around.

We might get lucky.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I just got a note from Pandora that they’ve added a bunch of new stuff to my Knopfler station.

Fessin' Up To Messin' Up

2010-06-03T16:06:00.005-04:00

“Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes” Confusius

Like a lot a sports fans I’ve been watching the trauma and drama unfold over the blown call by umpire Jim Joyce that spoiled the perfect game thrown by Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga.

It was a very unfortunate incident. Perfect games – where 27 batters come to the plate and 27 outs are recorded with no hits, walks or errors – are very rare. There have only been 20 in all of recorded major league baseball history. The fact that Galarraga wasn’t the 21st came due to the last batter being called safe at first when all the replays showed that he was clearly out.

But this little piece of trivia is not what has me intrigued enough to blog about it. What has transpired between the cast of characters since the game ended is what’s worth noting.

First was Galarraga immediately upon the runner being called safe. Since he was covering the bag on the grounder hit down the first base line he was within a couple of feet of the umpire Joyce. Rather than putting on some spectacular display of theatrics we’ve all become accustomed to with today’s athletes he smiled (in disbelief to be sure) and walked back to the mound to pitch to the next batter.

Next was the umpire Jim Joyce. Since there is no replay for situations like this in baseball he had no choice than to go with “what he saw”. But afterwards he watched the replays and knew he’d blown the call. So, he went to the Tigers locker, asked permission to come in and face-to-face apologized to Galarraga, manager Jim Leyland and the rest of the team. Then he went out and faced the media and said, “I blew the call and cost that young man a perfect game”.

Then manager Jim Leyland afterwards said, “We’re all human and make mistakes, he’s a good man and a good umpire and should be left alone”.

The next day the same umpiring crew was present with Jim Joyce being scheduled to be behind home plate. He was given the out to not umpire that day but refused saying “that’s my job”.

What then happened is Leyland had Galarraga take the line-up card out during the pre-game ceremony, the two pitcher and umpire shook hands then the rest of the Tigers came up and gave Joyce a slap on the back.

So, a potentially difficult player/umpire/fan situation was totally defused by simple acts of sanity. And it all started with the two people most affected – the pitcher and the umpire – doing the right thing. Galarraga acted like a pro and Joyce acted like the good man everyone says he is. No whining, no theatrics, no sniveling, no acting persecuted, no blame shifting, no hiding just a mistake made, regretted and apologized for.

How many business (and personal) situations should be handled this way. How much easier would life be if more difficult situations were handled like this one?

It all started with the person who was the most affected handling himself professionally. But from what I’ve read about Jim Joyce – who’s considered one of the best umpires working – he probably would have done the same thing regardless.

How about you?

Pondering the Future

2010-05-25T09:47:00.003-04:00

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." Alvin Toffler

For Mother’s Day as well as flowers for my mother I also sent flowers for her to take out for Bonnie’s gravesite. I asked my parents if they would take a picture for me and the kids.

This seemingly innocent request started an odyssey beyond any expectations.

Me: “Mom, would you take a picture of the flowers?”

Mom: “Well, I guess, I don’t know.”

Me: “Is that a problem?”

Mom: “I’m not sure we have a camera.”

Me: “Really? I’ll get you one”

Mom: “No, don’t do that, we’ll never use it”

Me: “OK, what about your cell phone?”

Mom: “What about it?

Me: “I’m sure it has a camera in it, you can use it.”

Mom: “Oh, I wouldn’t know how do that.”

Me: “OK, no problem”

*sigh*

I didn’t think that much about it until I got this email from Mom:

We took pictures of the flowers. Hope they turn out O.K. It was funny (in a way) when your Dad took them to be printed all the places said "we don't do that kind of film anymore” but they do send it away will take about a week. They only do digital. Anyway we should have pictures in about a week. Shows you are up (s---) creek without a paddle if you are not up to date in this fast world today.

Now, my parents are neither dumb nor illiterate, they’re just 85. When you think about how much things have changed in their lives it’s pretty overwhelming. Hell, when you think how much things have changed since they were MY AGE it’s pretty overwhelming.

This in turn got me thinking about what I will be like if I’m lucky/unlucky enough to someday be 85. If I think about change in the past 27 years (the delta between me and my parents) and project that forward it’s pretty impossible to predict.

I consider myself pretty progressive – for an old geezer head – and like to think that I’ll be able to keep up. But then again I’m not so sure. Will I be able to keep up? If my kids request me to do something seemingly simple will the then current technology be like voodoo? I can see it now, "Dad, all I'm asking you to do teleport the casserole dish I left at your place, use your global teleport app that came with your iPlant implanted telecomm device. Just hold the dish in your left hand, hold your nose with your right, say my name and fart".

Actually maybe the better question isn't will I be able to keep up, but will I even want to?

I Can See Clearly Now

2010-05-06T12:23:00.005-04:00

“The question is not what you look at, but what you see.” Henry David Thoreau

I had cataracts surgery this week. Yet another sign that I am, in fact, an old geezer-head as the young son of a friend of mine once proclaimed (almost 20 years ago).

It was an interesting process. I had Lasik on both eyes fourteen years ago and it’s been great. I’ve enjoyed 20/20 vision and with the exception of the dreaded reading glasses have had no vision complaints – until recently. I was noticing that my vision wasn’t as clear as I was used to and most annoying my reading glasses didn’t seem to be helping on the close up stuff. So I bit the bullet and visited a local optometrist friend who after a thorough exam and way too many “Hmmmm” and “That’s Interesting” comments proclaimed that the good news was I didn’t need glasses. The bad news, however, was I needed cataracts surgery…in both eyes.

Great.

I was surprised about the “both eyes” part. Whereas my right eye had become very foggy (imagine having Vaseline smeared on your eyeball) I had started relying on my left “good” eye for any clear vision and frankly thought it was still at or near 20/20. I was even more surprised to learn that the cataracts were actually worse in my left “good” eye because in the right eye all I could read on the eye test chart was the “E”.

The fact that I was going to get my vision fixed was of little consequence to my golfing buddies a couple of weeks ago who had endured an entire Orlando golf outing of answering the never-ending barrage of “did you see my ball?” queries. The fact they didn’t bash me with a seven iron and feed me to the gators is a true testament to their friendship.

So, I had the right eye done – a pretty quick and simple procedure by the way – and after a night of wanting to claw my eye out because of the endless flood of tears from the, hardly exaggerating, nine thousand drops of medications they put in before the procedure I awoke to WOW, I CAN SEE. Not crystal, but a billion times better than before. And the bonus was in the next day followup the doc announced that my right eye was at 20/40 and there was still some swelling so it would still improve.

The funny part is now doing the right eye vs. left eye comparison I realize how bad my left “good” eye is. It’s scheduled to be done in two weeks and I should be good to go and may even be invited by my buds to golf again.

So as is typical this whole ordeal got me thinking about life in the business world.

You know, a lot of times we fall into the “good” eye trap. Things look so bad from one perspective that by comparison other things look OK when in fact they’re not. In a way it corresponds to one of Jack Welsh’s management rules to rank your people strongest to weakest and always work on improving or replacing the bottom 10% no matter how good you feel the team has become, because everything is good or bad by perspective.

It’s hard to fix everything at once, after all they’re only fixing one eye at a time on me, so fixing the worst problem first is usually the right thing to do but don’t lose sight (no pun intended) of the fact that other things may only be good by comparison.

Now, where’s my golf bag? I want to actually see my ball going OB.

Jumping 2009

2010-05-03T10:40:00.003-04:00

“The best way to compile inaccurate information that no one wants is to make it up.” Scott Adams

I met a guy the other day who was telling me about his business – tool and die for what it’s worth – and during the “how’s it going” phase he said, “pretty well actually. In fact the year is starting off really strong.” He went on to explain that his company is doing all their trend analysis based off of 2008 instead of 2009. Essentially they’re skipping ‘09.

My initial thought was “that’s goofy; you can’t just skip over an entire year”. But the more I thought about it the more it started to make sense. So I started asking almost everyone I talked to about it and found a lot of people doing pretty much the same thing by doing comparisons of important trend numbers using ’06, ’07, ’08 and ’10.

The thinking is 2009 was so bad in so many ways that if you can’t do better this year then you’re probably wasting your time. Thus, trying to put significance on comparisons is fruitless.

I can see the company party now, ‘raise your glasses everyone, lets celebrate growing Q1 by 10% over Q1 last year when we absolutely sucked”. Or better a recent Dilbert episode had the pointy-haired boss giving this update:

“The Company is happy to announce that compared to previous years, we improved our rate of revenue decline. We’ve been doing great since we redefined success as a slowing of failure”.

That sounds worthy of a celebration. After all, there’s some merit to celebrating victories as I wrote in a past blog. Celebrate.

So in a lot of places 2009 is being considered such an anomaly that a lot of people are just eliminating it from their data and memory banks.

Now, if we could only erase it from our money banks.

Real. Customer. Service.

2010-04-13T07:42:00.003-04:00

"There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else." Sam Walton

Since I feel I spend most of my posts ranting against things I thought I’d give you (and me) a breather.

I recently got an iPhone. Yeah, I know, I’ve gone to the dark side but the truth is I’ve intended to get one for a while but I’m not an early adopter, as those who know me know. Probably because I’ve subjected so many during my career to early version crap. But my old Blackberry croaked and I thought that maybe it was now time.

The fact is after a couple of weeks I like it. I actually like it a lot.

Except for one thing, it won’t synch with my Outlook calendar and contacts and when you use your phone mainly for business that’s kind of a big deal.

So, not being a novice to technical issues I fired up Google and found all the sites and went through normal fix things. Turn this off, turn this on, spin around three times while chanting “Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs”. Nada.

So I went to what’s usually the last place to fix a problem…yep…the vendor site. I went to Apple support on the Apple site and tried all the recommended fixes, and of course none of them worked.

But while on the site I see a section that allows you to contact customer support. OK, they’re already ahead of Sirius Radio. Ever try to find a “Contact Us” button on Sirius? Go ahead, try. I dare you. Sirius is way into the Hotel California mentality of keeping customers.

This Apple section has two buttons. One that says “Call me now” and one that says “Schedule a call”. I had some serious office time in front of me so I hit “Call me now”, plugged in my landline number anticipating they’ll need my iPhone to be free….and the phone rings. I’m not talking 15 seconds, I’m saying I hit “Call me now” and the phone rang. After the obligatory “Naw, coincidence” I pick the phone up and get an automated attendant. OK, that’s impressive but I figure I’m still in for a 20 minute exercise of auto attendant hell until I get to speak slowly so the representative from IndiIriPakiUkraniStan can try to help me.. Nope, 20 seconds later a polite young man named Jason from Portland comes on the line and we proceed to troubleshoot the problem.

Wow, real customer service. It had been so long that it took me a while to process that this is the way it used to be (well, not the instant callback). You used to talk to people who would help you without going through agony and angst.

So, yes, I have become an Apple and iPhone convert. To all of you over the past couple of years, here you go. You were right, I was wrong. There. Happy?

Oh, by the way, he couldn’t fix the problem..

Let me play this one back

2010-04-08T13:21:00.003-04:00

“Any fool can criticize - and most fools do.” Dale Carnegie

I had one of those interesting conversations with a patron of LBV the other night. It was his first time in and he brought his wife and another couple. As he was leaving he asked if we were going to be making any changes to the menu. I told him that we’re looking at making some modifications for the summer season.

He said that was good because he didn’t like anything on the menu.

Really? Nothing?

Not really he said, but his wife and friends liked everything they had.

But not you?

This is where he explained that he’s extremely picky and by his own admission doesn’t like much of anything.

And I’m supposed to change my menu around someone who doesn’t like anything?

Understand that although we don’t have a large kitchen our tapas-style plates, cheese flights and desserts are getting rave reviews. Kim did a masterful job of putting together great plates that are classy, tasty yet quick to prepare.

This is the classic Product Manager dilemma. How much time and attention do you give that person (company) who is never going to be satisfied? You don’t want to totally ignore them because sometimes great ideas come from those who are never happy. And, if you can satisfy the extremely picky then there’s a good chance that people with a broader palate (actual and metaphorical) will like it as well. However, the time spent trying to please the unappeasable takes you away from other probably more productive things.

Of course, with me the real urge is the stop the person mid-sentence, get everyone else’s attention and say, “OK, please loudly repeat what you just said word for word” and then ask everyone else. “OK, now tell me, what would you do with a suggestion like this”?

I suppose not.

Nod and smile, fellas, nod and smile.

The Glue of the Universe

2010-03-22T17:27:00.003-04:00

Oh, I don't know, could it be.... SATAN? The Church Lady

A good friend of mine’s father-in-law passed away unexpectedly a few days ago. He’s been married for a long time and had a great relationship with his wife’s father so I was very much like losing one of his own parents.

But, the gentleman had had a rich and full life and the end was pretty quick and pretty painless. Pretty much what we all hope for really?

In talking through the entire experience he related how the ladies of their church essentially swept in, took control, handled the myriad details then cleaned up and swept out again leaving everything a bit tidier than when they arrived.

The only proper response was “God Bless church ladies”.

After hanging up I continued to replay the conversation and it struck me that just maybe the real glue of the universe is not scientific or cosmic in makeup, but church ladies. I’m not totally sure in my own mind that if groups like church ladies didn’t exist that everything might just come apart. Kind of the equivalent of if everyone on the plane all stopped believing it could fly at the same time it would fall to the ground.

Further, I think most every good organization I’ve ever been in has had their corporate version of church ladies. The client services group that made all problems disappear, the field techs who made even the most difficult customer smile, the close-knit development group that drove me insane by taking my requirements as merely a suggestion and building a release that was much better than the specifications.

Notice how I’ve never mentioned any of the well-heeled and glamorous job titles. In fact those people and groups are usually the alcohol trying to dissolve the glue. But they can’t, because the church ladies are more powerful.

Yep, God Bless church ladies.

The LBV Chronicles

2010-02-28T09:37:00.006-05:00

Episode 8: Lemonade

“Eat Right, Stay Fit, Die Anyway”. Motto of the Round Lake Running Club

You learn a lot about living when the most important person in the world to you dies.

You also learn a lot about happiness from sadness, a lot about being full from being empty, a lot about success from failure.

The old folksy adage is “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”.

I prefer the motto me and my buddies created for our makeshift running club. It really puts things in better perspective. Make everything count along the way ‘cause guess what, none of us are getting out alive. I don’t know what happens on the other side but I do know this, whatever it is or isn’t, whatever you were doing here is done.

I’ve used “get busy living, or get busy dying”, the Andy Dufresne line from Stephen King’s “The Shawshank Redemption”, many times in the past because it’s so appropriate and I as wrote in Goodbye Neil Young and in One Year Later deciding to get busy living was brutally hard and completely necessary, and something that anyone who knew Bonnie knows was her absolute expectation because she really did embrace that life is not a spectator sport.

So deciding to actually pull the trigger on doing LBV was making a pretty big vat of lemonade, because I was dealing with some big-ass lemons.

I have tried to do a few things in these chronicles. One, be truthful about the fact that I began this pretty much as an accidental tourist. Two, that once the Go decision was made I never again waivered about going forward. Three, I’m very happy I did it. It’s been an adventure that I’m just fully realizing a lot of people never get to experience. A lot of people think and talk and dream about starting a business but another old favorite quote of mine usually comes into play, “when everything is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done”.

There’s another element in play that may give us a chance to make some lemonade. LBV is a wine and cigar bar. At the end of 2009 the Michigan Senate and House passed a no-smoking bill that goes into effect May 1st. Interestingly there’s a carve out for “cigar bars” and the way the law reads we may be exempt from the ban by virtue of the fact that the way our smoking lounge was built appears to comply with the definition. Unfortunately as of this writing I do not have a final ruling, so we’ll see. As I wrote in Episode 4, sometimes you get lucky.

Well, that’s about it. I think I’ve said about everything I set out to get off my chest when I started the chronicles I don’t know where this little science experiment of mine is going to end up but I know that its creation has gone a long ways toward getting me living again.

Thanks for your indulgence. I’m quite positive that the adventures of LBV will play prominently in future blog posts.

I’ll leave you with a quote – actually lyrics – from a John Mellencamp song “The Real Life”. John and I grew up at the same time in towns that were 20 miles apart. I remember seeing his early bands play in the local venues, and no, I don’t know him and I had no idea he’d hit it big but really glad he did.

I want to live the real life
I want to live my life close to the bone
Just because I'm middle-aged that don't mean
I want to sit around this house and watch T.V.
I want the real life
I want to live the real life

The LBV Chronicles

2010-02-21T16:30:00.006-05:00

Episode 7: How much is too much?

“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done” Bruce Lee

It seems like the theme of “too much” played into a lot of things during the formation, creation and realization of LBV.

How much time was too much on trying to sell or lease the building? As I’ve mentioned before my first option after Bonnie died was to sell the building followed by the second option of leasing it to other tenants. Starting a business was the third option. I maintained a running debate/dialog with myself on how much time to allow the hunt for someone else to continue.

How much is too much on determining if the economy will ever recover? Starting a new business is risky in the best of times and in the best of places. Michigan has been neither and may not be for a while yet. Back in October 2008 I posted this blog – Dark Days - that gives an early preview of things to come.

How much is too much to invest? Once I decided to go forward came the stark reality that this thing was going to cost some dough. How much would it cost and where would the capital come from? Trying to go through the traditional routes of obtaining capital would prove to be frustrating. I wrote about it here – Getting it

How much is too much involvement from others? Going solo versus taking on partners was another major decision. Spreading the financial risk was appealing, but so was the thought of not having to consult others along the way unless I chose to.

How much is too much daily involvement? I did not start LBV as a career change but as an investment. But, I am the majority owner, it’s housed in my building and I live above it so naturally I’m going to be around. But how much time is the right amount to spend down there? I don’t want to annoy people but I don’t want to seem uninterested. Where’s the balance?

So let’s take a look at how each of these played out:

How much time was too much on trying to sell or lease the building? There was never a totally right or wrong answer but it was a constant companion until I reached a point of no return with LBV. What was the point of no return? I’m not sure there ever was an absolute crystal clear line of demarcation on this. More, as time passed and elements of the building and business fell into place the price point of selling or leasing steadily increased. Whereas in the early stages I would have made someone the deal of the decade the price point kept moving to where the amount to get my interest got big and one to make me actually go down that path would be dizzying.

How much is too much on determining if the economy will ever recover? I’ve written about the state of the Michigan economy many times, probably too many, but here’s another one – Smoochy. The bad economy has been a double-edged sword. People simply don’t have as much money and that’s combined with people leaving the state for better employment opportunities. So there are less people spending less money. Not the optimal climate for a new business that’s predicated on disposable income. On the other hand, the availability of skilled labor and the ability to get them at bargain rates has probably never been better. So, to quote Harry Callahan, do I feel lucky? Yeah, I guess I do. Time will tell.

How much is too much to invest? I have enough experience to know that no project in history ever gotten done on time or within budget. On the other hand if you don’t draw some lines in the sand you have no hope of even coming close to a time or budgetary deadline. I put a very aggressive budget in place but not an aggressive timeline. My rationale around that was the old “time – money – quality” theorem. Professionally I’ve always impressed upon people that I can give them any two of those three elements but not all three. That is, if you want something quick and with high quality it’ll cost you. If you want something with high quality and not a lot of money, it’ll take some time, and so on. Well, I certainly wanted quality and I needed to hold a hard budget, so the timeline got to be the wild card. Ultimately I overspent the original budget but hit spot-on my personal “this is what I really believe it will actually cost” number with the quality intact.

How much is too much involvement from others? Since I’ve told each of the partners this already I’ll confess it to you as well. Yeah, I wish I would have gone solo. Why would I say that when Brian is a great friend and has been a fantastic business partner and as I wrote in Episode 5, LBV would never have turned out like it did without Kim. Well, because the absolute risk is still on my shoulders. It’s mainly my capital, it’s my building and it’s my town and sometimes I’d rather not have to consult with others. Now that I have that little demon out in the open let me tell you this as well, Going solo would have been a terrible mistake. So there! I just have to follow my own advice from this post – Devil

How much is too much daily involvement? This has been the most interesting one. I obsessed about this before we opened quite a bit but everyone would say to me “you’ll figure it out”. And I have. Well, actually the customers figured it out for me in that I continue to get comments on a very consistent basis that they like me being around. Something about “the owner” paying attention hits a sweet nerve. So by virtue of the fact that I don’t have a traditional life these days in that I have the time and proximity to pop in I do. After all, it is a place I would hang out at even if it wasn’t mine. When I’m down there I try to follow the lead of arguably one of the most successful food/restaurant owners in the area Ari Weinzweig of Zingermann’s http://www.zingermansroadhouse.com/. What does Ari do when on the floor? He wears the same clothes as his statt, carries a pitcher and refills water glasses. What a great way to stay in touch with the customer experience. Many know who he is, many don’t. Very cool

Next: Episode 8: Lemonade

The LBV Chronicles

2010-02-17T00:36:00.003-05:00

Episode 6: So many helping hands

“The nine scariest words to any American citizen are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help’” Ronald Reagan

Like any major endeavor taking LBV from a lukewarm, hazy muse to opening the doors for business took a large cast and had lots of moving parts. And hands, lots of hands.

It’s almost overwhelming to reflect back on how many people got touched by this little science experiment. City and State administrators and inspectors, architects, designers, contractors of every type from concrete, landscapers, brick masons, electrical, heating and cooling, painters, framers, steel workers, and then buying the equipment and the inventory. Without exaggerating we had to have monetarily touched well over 50 companies and independents.

I will confess to you that I had moments of unfettered pride watching workers perform and knowing that I was creating paychecks for people. It’s the part of capitalism I like the most and frankly the part that so many “public servants” (oxymoron) seem unable to grasp. I posted on this – Shrugged.

Then there’s the staff. It was a great deal of fun interviewing and choosing the staff members. They’re a great group and each has a great sense for the customer. I think we’ve created a really great product here and with these guys have added the service element, thus giving us the optimal situation that I laid out in this post – Service vs. Product.

Then, of course, there are the other helping hands. The “I know you didn’t ask and I have no skin in the game but let me eat up an hour of your time quizzing you on the decisions you’ve already made plus dump a bunch of unsolicited ideas on you” ones. I had one individual who was so bad I posted about him – Drive By.

I know its human nature to be inquisitive as well as to want to help by offering up ideas and opinions. And to be fair some really good things came out of some of these outsiders, so you can’t just blow everyone off. But Jeez….it’s as if some people feel you gave no thought whatsoever to things. Anytime a conversation would start off with “did you think about….” my hackles would instantly go up and I would start my “smile, nod and acknowledge” routine.

I’ve found there’s a direct correlation between the layers removed from actual involvement and the strength of the opinion. I also came to realize that the less financial capital was involved the more the answer to any question equated to “just spend more money”.

Ah well. To be fair, the vast majority of helping hands were truly and sincerely trying to be helpful.

Now, where’s that suggestion box/shredder combo?

Next: Episode 7; How much is too much?

The LBV Chronicles

2010-02-07T14:18:00.008-05:00

Kim and founding team memebers: Heidi, Shirley, Mark, Matt & Matt

Episode 5: If the phone doesn’t ring, it’s me

“Phone line works both ways, big boy” David J. Kleehamer

Phones are amazing devices. From when I was a kid on the farm watching my grandmother listen in on conversations on the party line to today when people are so connected they can barely function. Part of my amazement is that the act of communicating is arguably worse now than before even though people seem to being talking all the time. One morning while waiting to cross the street during morning commute time I counted twelve cars. Nine of the drivers were on their cell phones. My thought was, “who can they possibly be talking to?” They just left the house; it’s too early to be one the phone with the office. Maybe they’re all talking to each other. Most probably they’re leaving messages that say “call me”, also known as giving someone the “telephone monkey”. See Operator.

One thing that suffered while starting LBV was keeping connected with people. I became one of the people I criticized in this post. – One More Time - in that I didn’t initiate contact and ignored or avoided incoming attempts because either I was in the middle of something or I was too worn out to want to engage in conversation. But really another big reason I avoided calls was I got really tired of talking about how the building/business was coming along. It’s flattering that everyone was interested but talking about it constantly drained my enthusiasm. I guess it’s how public figures must feel when they have to answer the same questions continuously. “So George, what’s your new movie about?” “Stephen, tell me about your new book.” “Mr. President, what does your teleprompter say about the new health care package?” (Sorry…)

Frankly there’s another element involved in being constantly quizzed that I’ll cover in Episode 6 but the fact is phones are amazing, totally necessary and a large pain in the ass.

Speaking of phones, I ended Episode 4 saying that one way I was lucky in putting LBV together was by returning a phone call. I was lucky in that it was early in the process before I tired of too much phone. But I did return this message to “call me” and is how I met the young lady who became the Managing Partner and such an instrumental part of LBV. She has not only brought amazing knowledge of wine and food as well as a great network of people in the business but she has also brought vision, spirit and passion. As indicated in Episode 2 I’ve been asked many times if having a wine bar was always a dream of mine. Where my honest answer is “no, not really” her honest answer is “yes, always!”

I’m a big believer in the power of passion. I once wrote “Education is nice. Experience is nice too. As for me I'll bet on the person with vision, passion and that magic touch every single time.” I also wrote in Episode 2 that it’s turned out way better than I expected. She’s a big reason for that and I’m glad I was lucky and returned that call.

So the lesson here is return phone calls, you never know.

Next: Episode 6: So many helping hands

The LBV Chronicles

2010-02-01T08:16:00.003-05:00

Episode 4: It’s sometimes better to be lucky

"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure." Mark Twain

Last episode I wrote about how plans can and will change. I feel for the most part that I was lucky multiple times during the process of putting LBV together. One case in point was the “Ah…S***” moment while, interestingly enough, sitting on the patio one evening. While serenely having a nightcap and smoking a cigar it dawned on me that we (we being the architect, designer, builder and me) had totally forgotten to think about lighting for the entrance into the building. As it turned out one more day and the work on the patio would have been completed to the point that it would have cost serious money to fix properly. As it turned out the solution was quick and relatively painless.

Another one was while trying to tune in the new HVAC and exhaust system for the cigar room. As is typical of architects mine had, as a buddy describes it, used a shotgun on a hummingbird. Upon startup this thing would not only eliminate the smoke in the room but pull your eyebrows off in the process. The solution was to vent off a lot of the power before it got to the room. But where? Well, turns out the ductwork runs through the garage. I had always wanted a heated garage so bingo, two outlets later and the too much power problem and heated garage problem are solved in less than an hour.

There seemed to be several of those knick-of-time moments and I wondered often when my luck was going to not bail me out. But for the most part it held.

Whereas I feel I was lucky in some area others were just following my nose.

My architect was the same one I had used for each phase of the building. They’re great people who do great work and this was the third project with them, so that was an easy decision.

The designer had worked with Bonnie on the second phase of the building with great results, so they too were automatic.

Choosing a contractor wasn’t as automatic. Phase I had been done by one local commercial contractor and Phase II with another. Both did good work but I wasn’t keen on using a commercial group. This was much more of a remodel than a build. Commercial people, for the most part, lack an eye for design and detail. They like boxes.

I’ve spoken before about my Thursday night buddy sessions – The Capital of Talent. During one of these I was introduced to a local guy who makes his living remodeling basements on a high-end scale. After multiple conversations I decided to go with him over the commercial guys. What I gave up in experience dealing with commercial architects and city planning officials I more than got back in his eye for detail, commitment to the job and ultimately a friendship.

Another lucky moment came when I was brilliant enough to perform a little known and ancient practice. It’s so obscure and has been lost from civilization for so long that most people have never heard of it much less practiced it.

I returned a phone call.

Next: Episode 5: If the phone doesn’t ring, it’s me

The LBV Chronicles

2010-01-24T11:58:00.006-05:00

LBV building circa 1999

Episode 3: Decisions, decisions everywhere

“It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” J.K. Rowling

I consider myself a decisive person in that I will make decisions. Occasionally they’re even good ones. That Leaf, Barley & Vine opened at all is Exhibit “A” for both being decisive and stumbling onto a good one now and again.

One debate I find myself in with some is whether not making a decision can be equally decisive. I contend there are situations where deciding to not do anything is just as powerful as doing “something” and can, in fact have equal positive or negative impact.

Starting a business from conception will test anyone’s decision-making process and ability. The sheer magnitude of things to be considered, weighed, measured and acted upon (doing something or not) can be overwhelming.

The more time spent planning, the more detailed the plans, the more research devoted and options weighed will create a roadmap that make decision making merely the process of consulting the plan and pointing to the answer. Thus time, energy and money are saved.

Under lessons learned and things I would do differently is planning. Doing it again I would spend more time getting the plan for each element more finite and detailed. I would spend more time with the architects, designers and builders on creating more exact and detailed plans to help prevent delays, cost overruns and last-minute snap decisions.

I once wrote about this subject – Invest More - where I counsel about asking critical questions about what the money is being used for and it’s relative value.

Yep, doing it all again I would have the plan pinned down tight and that would have led to lower costs, higher quality and a quicker opening.

Not so fast, my friend.

You see, plans are important, and they will make everything go more smoothly and save time and money. But there’s also such thing as over-planning where so much time is spent analyzing drawings, schematics, paint chips, vendor lists, equipment manufacturers, potential competitors, potential partners, and so on that you never get around to actually doing anything. And if you never open the doors then you never start generating revenue.

So many things look differently when the work actually begins, especially when remodeling an old building. What’s behind the walls does not necessarily correspond to the architectural drawing, interior design ideas look different on the wall as opposed to on the design board, and wines that have great reviews may not work upon being tasted. My favorite story is I kept badgering my contractor about how he wanted to make decisions on many of the cosmetic items at ten o’clock in the morning. My contention was we were going to be a night business and things look totally different at night under the lights than on a sunny summer morning. My advantage since I live in the building is I would wander down at night and just take the place in. It’s amazing the difference artificial light and shadows make to how a place looks and feels.

So many of the plans changed as the work actually happened, and anyone who’s ever built anything knows that doing, undoing and redoing is where the real waste of money comes into play.

In the world of software development it’s called Agile development. Agile development is where you decide what you want the finished product to be and start building it using short development cycles called Sprints. At the end of each Sprint (each one being 2-3 weeks in duration) everyone sits down, reviews the progress, solidifies the next sprint and the work continues. This way at the end of the last sprint you have something that’s nearly finished. The other way – called a watershed approach – painstakingly lays out the entire project before beginning.

The key point is no matter how much time and effort you spend planning once the building starts you’re going to discover things different from the plan. What’s on paper just doesn’t always translate to reality. This is where staying true to the vision and knowing what the finished product is supposed to do is imperative but the road getting there is filled with change.

I would say with LBV it was a bit of a mix. For one thing I had to have some of the architectural design complete in order to pass the city’s project review. Plus I had to have some idea what this thing was going to cost and be able to hold people to their estimates. And yes, I had overruns and it went over budget but almost without exception each one caused the finished product to be better and true to the vision.

But along with other lessons learned, the “let’s look at things at night” one is a keeper. Next time I’ll have all decision-making meetings at 10PM.

Next: Episode 4: It’s sometimes better to be lucky

The LBV Chronicles

2010-01-17T13:24:00.003-05:00

Episode 2: The interview

“So tell me Jimmy, what made you decide to start a Soul band in Dublin?” Jimmy Rabbitte

Jimmy Rabbitte’s self-interview in the movie “The Commitments” was masterful, so I figured it would work here. The great thing about interviewing yourself is you get to ask the questions you want to answer. So what follows is a list of the most common questions I’ve gotten about starting the business plus some that I think should be asked.

So Greg, what made you start a business?
It was self defense. I was sitting on an empty building with no prospects of selling it and slim prospects of leasing it. I needed to generate some revenue and if it wasn’t coming from someone else then I guess it was going to come from me. I tried whining about it but my goldfish seemed unsympathetic.

Was having a wine bar always a dream of yours?
No, not really. Oh, I always thought it would be cool to own a bar. And if I had one I wanted it be unique, fun and different. But a wine bar? Not necessarily. Wine is like so many things, you think you know something about a subject until you meet people who REALLY know about it. Whereas I probably know more about wine than a lot of people, I don’t know a fraction that some of the people I’ve met know.

No, I used my product management expertise to look around town and see what we didn’t have and came up with three things that could co-exist and were personally interesting. Those were a classic wine bar, a great cigar store and a place to have after-dinner desserts and drinks.

Didn’t starting a new business in the depths of economic disaster scare you?
Scared wouldn’t be accurate. Terrified would probably be closer to the mark.

Actually once the decision was made the fear subsided. Probably because there was never enough time to think about it and partly because there’s great power in action. Goethe said, “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”

OK, maybe a bit cerebral for someone like me, how about John Wayne, “Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway”

Did you have any experience with something like this?
None whatsoever, but that didn’t really bother me. I’ve spent my entire career being thrown into things of which I had no previous knowledge, new companies, new technologies, new disciplines, new cities, new countries. I’ve become almost immune to worrying about being ignorant. Of course, maybe I’m just not smart enough to realize how risky that attitude is.

Was getting a liquor license difficult?
Yes…and no. The state created a new license designed for redevelopment situations. Not only did I have to qualify but the city (Brighton Michigan) had to also qualify. I was fortunate that my city has embraced these and was able to provide me great support and guidance. Then I just had to follow the path. There were some classic head-scratching political hoops to jump through but to be absolutely fair I found the people within the Michigan Liquor Control Commission (MLCC) to be helpful, friendly and fair.

What are the most common compliments you get?
“This is exactly what we’ve needed around here”. “I love the atmosphere”. “Great wine list” “Great people”

What’s the most common criticism?
“It’s not big enough”

So, why didn’t you make it bigger?
The building was done it two parts. The original part – where the bar is – is a remodeled ex-gas station. It’s relatively small inside but has a great look for what we wanted to create from an image standpoint. It also has a great patio area. The “new” section that was built later is much larger but doesn’t have access to the patio area.

Part of the decision was practical. I felt the patio was essential and the smaller space would equate to a smaller initial investment. Although the move to do this was bold I wasn’t willing to take on the risk of taking on the entire space plus I had found someone to lease the larger area.

How did you find your people?
Well, how the person that became the managing partner came about is discussed in a later episode, so we’ll save that one. The others came primarily from Craig’s List. Evidently that’s the gold standard for this industry.

I’m very happy with the staff. They’re good, honest, hard working and fun. I really like being around them and the customers love them.

Did it turn out like you expected?
Yes…and no. Yes in that it has a really great look and feel to it like I expected it would. No in that it’s WAY better than I envisioned.

Knowing what you know now would you do it again?
Absolutely! I would just do it quicker. I spent a lot of time dawdling while hoping the building would sell. I now wish I would have moved swifter and opened earlier. However, in an upcoming episode I’ll discuss why that might have ended up not working out as well.

What would you do differently next time?
I’m going to discuss that later.

Why do you keep putting answers off? I already know what you’ve written.
Yes, but I might change my mind.

Whatever. Thanks for your time Greg.
You’re welcome.

Next: Episode 3: Decisions, decisions everywhere

The LBV Chronicles

2010-01-11T23:01:00.003-05:00

Episode 1: The beginning of the beginning

“But all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time.” Mitch Albom

In late October 2009 Leaf, Barley & Vine opened to the public (http://www.leafbarleyvine.com/). Spring boarding off my Tales from an XOD blog I’ve decided to write about the experience. Partly to capture key points in case I ever want to do it again, partly to share the lessons learned, partly to put salve on some of the wounds, and partly to amuse myself. Actually reverse the order.

Episode 1 is a preamble to set the stage.

In 1999 I got talked into buying a decrepit ex-gas station/transmission shop which was subsequently remodeled and in which my late wife Bonnie opened her business. Once completed we often talked about what a cool wine bar it would make given its European motif and its large patio area. But her business caught the wave and liquor licenses were tough to come by so over the next eight years her business expanded and thrived. The adjoining property was bought, the building expanded and a cool loft apartment that was built above. Things progressed until Bonnie was diagnosed with cancer in 2004 and the business was shut down in April 2008 prior to her passing away that September.

When Bonnie was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma in June 2004 – accurately described as a “treatable but incurable” cancer – the plan was to sell the business, sell the building and enjoy as much time as possible trying to cram 30 years into a handful. Through a series of events – some evil, some naïve, some unfortunate – neither the business nor the building got sold. Eradicating the business was straight-forward. The inventory was sold off, bills were paid and there was even a surplus. The building was much more problematic.

The aftermath of losing a spouse, friend, partner and compass was one of getting through the holidays with the kids and I offering essential support to each other. But once into January 2009 I was faced with a fact that had all the finesse of a ball peen hammer between the eyes. I had totally missed my opportunity to sell the building prior to the collapse of the economy, which was felt more here in Michigan than any other state,

Winter is tough in a lot of places. Here in Southeastern Michigan it’s brutal. It’s cold, dark, cloudy, has too much snow but not enough to make it a “winter wonderland” I’m personally amazed there’s not more suicides around here, but I figure people in that mood just drive around Detroit for a couple of hours and become a victim. Much better for insurance purposes.

So it’s January. I’m sitting on a cold, empty building that probably won’t sell and will be tough to burn.

This is where I found myself one year ago today

Next: Episode 2: The Interview

That's a wrap

2009-12-10T14:15:00.005-05:00

“When ideas fail, words come in very handy.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I’m going to put a wrap on this year’s blog posts. I have a lot I want to say but to be frank with you I’m worn out. I’m going to spend the next couple of weeks recharging and renewing. I’ve broken most of my own rules about networking, friendship and family and I’m going to spend some time renewing those.

I’m also going to start drafting what I’m calling the LBV Chronicles. As I’ve mentioned I’ve started a new business and I’m going to tie many of the posts from the last couple of years into my experiences of getting this venture out of the nest.

I figure the chronicles will take anywhere from six to ten episodes to do properly and I want to draft them all out so there’s no big gaps. That plays into another promise to myself to not be so sporadic with my posting next year.

They should be interesting. They have advice followed and advice ignored, sensibility and senselessness, hope and despair. There’s no sex (unfortunately) and no bloodshed (yet) but there’s passion and intrigue.

So until January have a safe and happy Christmas and Holiday Season. Be good to your family and your friends and most of all be good to yourself.

Greg

Goodbye Neil Young

2009-12-05T12:25:00.003-05:00

“It’s better to burn out than it is to rust” Neil Young

What a year! Learning to live without Bonnie, another grandchild, starting a new business, it seems like enough to last a decade not a year.

Winter and the end of the calendar year is a time of reflection. What I’ve been thinking about on my morning runs while plugged into my iPod is what music did I listen to during this tumultuous time?

Last winter while sitting on an empty building and an empty soul I was listening to a lot of Neil Young. I’m sure most of you know Neil either through his early Buffalo Springfield, CSNY, and Crazy Horse years or since then as a solo performer.

Neil was a good listen for me. For those who don’t know his music let’s just say he can take a normally happy-go-lucky person and make them clinically depressed. Or he can take a clinically depressed person and make them suicidal – enter Kurt Cobain.

As I was lying under the porch licking my wounds Neil would wallow down there with me. His “Homegrown”, “Rust Never Sleeps” and “Sleeps with Angels” albums were perfect companions for that long, cold winter and provided ample reason to shake that third martini.

Come spring it was time to make the “get busy living or get busy dying” decision and decide whether or not to go forward with the wine bar idea, get my fat ass back into shape and reunite myself with the person that looked back at me in the mirror each morning.

As I committed to each of these I found Neil to be a burden. For one thing he was hard to run with. I’m not very swift to begin with, the last thing I needed was to lug around heavy metal melancholy. I found the Eagles, a mix of 60’s tunes, and Jimmy Buffett much better company.

As the bar materialized, my running and diet parlayed into some significant weight loss and my outlook on life improved my distance from Neil increased until I realized that until I sat down to write this entry that I hadn’t thought of him, much less listened to him, in several months.

It’s kind of the same thing in the business world. You align yourself with people that are necessary depending on time and circumstance. Sometimes they become partners and allies that last over several careers. Sometimes they are only a part of your circle for a project or an assignment. Sometimes you wake up and realize that they, like Neil, have too much baggage and they’re slowing you down. Tough calls to make sometimes and it doesn’t mean they didn’t play an important role at the time.

Just like Neil did for me last winter.

Not Fair

2009-11-16T14:25:00.002-05:00

“Life is not fair, get used to it” Bill Gates

I’ve taken a little sabbatical from blogging and I thank the many fans who have pinged me wondering if I was ok (well, if two constitutes many).

I’ve been in the process of starting a new business, which I will fill you in on when I get a chance to properly construct a blog about it. It may have to be in multiple parts so I’ll use this as a tease.

This new venture has involved banks, architects, designers, contractors, partners, vendors, distributors, family and friends. That is, all the elements that makes people crazy.

Over the course of the last three months I’ve heard the term “fair” many times. Used in context it sounds like this; “The bazillion dollars I quoted you to paint that wall is a fair price”. Or, “it’s not fair that you’re buying so much of your inventory from Vendor X instead of me”. Or, “The appraisal on your building in this economy is a fair one”.

What I’ve observed is what someone considers to be fair means that it’s fair to them and not necessarily to anyone else. In fact I can’t think of a single instance during this science experiment of mine where that observation hasn’t been true. So it got me watching life and times outside of my sphere to see if it’s more global.

Let’s see.

“It’s not fair!” - Bank of America executives on forced pay cuts”

“It's not fair,” - man who was arrested for publishing a Do It Yourself terrorism book.

“It’s not fair” – man indicted of embezzling his clients money after a judge froze his assets.

“It’s not fair” – ex-mayor of Detroit Kwame Kilpatrick when ordered to pay the fines levied against him from his felony conviction.

Yep, seems to be universal.

I’m not sure as a society that we’re any less fair minded than in times past. There has always been the “if it’s fair to me then its fair” mentality. I think it’s hugely human nature but it sure does make doing business more difficult. And it’s a bit discomfiting because in order to pull things back to center square with someone who’s being overly fair for themselves you are forced to do the same thing.

Ah well maybe Benjamin Disraeli had it right when he said “my idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.”

Livin' the Island Life

2009-10-03T19:23:00.004-04:00

“Don't worry Wilson, I'll do all the paddling. You just hang on.” Chuck Noland

I spent a large amount of time last night talking with a good friend who’s in the process of starting a new business. It’s a bold move in a shaky economy but he’s highly committed and way past the point of no return. Everything is coming together, sort of, and he should up and running before the end of the year.

His angst is he has played “you bet your future” with this venture and although surrounded with really good people that he’s hand picked the realization that he’s, to use his phrase, “on the island by myself” is overwhelming him. The fact that everyone else is one bad mood away from waltzing away and leaving him stranded at this critical stage is eating at him right now.

It’s a tough spot. On one hand he wants to be the one in control, especially since it’s his money. On the other he wants people to be as committed as he is. I suggested he offer a piece of the action to those most key to his success. His counter was that offering a percentage of the business is fine, but if it’s merely “given” then there’s still no incentive to hang in - nothing in, nothing out, net zero.

OK, so make it be earned based upon benchmarks of success.

His counter, that’s good too but how does that help assure they’ll stay during this brutal start-up process.

OK, how about cash incentives for all the current effort.

Counter: “I’m doing this out of my own pocket, there’s just not a lot of extra cash”

Hmm….so ultimately this comes down to faith, guts and character. If his hand picked key people believe in his vision, know that he’s risking a large piece of life and wealth and trust that they will, in fact, realize pieces of the success of the business then there’s a good chance they’ll play the key roles he’s depending on both now and later.

If some (or all) of those elements are missing then all bets are off and my friend had better start figuring out some back up plans still knowing that new people will bring the same uncertainty and heartburn with them.

Funny, being in control a lot of times is everything but.

Building the Perfect Beast

2009-09-17T22:14:00.003-04:00

"There is no glory in otustripping donkeys." Marcus Valerius Martialis

I wrote a while back about one of my personal and professional afflictions.

Pleaser’s Dilemma

One of the side effects of this affliction is the residual damage caused from the accumulation of weight while lugging all these “stones” around every day. The analogy would be small stones on the back of an ass. Each one is insignificant but there comes a time where the one you pack on breaks the back of the beast.

I had this happen the other day where a seemingly insignificant event sparked a meltdown that took me and, for sure, the people around me totally off guard. One of the problems with being a perpetual nice guy (yes, I really am a nice guy….really. No really) is when the dark side immerses no one really knows what to do with it. Me included.

So, I had myself locked in my cage for a couple of days in order to take everything apart, examine, clean and put back together with some reinforced pieces.

As I stated in Pleaser’s Dilemma I have no interest in changing the beast itself because it’s how I’m wired. See Hard Wired. But I do need to make the beast stronger as well learn to not pack on so many stones.

It’s funny, while locked away and tearing everything apart I was amused with how I knew the meltdown was close and actually made a weak attempt to bail out of the obligation that caused the spark that caused the meltdown. However, had I done that the meltdown would have only been temporarily delayed, not eliminated. Somehow I need to figure out a preventive maintenance program.

So, if you find yourself carrying too many stones, too often and too far and have found an effective way to both strengthen and reduce let me know the program.

In the meantime I’m going to test my new, stronger, reinforced beast by going back to the innocent bystanders that got blistered by my meltdown and offer to carry their stones around for a while.

One Year Later

2009-09-12T20:55:00.009-04:00

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” Maria Robinson

One year ago today my family and my friends laid my wife Bonnie to rest at a little country cemetery in Southern Indiana. Interesting is that it's the farming community where I grew up not hers. But I think she always loved the beauty and serenity of the rolling southern Indiana countryside.

There's no proper adjective to describe the last 365 days. The lowest of lows, the darkest of dark, the coldest of cold combined with the discovery (and rediscovery) of the strength of family and friends and the human ability to heal and regenerate. The remembrance and regret, the fond memories and pain, the reflection and celebration all combine to paint a complex mosaic.

I walk into Year 2 ready to celebrate the past and embrace the future. Life is truly an adventure which means it's not a spectator sport. Bonnie was never a spectator, it's one of the many great lessons I learned from her.

Please see my post from last year, I still consider it one of my best.

Remembering Bonnie

Hard Wired

2009-09-10T18:30:00.004-04:00

"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves." Carl Jung

I have for time eternal used the phrase “wired” to describe people’s actions.

What I mean by this is that I believe people have internal elements that make them act consistently in given situations. I’ve known people that would lie even though the situation didn’t demand or warrant it. I’ve known people who will always argue a counter point even though there’s no cause. Or people who consistently blame others for their problems.

With these people I will normally shrug and say “they’re wired that way”.

I’ve also known people that if you handed them $100,000 in hundred dollar bills and asked them to take care of it for “a year or two” that when you returned not only would the money be there but it would be the exact same hundred dollar bills. Or people who will help out regardless of the hour or reason. Or people that when they make a commitment you never think about it again because you know it will be handled as promised.

With these people I will smile and say “they’re wired that way”.

The longer I’m around the more I’m convinced of this is the most reliable method for predicting how people will react in situations. If you can determine how a person is wired you will know with almost certainty how they will react.

The key is you have to pay attention and not let your feelings (good or bad) for that person cloud what you’re seeing.

I’ve made this mistake more times than I’m willing to admit (on my own blog site anyway). I will see a person in enough situations to know how they’re wired but because of emotion, time constraints, apathy, et al I will ignore the obvious and either get burned because I knew they were wired to do the negative or irritate someone by not allowing them the space to do what they were wired to do.

So, start watching how people around you are wired, it’s really pretty easy once you start paying attention.

And by the way, spend a little time on yourself.

They're cute when they're young

2009-09-01T05:21:00.002-04:00

“Nothing can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own." Sidney J. Harris

By virtue of having always been in the technology business I have forever worked around young people. When I was young so was everyone else since the whole industry was young. Oh, I once had a boss who was forty, but he was an anomaly. As I grew older the young people, who now could actually go to school to be in the business, started packing in behind me and slowly me and my contemporaries became the minority as well as the ancient.

This has been good in so many ways. Young people bring so much energy and possess fearlessness that hasn’t yet been extracted from them. They bring new vision and new thoughts and new music and new language. They see things so differently.

Because of all this I’ve always felt younger than my age but I suppose many of us do as we reach “middle age”. But when you have to show up every day and work and hang with young people and then work for young people you get to make a choice.

Adapt and embrace or fight and fail.

I’m finding many of my old buddies slipping more and more into the fight and fail category. Not because they can’t adapt, not because they can’t keep up and not because they don’t have the juice anymore. See Old and Bold.

No, it’s mainly because they’re tired of having the exact same conversation on the exact same subject for the 9,487th time. Almost always with some Wunderkind who’s convinced they’ve found some problem so totally new and so totally different that no dinosaur from the age of mainframes could ever “get it”.

The problem is we “get it” too well since we’ve probably solved this type problem a thousand different times. So we tend to roll our eyes, sigh, give a 30 word explanation for solution and try to get on to other things. But Kid Wonder cannot accept that his totally unique situation can have such a straight-forward (and usually fairly simple) solution.

Arrogance vs. Apathy. And then the fight began

Part of the problem, as I’ve stated, is if you go back to our beginnings we were young but so was everyone else so we didn’t have the age barrier issues. Thus we never really adapted ourselves to young vs. old dynamics. Everyone was screaming at everyone else because we all, naturally, were right and we just had to get the others to shut up and listen.

So, yeah, we old’ns need to do a better job of catering to the ego of Boy Blunder. We need to frown and rub our temples, squint our eyes and proclaim that this, indeed, is a tough one and that we may need a few days to research and contemplate.

Nothing a week at Pebble Beach (on the company) probably wouldn’t solve.

The Capital of Talent

2009-08-20T22:06:00.002-04:00

“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I could say, ‘I used everything you gave me’” Erma Bombeck

I love Thursday nights. Thursday is when, more often than not, I meet up with a few local buddies and have a couple of drinks and a cigar. They’re a great group, all local business people with long ties to the community. They’re funny and passionate about life and just a real pleasure to be around.

It’s not unusual that one of my Friday Quotes comes out of these little therapy sessions but tonight I got a real gem.

Since we’d already solved most of the big life problems we were on to more mundane things like entertainers. During this my friend George said, “You know, talent is a funny thing. You use it, people pay for it, and then you still have it”.

What?

Let's play that again, "You use it, people pay for it, and then you still have it".

Since then, without success, I’ve been trying to come up with any piece of capital that can proclaim this.

Use, receive, keep”

Wow.

So, let me try to get my feeble little mind around this. The most important asset you can possess is talent because the more you use it the more you realize the capital of it and the more you still have it.

So then, the key is to develop your talent – whatever that talent is – to the fullest extent. The more talent – or collection of talents – you have the more capital you can obtain but you still have it afterwards.

Where was this class in school?????

Why am I listening to untalented people, none of whom have read the damned bill, debate health care when what we should be focusing on is how to promote talent?

Talent is what the country should be focusing on. Talent is what your state should be focusing on. Talent is what your business should be focusing on.

Talent is what you should be focusing on.

Can I get a hand here, Captain?

2009-08-16T09:38:00.003-04:00

“So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.” Peter Drucker

Late Friday night I was in zombie zone after a long, hard, draining week. Not wanting to flop in bed too early for fear of popping awake in the middle of the night I decided to find something mind numbing on TV. And there it was a Season 1 episode of Star Trek. Who says you can’t find anything to watch with 732 satellite channels.

This was a really early one before Scotty and Sulu where all characters except Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Uhura were strictly death scene bait.

I was struck by how bad the acting really was and how cheesy the effects were but as I watched more I decided it was hard to tell how bad the acting was because of how bad the writing and directing was.

And then the money shot scene (as far as being a catalyst for this post, anyway).

The alien character was split between a “good” one and a “bad” one who were battling each other. Pretty normal stuff. Near the end the “good” alien convinces Kirk he can lure the “bad” one into an area where he can be captured. All he has to do is alter some of the controls on his small space vehicle. When Kirk asks if he can do it the alien says (here’s the good part). “Yes, captain, with your help I think I can do it”. Fade Scene.

New Scene. Alien is up to his neck in wires and modules and Kirk is leisurely leaning against the craft chatting him up. Not holding a spare part, a flashlight, a user manual. ((You can insert your state's DOT stories anywhere along withe way here.) Hell, he could have at least had a bottle of turtle wax and been buffing the panel of the spacecraft with his velour shirt.

Big help. Thanks Jim.

Jeez, how many times have we all had this happen? More importantly, how many times have we been Kirk?

A buddy of mine used to have a great poster of these cowboys riding hell for leather down a hill toward a river with the caption, “Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way”.

Or maybe if you’re the captain it’s “Lead, Loaf, or Lean”.

OK, let's try this one more time

2009-08-10T21:46:00.002-04:00

"The reason I talk to myself is that I'm the only one whose answers I accept." George Carlin

I got what’s become my weekly call from an old friend and acquaintance that’s on the job market. It was pretty much déjà vu all over again. No, not that another talented person lost their job, but that another long time friend who I hadn’t spoken to in many months broke The Strouse Manifesto which reads, “The two times you call everyone you’ve ever known is when you get a job and when you lose a job”. He had waited almost two months before getting started. The other part of the Manifesto reads, “Oh, and for the love of God, don’t wait until you lose your job to call people you know”.

Another buddy and I were talking about this over dinner tonight. There’s become this list of mutual friends where our conversations go like this:

Me: “Hey, guess who I got a call from today?”
Him: “Who?”
Me: Jimmy Billy Bob Joe MacDaddy
Him” “Whadda he want?”

Yep, they’ve become a cliché. The only time you ever hear from them is when they want something. The phone call or email come in from good ‘ol Jimmy Billy Bob and you roll your eyes knowing he’s out on the street and now is doing his “networking”.

Networking is a full-time gig and requires calls where you really do only want to know how the other person is doing, or you’re calling to make them aware of someone else being on the street, or you can’t remember if their daughter is graduating this year or next.

Now, let me be evenhanded, you can’t possibly stay in touch with everyone all the time. It’s not reasonable or practical and we’ve all called people strictly because we want something. I'm as guilty as everyone else and I'm sure there's people who will read this and label me a hypocrite. But when over the course of a couple of decades that’s the only time, well, you become a cliché.

People, I’ve preached this before (Tough Talk). Networks are funny things, easy to start, hard to perfect and can be lost from neglect.

So, start today, make a list and start contacting people just to say hello and find out how they’re doing. Note: How they are doing, not you, them.

There’s more but I really have call a couple of people tonight before it gets too late.

WWTD

2009-08-06T11:23:00.006-04:00

When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: 'Whose?' Don Marquis

A friend was telling me about his latest escapade in the working world where his large company, that became larger by buying his previous large company, was being bought by a yet larger (largerer?) company. The new company uber-large company was promising great and marvelous things….for the investors, and thus were promising 70% downsizing to the rank-in-file.

So my buddy is dutifully going through the job search drill trying to beat the buzzer.

When I asked him how he was holding up his reply was “WWTD”.

“WWTD?”

“Will Work Till Death”

Ah-Ha and Amen.

I read an article a while back that stated that my parents generation – Depression era/ WWII – are the only group in the history of civilization that will get to “Retire”. Prior to them people just worked until they couldn’t go anymore then depended on family members to put them up for their remaining days which was usually a short amount of time.

My parents are in their mid-eighties, in good health, been retired since sixty-five, and are scared to death of running out of money. No one born in the 1920’s dreamed of living so long.

Now come the Boomers, followed by the Gen-X and Gen-Y folks and who knows how long “normal” life spans become and how much dough it’ll take to live outside of squalor.

But I know this, I’m not counting on company retirement plans (hell, the last company I worked for that had one was in the ‘70’s), Social Security (snort), Government programs (snort, snort) or professional investment groups (sn…nevermind).

Nope, WWTD is my slogan (unless I win that Mega Millions jackpot).

Old and Bold

2009-07-29T07:59:00.002-04:00

“There are old pilots and bold pilots, but no old, bold pilots”

Those of us in the business world shouldn’t have to abide by that old Air Force adage but in a lot of ways we do.

A buddy sent me the follow article - Labeled

The fact is there’s getting to be a large number of us “experienced” veterans out there and we all are running into the overqualified stigma on an escalating scale. Probably the strangest element is the person sitting on the other side of the desk saying those words is often someone who would be labeled the same way if they were on the street.

You can almost understand it when it’s some droopy-eyed, wet-eared, thirty-something kid. I mean, after all, they still know everything so how could someone with 40 years of experience be of any value? Hell, we’re all worn out.

To be fair I find it ironic to be part of a generation that absolutely believed that anyone over the age of thirty was not to be trusted. More to the point, we didn’t really believe we’d live past the age of 30. (See Logan’s Run). I find it amusing when I listen to young people today talk about how uncertain the world is as I think back to the drills we had in school teaching us to kneel under the desk for when the thermo-nuclear attack from Russia came raining down.

But I digress.

I talk with many of my contemporaries about this dilemma and hear the same thing over and over. “My kids are grown, I have a lot left in the tank, I’m no longer interested in being the CEO, I don’t need the massive paycheck, I’d love to find a situation doing something interesting and have a position with some relevance where I could have some fun and use some of this talent I possess.”

Wow, could anyone out there use someone like that?

The fear on the hiring side is that us old guys:

Won’t be able to keep up
Aren’t capable of understanding “this new stuff”
Won’t be happy with a lesser position than they’ve had in the past
Will be unhappy with a lesser paycheck
Won’t fit in with a younger culture
Will require the company cafeteria to load up on bland food

Let’s see? Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, maybe.

There’s a lot of useful talent out there that’s ready, willing and able to help you and your company. Don’t want to take the chance of hiring some long-tooth in? Contract them for a project or a time limit. Do a bit of a test drive to see how things work out. If it’s not working after 90 days, cut it. If it’s working after six months put a package together.

But be careful. You might learn something.

Trap Doors

2009-07-23T10:51:00.002-04:00

“To ask the hard question is simple” W.H. Auden

Having dinner with my son he was relating a meeting he’d recently had with the person his boss reports to. During the course of the conversation this ranking executive asked him how he was getting along with a particular co-worker. My son was brought in to this particular location to fix a problem with a particular department. This co-worker was the previous owner of this department and subsequently a large cause of the problem he was there to fix.

The co-worker had been moved to the Human Resources position (insert your favorite HR comment here) and had subsequently set out to use this position to try to make my son’s life miserable and was succeeding quite nicely.

The particular question was “do you feel your past with this person would affect you two from working together again in the future?”

My son answered, “I would never let past differences with anyone affect how I professionally deal with them, however, I can’t speak for how it may affect their ability to work with me”.

Nice answer to a “trap door” question.

Trap door questions are those that are almost impossible to answer correctly if you answer them honestly (Do you still beat your wife?), yet shuffling around the answer too much comes off sounding false.

Occasionally trap door questions are innocent and are hard to answer because they are ill-framed. But usually they are very purposeful and asked exactly as trap questions. The reasons to ask trap questions is to either test the person to see how they respond or to, in fact, trap them into an answer you can use against them.

I asked my son which motive he though was behind this one and he said he honestly didn’t know but would guess he was being tested more than trapped. Either way he gave a good, clean answer.

This is hard to do and I’m pretty proud of him.

Trap questions are very difficult. They’re not like interview questions where you’re somewhat braced for about any type of question. They usually come out of nowhere and are followed by the questioner leaning forward, getting out their magnifying glass and turning on the 1000 watt lamp.

This makes them very difficult to prepare for.

Of course, you could always have your own version of Inspector Clouseau’s house boy Cato who springs out from behind cubicle walls unexpectedly and asks you random trap door type questions so you can stay in practice.

The Pleaser's Dilemma

2009-07-14T13:34:00.003-04:00

"There just isn't any pleasing some people. The trick is to stop trying" Robert Mitchum

I was having drinks with an acquaintance who has become a friend. It was one of those discovery sessions where, through mutual war stories, we got to know a lot more about the other. Must be what women experience but without the f-bombs and leering at the barmaids.

One of the common elements we discovered I call the Pleasers Dilemma. This is where you end up making bad decisions because you want people to like you. This, as you might suspect, works great when the other person shares the same trait. Not so much with people who are devious, sinister, self-absorbed, dumb, naïve or pure evil; in other words, most of the world.

From a business standpoint we have both been morally and financially screwed over multiple times by not being demanding enough. We both tend to error on playing on the other person’s side of the half-way line way too much and way too often.

The more we traded war stories the more upset we got at how bloody often we’d gotten the short end of the stick by being this way and used the experience as a vehicle to self-admonish and promise to stop being so over-giving and start eliminating these clients from our lives.

So, I immediately went out and did an agreement that I instantly regretted and will regret for every minute I’m obligated to it strictly by being too accommodating..

Damn!

Damn, Damn!!

If you too suffer from this affliction take solace from the fact that there are more of us out there. Maybe we can start some support group or something. “Hi, my name is Greg and I give in too easily”. “Hi, Greg!”

I’m really trying to cure myself without flipping all the way over to becoming an unbending, unreasonable butt-head, but the moderation thing doesn’t seem to be working very well for me. Out of self-preservation I may need to get comfortable with the dark side.

If you’ve been able to find this balance let me know how you did it. If you’re still struggling with it let me know the things you’ve tried and why they didn’t work. If you’re a recipient of my charity, well, a simple thanks will do.

Automate This!

2009-07-01T17:04:00.003-04:00

“As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it.” – Dick Cavett

“Hello, you have reached our automated call attendant. Para la prensa 2 del español. Pour la presse 3 de Français. 為中國人新聞4. Για τον ελληνικό Τύπο 5. На русское давление 6. Para a imprensa 7 do português. Für deutsche Presse 8. Per la pressa italiana 9.

For English please stay on the line and one of our representatives from IndiIriPakiUkraniStan will help you.”

*sigh*

All I wanted was a Big Mac and a Coke.

So, it hasn’t gotten this bad – yet – but I’m convinced it’s coming quickly. And no, I’m really not against globalization. Just the opposite, by virtue of having circled the globe a few times I’m probably more ahead of the “We Are the World” curve than most of you.

What I’m against is lousy customer service. I’m against paying for service and not getting it. I have kids who are stuck in the “me generation” but I don’t want to deal with companies who are. I’ll pay more for service if I get it but I’m quickly waltzing away from companies who are more interested in paying less for each customer service call than they are for providing actual service. That’s what I’m against.

What I’m for is better business intelligence.

Profile away if it will help me get through the Airport, ATM, or any other line quicker, If you can profile when I call that I’m a dumb Hoosier who can barely speak English much less anything tricky like French and you route my call to someone in Terre Haute I’m a happy guy. If when I plug my card into the ATM it immediately asks me in English “Do you want your normal amount? I’m a happy guy. If I can walk into an airport, show them my finger, eye, tattoo, whatever and be sent on to the gate, I’m a happy guy.

You see, I’m a boring guy. I have nothing interesting going on so go ahead and watch me, listen in to my phone calls, track my internet, whatever but bring plenty of strong coffee ‘cause you’re going to be B-O-R-E-D out of your G-O-U-R-D.

Look, I get it. I really do. You have to make a profit along the way. I’m with you on that boat. But figure out if you’re cheaping your way into trouble by chasing your clients away.

I’ll leave you with a little thing that my good friend and former globetrotting buddy Tyler Allman sent me once upon a time. Anyone who’s traveled to foreign soil – Europe, Asia Pacific, South America, Florida or California – has probably had something like this happen.

A Call to Room Service
Room Service: Morny. Rune-sore-bees.
Hotel Guest: Oh, sorry. I thought I dialed Room Service.
RS: Rye, rune-sore-bees. Morny. Djewish to odor sunteen?
HG: Uh... yes. I'd like some bacon and eggs.
RS: Ow July then?
HG: What?
RS: Aches. Ow July then? Pry, boy, pooch...?
HG: Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry. Scrambled please.
RS: Ow July thee baycome? Crease?
HG: Crisp will be fine.
RS: Okay. Santos?
HG: What?
RS: Santos. July Santos?
HG: Ugh. I don't know... I don't think so.
RS: No. Judo one toes?
HG: Look, I feel really bad about this, but I don't know what "judo one toes" means. I'm sorry.
RS: Toes! Toes! Why djew Don Juan toes? Ow bow cenglish mopping we bother?
HG: English muffin! I've got it! You were saying toast! Fine. An English muffin will be fine.
RS: We bother?
HG: No. Just put the bother on the side.
RS: Wad?
HG: I'm sorry. I meant butter. Butter on the side.
RS: Copy?
HG: I feel terrible about this but...
RS: Copy. Copy, tea, mill...
HG: Coffee! Yes, coffee please. And that's all.
RS: One Minnie. Ass rune torino fee, strangle aches, crease baycome, tossy cenglish mopping we bother honey sigh, and copy. Rye?
HG: Whatever you say.
RS: Okay. Tendjewberrymud.
HG: You're welcome

How Dumb Are These Guys? - Part II

2009-06-24T16:22:00.003-04:00

“Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege” Unknown

Living in Michigan I have watched with mixed degrees of smirkish humor and queasy-stomach horror the recent soap opera that has produced GM (Government Motors) and Chrysler now being owned by that epitome of car quality Fiat (Fix It Again Tony).

I hear on the news that some sections of the country are beginning to show signs of recovery, but not here where we’re working under the FILO system.

But undaunted I trekked up into Northern Michigan with 39 other guys last weekend for an annual golf outing – well, annual for most of them, it was my first time with this group. It was a great time and a great bunch of guys, most of whom are native Michiganders. And yes, that’s the real term. And no, being a native Hoosier I can’t make fun of any other state moniker.

If you’re a golfer you really must put a Northern Michigan trip on your list. Absolutely some of the greatest courses you’ll ever play and lots of them. And since the season is only about 3 weeks long they’re always in great condition.

So, we’re having this great weekend with our 10 foursomes of pretty typical golf guys, that is, bad golf (but lots of it), unhealthy food (but lots of it), bad jokes (but lots of them) and drinking (but….hey, wait a minute). The drinking was way down. We didn’t have to call the Emergency Mobile AA Unit even once. What’s the deal?

Well the deal was the courses had a skeleton crew of beverage carts out. For those who don’t play golf, courses will put these golf carts out equipped with ice, beer, sodas, booze, food, et al. They have one purpose, to sell golfers more stuff, all of it with high margins. You know, a fifty cent can of beer for $4, kinda like the airlines. The one course had ONE cart covering two 18-hole courses.

The other unique thing about Northern Michigan golf courses is they’re cut out of wilderness so you don’t come by the clubhouse after the front nine. The one course had you drive your cart about a half-mile to start and then was over a mile back in when you finished number eighteen.

When I asked one of the workers about it the answer was “we’re cutting back because business is off”. Let’s see, you’re cutting back on the highest margin part of your business. You already own the beverage carts, you staff them with high school/collage age girls who work mainly for tips. I don’t get it. It’s not like we were the only people out there, there were other groups.

I don’t know but I think I would have had twice as many beverage carts as normal. The worse you play the more you drink and the worse you play and....well, you get the picture.

So I continue to marvel at some of the business decisions being made during this “crisis”. And I still stand on this not coming close to how bad it was during the Jimmy years in the Eighties, but that’s a different debate.

So, as is my policy I’ll ask you. What are you doing? Are you chasing away your existing higher profit business? Are you cutting across the board regardless of it’s impact? Are you analyzing your business or closing your eyes and hoping the putt goes in?

By the way, read "How Dumb Are These Guys? - Part I Here. And don't forget to link to the worlds best airline complaint at the end.

Flatties don't come back

2009-06-16T16:27:00.002-04:00

“The IQ and the life expectancy of the average American recently passed each other going in opposite directions.” George Carlin

Back when I was new to the business world, when research meant going to the library and all information came from reading the newspaper and watching the evening news (one hour only) the Wall Street Journal ran a series of one-page, thought-provoking pieces. Today they would be a blog but this was a couple of decades before Mr. Gore invented the internet.

One that has always stuck with me was titled “We flatties don’t come back”. Flatties is a term used by carnival people (county fair type not cruise line type, though it might apply) to describe their customers. The life of a carny is short-term in every sense and their only goal is to survive this town to go to the next one. They have no interest in “getting to know their customer”. What they want is to extract as much as they can as quick as they can and get on to the next person, place or thing.

The gist of the article was that companies that treat their customers like carnival flatties will one day find themselves without any customers to worry about.

I promised in a recent post to never again complain about the airline industry. So I have this story about a company in the transportation business whose name implies either a variance between two numbers or a swampy region between two rivers in the South.

I used to frequent this transportation company and they once gave me a number in which to keep track of how much I transported myself with them. Let’s call them T1. Now they have bought another transportation company that I have also frequented and thus also have a number. Let’s call them T2.

So T1 wants me to merge my information from T2 into their system. Easy enough except to do so requires a personal identification number. The last time I used T1 for transportation was before personal identification numbers existed. So, since I’ve never had one I have been locked out of their system. No service representative has been able to help, no email has been answered and when I asked for the number of the group that handles these things I was actually told, “You can’t call them. I can’t even call them. We can only communicate with them via email”.

“Can I get their email address?”

“No”

NO ONE GETS IN TO SEE THE WIZARD, NOT NO ONE, NOT NO HOW!!!!

Talk about feeling like a flattie?

So?

How are you doing with your customers? Are they a treasure or a ball and chain? Are they an ally or an enemy? Are they a flattie?

In a time when getting new customers is, as my mother would say, “like pulling hens teeth” the last thing you can afford to do is lose good customers.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

2009-06-08T07:40:00.007-04:00

“The key to being a good manager is keeping those who hate me away from those that are still undecided” Casey Stengel

I had lunch today with a buddy and the topic of managers came up. We both whacked around some of the more spectacular fools we’d gotten to work for over the years but decided that it may be much worse today than in our younger years. Now, that could be because time eases pain and memory. I think it’s also that younger people are more pliable and don’t bruise as easily. But I also think that managers on the whole are not as good as they used to be.

And, I’ll tell you why.

We don’t have apprentices anymore.

It used to be that you’d start a new job and you’d be assigned to someone (a senior, supervisor, etc.) who knew the job and would take you by the hand and teach you the job. Then as positions opened by expansion or void (sometimes….sometimes….wait on it….by retirement) supervisors would become managers, seniors would become supervisors and you’d become a senior. Thus, you worked for people that actually knew what you did because they had themselves done it.

To be fair, that didn’t make them good managers, but it did make them good trainers. And once they got trained at being good managers it got passed along.

Today that entire system is out the window (and has been for a long time in the tech field) as people hop madly around for the next upward step in position and salary. So what we’re left with are administrative placeholders looking for their next hop. They’re new to the company as is their VP and probably CEO all wanting to quickly make their mark so they can swim on to the next island.

What has all this caused?

I was sent this link the other day – Glassdoor – on the 50 lowest rated companies when it comes to employee satisfaction. This comes on top of an Art Petty blog on Evil Leadership and another of my favorite bloggers – Michael Hopkins – and his Customer Service experience from his Lead on Purpose site.

Wow, a new record. Four links in a sinlge paragraph. This should keep you busy enough that I don't need to finish the post.

But, I will anyway.

I guess it should bother me that I have worked for three companies on the Glassdoor list, but it really doesn’t mainly because it gave me so much material for this site. What does bother me is I’ve worked for companies that would have easily made this list had they been big enough to be noticed.

Big or small they each suffered from the same basic deficiencies in management, leadership and regard for their customers. It does, and has always, come from the top.

If you’re in a position of power take the time and steps to make sure your people know who they work for and what they do. If you can’t do it then assign them to a “master tradesman” who can.
Let’s get back to knowing what we do, why we do it, and who we do it for.

(And yes, Mrs. Gilbert, I know I ended that sentence with a preposition).

Tough Talk for Tough Times

2009-06-07T08:13:00.003-04:00

“I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man” Ned Pepper

Living in Michigan I’ve had a front row seat for the demise of the economy and the crushing effect it has on people. Lots of jobs lost and no new ones to be found. What gets lost in the statistics are those situations like one of my friends found himself in this week where his salary was cut by 20% and his car allowance eliminated. Also lost is the mental grind of worrying about losing your job either through downsizing or your company going under. My son-in-law (and thus the rest of the family) finds himself in that situation as his company hovers constantly on the edge. The third category of unreported trauma is highlighted by another old friend who found a new job but only after many, many months of looking and at a salary well below normal.

It was really interesting to digest the conversations I had with these three people.

My friend who has taken a salary reduction remains optimistic and committed to his company and is willing to adjust his lifestyle to deal with what he hopes is a short-term situation.

My son-in-law also remains optimistic but has already used his small, but obviously good, network to find three, yes three, safety nets for new jobs. None of them are perfect; one would require relocation, one mega travel and the third a reduction of income, but nevertheless.

The other old friend who just started the new job spent the entire conversation grousing about how long his commute to work was and how low the salary is although it has good upside with commissions and once trained the ability to work several days a month from home. He expressed no relief to finally getting a job, no excitement for learning a new product and no optimism for performing well and earning commissions.

It caused me to go back to one of early posts Ten Simple Rules. My reduced salary friend seems to be following many of them although I wish he would spend some of his time networking and searching out some safety nets. My son-in-low I’m very proud of as he’s neither bailing out nor standing pat.

The third, however, is very disturbing. Not only will his negativity work against him being successful in this job but it will hurt him going forward. A lot of people, me included, helped him during his dry spell by firing up our networks and promoting him to others. This particular job was secured through the efforts of one of his friends who has a really strong friendship with the hiring manager. In talking with his sponsor (who’s a mutual friend) he has also been subjected to the negativity and is pretty steamed about it.

I’m adding another Bonus Rule to the Ten Simple Rules. Never piss off your network!

Blogging vs. Life

2009-06-02T07:43:00.002-04:00

Never rise to speak until you have something to say, and when you have said it, cease." John Witherspoon

I got a call from an old friend wanting to talk to me about blogging. He’s getting ready to launch a blog through his business site and incorrectly assumed that since I publish a blog that I know something about the subject.

However, I didn’t tell him otherwise and, per usual, starting making things up as we spoke. This is great fun and I get great joy out of occasionally having someone later on say to me “Hey, remember that great advice you gave me several months ago, well I followed it and it worked out great”.

“Really?” “Wow!” Maybe I should pay more attention to what I’m saying, huh?

Anyway, I passed on to him what others passed on to me about creating a blog. Essentially:

Speak about things of which you have knowledge

Concentrate on topics that interest you.

Don’t start it if you’re not committed to continuing it.

Make sure you have enough material in the bank for when the Idea ATM runs dry.

If you’re only purpose is self-promotion, no one will probably pay attention.

Hmmm…now that I think about it that’s a pretty good list to follow for just about anything. Life, work, love, hobbies, et al. Probably if we all followed that little blog roadmap we’d all be better off.

I’ve already written about one of my favorite “corporate” blogs. Catch. Here’s another. Art Petty. Art is a self-admitted blog fanatic and cranks one out on a daily basis. They’re good, topical, focused and he’s certainly committed. Anyone in a management position (or striving to be) should put this one in your favorites.

Drive By Shootings

2009-05-22T09:13:00.002-04:00

Anything is possible if you don't know what you’re talking about. Law of Logical Argument

I’ve said many times that I don’t have many pet peeves, but the few I have are intense. I was reminded of one of them this week when I was assaulted by what I not-so-affectionately call a Drive By Shooting.

A Drive By Shooting is when someone of influence, a boss/partner/spouse, etc, cruises in to a situation where they have spent no time, expressed no prior interest, have no relevant background and no intent on ongoing involvement and within 5 minutes turns everything you’ve worked on for the past umpteen days/weeks/months into a smoldering trash pit.

I’ve talked around things like this before Make it Harder where people who have no intent to dig in and shovel alongside you throw extra dirt on the pile. It’s frustrating, irritating, demoralizing and, in my case, inflammatory.

So, what does one do about it?

Well, if you’re the Shooter…STOP!! Yeah, I know you’re more intelligent, have more insight, have a clearer vision, can instantly grasp any situation because you are, after all, Joe (or Josette) Cool. But remember the adage about the monkeys in the tree. When the monkey on top looks down it sees smiling faces, whereas when the monkeys below look up all they see is an asshole.

If you’re a lower limb monkey, well that’s more problematic. It depends on lots of factors.

How ADD is the Shooter? If they’re someone who chases every shiny object then your chances are good that they either won’t come back around until everything’s done and the paint is dry, or if they do they won’t remember what sage advice they gave the last time. So stay on course.

Is the Shooter really a person of power or do you (and your team) have more corporate collateral? If so then endure the whizzing bullets, take just enough from the experience to point out that you heeded (some of) the advice, and charge on.

If the Shooter truly is Master and Commander, isn’t ADD, will dutifully check in later and remember what sage advice was given. Well, it’s time to make lemonade and hand it up to the monkey you’re smiling up at.

You're kidding me, right?

2009-05-12T07:08:00.002-04:00

“Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.” Albert Schweitzer

Those who only know me a little know what distain I have for the airline industry. This makes me not unique, special nor lonely because it’s a big club. I wrote about airlines twice last year Dumb and Dumber. But another thing occurred today that I have to rant about. But, this is, I promise, the last airline rant. They’re not going to change and I have to get on with things.

But….

I’ve been a Northwest Airlines flyer since 1992. In that time I’ve looped the globe a few times and in the process logged a couple million miles. I only bring this up to point out that they know me (or should).

The fact is, Greg is my middle name. Long story but I’ve never been called by my first name, which is Arthur. My drivers license, passport, etc. all say Arthur Gregory Strouse. Always have. When I signed up for the Northwest frequent flyer program in 1992 I listed it under Greg Strouse. Just like all my other programs with American, Delta, US Air, United, Southwest…well, you get the point. Over the course of the past 17 years my tickets have listed me as “Greg”, “Arthur”, “Arthur G.”, “A. Gregory” depending on who was making the reservation. All along my miles got credited properly. When I got back from a vacation trip a while back I noticed while checking to see how many miles it is to Puerto Vallarta that I didn’t get credit for the trip. When I looked up the code it said “Name doesn’t match Worldperks number”. Upon checking with Northwest they said, “Yes, your ticket was listed under “Arthur” and your program name is “Greg”. Uh, yeah, always has been. Then I discovered that several trips over the past year didn’t get mileage credit either for the same reason.

“Excuse me; I said to the representative, can you explain this”.

“Well sir, you can only have one first name register on the program. If you use Greg you must always have your ticket read Greg, but you shouldn’t do that because you must use your ‘legal’ name.”

“Uh, Greg is my legal name. So is Arthur.”

“Well sir, you must choose one and always and only use that name for mileage credit”.

“So, what changed, it didn’t used to be like this”

“National Security”

“National Security??”

“Yes sir”.

“So, you’re inability to have a simple database that can link Greg Strouse, Worldperks # 000 000 000 to Arthur Strouse Worldperks # 000 000 000 is one of ‘National Security’”??

“Sir, you don’t have to take that tone with me”.

*sigh*

My frustration aside, the business lesson from this is pretty straight-forward: DON’T DO THINGS LIKE THIS!!! It’s sad enough that a bad company in a bad industry with a long reputation for poor customer service continues to treat their customers like “flatties” (a great story I read once I’ll tell you about someday) but it shouldn't encourage others to follow their lead.

Post Script: I finished this on an airplane ride on Delta. Of course, being Delta I had to go through Atlanta, even though I was only going from Detroit to Chicago…..ok, I made that up but they’re almost that bad. I was excited to post so I went to the Delta Club and when I tried to log on to their WiFi I got a “must subscribe” message. Subscribe for WiFi in a lounge you have to pay to get into in the first place???? So I went to the desk and asked for a password. He said, “Sorry sir, you have to pay for a password, but” he said with delight “tomorrow it becomes free”. All the while he was holding a hand full of cards that would become worthless the next day. You can add the seven expletives that was injected into the “that doesn’t help me a lot today, does it?”

Airlines, I’m convinced, exist in spite of themselves.

Change I can believe in?

2009-05-04T08:09:00.002-04:00

“It was on my fifth birthday that Papa put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'Remember, my son, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.'” Sam Levenson

General Motors, in trying to qualify for MORE federal aid (you can read my feeling on the subject here Eat What You Kill) is negotiating with Washington on the terms. Some of the changes they’re discussing include dropping the Pontiac and GMC lines and only keeping Chevy, Cadillac and Buick. They’re already trying to sell off Saturn, Saab and Range Rover. More terrible news for Detroit but my question is why has it taken so long? I mean over the past 20 years these brands have smerged into clones that you can only tell apart if you’re close enough to see the badge. If you can’t profitably make and service multiple, non-descript brands you need to eliminate them.

Good God, when WASHINGTON can see things more clearly than a once proud and profitable business you know things have gone to hell in a hand basket.

If companies don’t make ALL the moves necessary to be profitable and have satisfied customers (even if there are less of them) what will they have left when it ends?

I continue to be distressed that poorly run companies are being bailed out with tax dollars. Government advisors are having to point out the obvious to these guys who are trying desperately to make the most minimal move possible to get more handouts.

Really, it has to end. Until there’s proof that there’s genuine interest in them helping themselves the tax money should go to the people who are.

Are you making strong positive moves to stay healthy (if you are) or get healthy (if you’re not), or are you rearranging the deck chairs and hoping thing around you improve so you don’t have to?

Remember friends, hope is not a strategy.

Red, White & Blue with Envy

2009-04-28T10:27:00.004-04:00

“I envy people who drink. At least they have something to blame everything on.” Oscar Levant

Since starting “Tales from an XOD” I have quite naturally become more interested in other blogs. I like to read the professional ones for tips on style and content, after all these people generate revenue from their sites. I like private ones because they usually provide the best raw emotion, sharp insight and blatant humor. I obviously like the ones from people in my industry since I relate to them the most.

But then a friend sent me this link Catch. It’s my first experience with blog envy. This blog is sharp, smart and funny, it’s a professional site with all the upside of a personal one. I love everything about it to the point I’m thinking about just pointing my blog URL to theirs and calling it good.

Most of all my friend who sent me the link is the same guy I’ve had a running dialog with for years (hell, decades) about snagging the golden ring in one of these start ups we’ve trudged through and opening Bubba & Gator’s Bait N’ Tackle down south somewhere. Now, the guys at Catch Your Limit Consulting have essentially done that without having to sell minnows and perform small engine repair.

Ah, envy. It’s not a bad thing.

For every business that think they have to be shined up and buttoned down, here you go, proof positive that you can be both down home and up town.

Great job, guys. I hope to buy y’all a beer someday.

Logo your way to success

2009-04-22T07:58:00.005-04:00

"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing." Abraham Lincoln

Business bad? Revenue down? Creditors at your door? Can’t get a win?

Change your logo like the Lions.

The Detroit Lions. Yes, those Detroit Lions. The 0-16 in 2008 Detroit Lions. The Detroit Lions owned by the Ford family. Yes, that Ford family.

The Detroit Lions changed their logo this week…kind of. Same basic shape, just with a bit more edge; different font on the name; same Honolulu blue.

It’s not like when the Cincinnati Bengals changed their logo. They went from this Old Logo to this New Logo.

Now that’s a change. They also went to the Super Bowl a few years after the change.

So maybe there’s something in changing how you look. Create a little buzz, give the sales people something to talk about with clients and prospects, put a little hop in the step of the employees with new shirts and coffee mugs.

Of course, it helps more to have a franchise quarterback, a stud O lineman and a shut down defensive back….

Death to Smoochy

2009-04-17T16:47:00.003-04:00

“Get busy living, or get busy dying”. Andy Dufresne

I’m becoming mesmerized as an observer, and more than a little frustrated as a participant, in the death spiral this “economic condition” has put us in.

As much as I understand and agree that the highest priority of today must be surviving so you can open your doors tomorrow, the decisions some are making are distressing. It’s as if just having the Open sign on is the sole objective and being in “business” has become a foreign concept.

I was talking through this with a buddy and he correctly nailed the syndrome with the band aid analogy. When you’re taking a band aid off do you quickly rip it off or slowly, deliberately peel it off? Another one would be the getting in a cold pool of water. Do you plunge in or inch in slowly?

Small case in point: I live in the downtown of a small city so I usually walk places. Walking back from my bank one day – and by the way, they come into play later – I decided to stop in a deli to get a salad to take home for lunch. The place wasn’t crowed but a group of six people had walked in just before me. There was one person working the place, during the lunch period. One. As I watched this single entity try to take orders, make orders and ring orders I did a quick time calculation and decided to limp on home and make myself some soup. Haven’t been back, probably won’t.

Big deal? No, but it’s worth noting.

Bigger case in point: I met with my bank – you know, the one I was walking back from – because they had just consolidated with a bunch of other regional banks, changed their name, laid off a bunch of people and sent out positive, upbeat letters to their customers telling us how great this news was.

OK, but as the people who hold the paper on my commercial building, which must be rewritten this year, I thought getting a face-to-face update might be worthwhile. Here’s what I was told, “Greg, you’re a really good customer, have been for ten years, meet our prime profile as a ‘owner occupied’ client. There are no issues rewriting your loan….however, as we’re telling all our customers, if you can find another institution to take your loan, you should”.

“So, you’d really rather I go away?”

“No, no, not at all. We’re telling many of our customers they must find someone else to take their loan. We’re telling our good ones it’s OK if they do. Oh, and we’re not making any new loans of any type.”

Wow.

I was telling these stories to my friend and neighbor who’s been in the publishing business for the past 35 years. He wasn’t surprised but was equally distressed. He told me that he had made some deep and hard cuts well over a year earlier, including eliminating a publication he’s had for over 15 years, and although things were tight he was doing quite well and in fact circulation had recently increased. Mainly, he felt, because he had focused his attention on taking care of his existing customers over searching out new ones because he couldn’t afford to do both.

So my question is, once things bottom out then improve, and they will, what will my deli and my bank and those like them have left? I understand using this situation as a time to release marginal customers, employees, products, et al. I also get that hard decisions need to be made, but if there’s nothing left at the end what’s the exercise? Shouldn’t you just go ahead and lock the door and not confuse people?

Decide something! Decide to protect your good customers even if the cost is not securing new ones. Or, decide you want all new clients anyway and tell your current ones to go away. Or decide you’re going to barge on trying to do both the best you can until they drag your cold, dead carcass out of the building.

What are you and your company doing right now? Are you inching the band aid off, hoping things improve before you have to inch it some more? Are you paralyzed by the situation where you’re neither servicing your existing customers nor hunting new ones?

Make the call, take the plunge, pull that bad boy off quickly and get busy living.

Eat what you kill

2009-04-03T07:37:00.003-04:00

“Health is not valued till sickness comes.” Dr. Thomas Fuller

Few if any startups get through any round of money (from angel on) without running short. Much of it can be attributed to Murphy’s Laws on Technology #12: Nothing ever gets build on schedule or within budget. The key word there is nothing. Therefore the sooner you get comfortable with the idea of only eating what you kill the quicker you’ll realize success.

One of the consistently biggest disconnect points with people working in a startup come from the desire to have the excitement and financial upside of a startup without giving up the security and pay scale of an established company.

Paying for results is a must unless it’s a person with a skill set that means the difference between success and failure. Otherwise, pay people the best you can afford but make the real money come from agreed upon, tangible results. Pay sales people well…after they’ve sold something. Outsource jobs that are “lumpy” (marketing communications, payroll, benefits, accounting, etc). Hire people who “get it”.

This credo used to be almost exclusively for small, start up companies. Many, if and when they “made it”, then deserted this philosophy for the more common approach of not minding the small things and concentrating on THE BIG PICTURE. One day in the future they wake up in red ink (think the horse head scene in The Godfather) and wonder what happened. Well, what happened is they’ve become a haven for excess and waste that then takes a big, heart wrenching, and if you’re big enough, public purge.

We’ve all seen and been part of that happening on a weekly basis as everyone scrambles to get themselves trimmed down so they can survive. Some will cut out sweets but not cut back on the starch and still be unhealthy. Some will cut out everything and be too anorexic to get going again when they need to. The good ones will cut back to a balanced, more healthy diet and be in great shape when it time to run.

Hopefully once healthy and growing again they will not forget the lesson learned and stay in shape. Doubtful since that goes totally against human nature.

To that point, unfortunately we also watch on a weekly basis the uber companies who are still not getting it. AIG, GM, Chrysler, The Federal Government (to name a few) still think that the only way out is to eat their way out. “If we’re eating we’re healthy, thus the more we eat the healthier we must be” seems to be the mindset. Somehow they’ve convinced themselves and are desperately trying to convince us that it’s in our best interest for them to be overfed.

Are you really buying this?

Don't know everything

2009-03-17T17:57:00.002-04:00

“Those who live on vanity must, not unreasonably, expect to die of mortification.” Alice Thomas Ellis

I had one of those déjà vu moments last week where I found myself in a constantly recurring set of conversations with the same theme. These tend to happen a lot (to me anyway) where I no sooner get off the phone with one person and another calls with the same issue.

In this one I had been chatting with a buddy who started a new job last year and is loving life. The company is doing well and he is happily a part of that success. He happens to be a talented sales exec who in his previous job had been through the classic start up dilemma where the founder just could not, no matter how much he tried and promised, ever turn sales over to the talented sales exec he had recruited to come help him. After two years of frustration when he got the call from a company offering him a new life he took it.

The next call a few hours later was from another friend, also a talented sales exec, who is suffering the same founders control dilemma. After being hired to kick the company up a notch my friend cannot make any headway due to the founder’s meddling, tinkering, procrastination, directional changes, criticism and about-faces. Coincidentally, my friend has just been contacted by an ex-colleague who now runs a company and is looking for a top-notch sales exec.

Hmmm….wonder how this will play out?

Few things slow down momentum more than constantly changing things without real merit or purpose. It’s called “rearranging the deck chairs”. Additionally, not allowing the expert people that you purposely go out and get to do what they know how to do (and you probably don’t) is wasting everyone’s time.

Most times this happens because a “leader” can’t stand for things to not be done exactly to their vision, style, font and color. They’re OK with change as long it was their idea.

If you’ve gone to the trouble to hire smart, experienced, diverse professionals to help make your company rock why would you constantly slow them down because they say “tow-MAY-toe” and you say “tow-MAH-toe”. It’s one of the toughest things entrepreneurs wrestle with since no one is ultimately as smart as they are.

Well Columbo, let me tell you something. Yes they are. In fact, in their area of expertise they’re smarter. Be careful or you’ll find yourself the monkey at the top of the tree looking down at all the smiling faces. Just remember what the monkeys below you see when they look up.

The books are full of failed companies who couldn’t grow past the founder’s reach. If it’s your company, you’d better pay attention. If you’re in one….you’d better pay attention.

Hey, do you still make that killer meatloaf?

2009-03-08T19:14:00.004-04:00

“All marriages are mixed marriages.” Chantal Saperstein

I was running with two friends – both women- and they were talking about a couple who split after their kids went off to college. Note, they were talking; I was trying not to die.

According to the story he was a businessman, she a homemaker. After 25 years she found planning menus so he could eat upon arrival less than challenging. Kind of like the movie Pleasantville. She went back to school, met more interesting (and probably younger) men and eventually got remarried. He also got remarried, but not to another “housewife” but to a successful and somewhat independent business woman.

My friends were somewhat mystified by this since they assumed he would want another June Cleaver. I wasn’t and immediately told them why it made sense. Well, not immediately since I couldn’t talk due to gagging my way up a hill. But once the run was over and I had recovered I told them why.

Why? Because there are a lot of people who only think of people as they were when they first met them.

I have a love/hate relationship with going back to my home town. Although I love seeing family and friends I also run into people who only remember me as a goofy kid with big ears and a speech impediment. They don’t realize I’m now a goofy middle-aged man with big ears and a speech impediment.

More importantly I’ve known too many managers in the business world who pigeonhole people because they can only see them as the “clerk”, “technician” or “receptionist” they hired. It’s as if they cannot grasp the concept that people are capable of learning, growing and evolving. I’ve had this happen to me and have fought it in two ways. One, work my butt off to get in a position where that original manager now works for me and then go to great lengths to make their life miserable, or two, change companies and work my butt off to get my new company in a position to acquire my old company so I can make that original manager’s life miserable.

Kidding aside, sometimes you have to go to another place (or person) to not be recognized for what you once were. This guy couldn’t see his wife as anything but what she once was. But with someone new he found something else. Now, the problem will come when New Wife wants to escape the professional world and kick back at home. He may not handle that any better.

The key in any long-term relationship – personal or professional – is to recognize both what people are as well as what they can be. It's rewarding in both scenario's to be a part of people as they change.

Win alone, Lose together

2009-03-04T01:58:00.002-05:00

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." Richard Feynman

Hanging out with a buddy over the weekend he was talking about a colleague who has made an art form out of pulling the owner of their company into deals that he’s about to lose. Not necessarily to save them, but to not be held accountable when they go belly up. The owner apparently holds himself in such high regard that he assumes any prospect that says no to him is unsalvageable. Conversely any solid deal that he has a high probability of winning he will keep the owner totally out of sight of for fear of not getting credit for the win.

Genius? Madness?

Some of both probably but he certainly understands his environment and that is a lesson we can all pay attention to these days.

Now more than ever winning is a team game. Actually it always has been but good times and growing markets mask mistakes (and enlarged egos).

I was emailed today of the plight of a guy I was unfortunate enough to have worked with in the past. His businesses have failed, his once impressive wealth is gone and probably saddest of all no one cares.

Actually that’s not true, many of us care. And we’re lifting a glass to toast the event.

So listen and listen carefully. I try to make points in most of these rants that have a salient and practical lesson. Winning is not an individual event. Hell, individual events are not individual events. Tennis stars, runners and golfers don’t win alone, they have coaches and trainers. Every successful person has a support group that “allows” their achievement.

It you are the person who thinks all success is solely because of you and your (fill in the blank here) – genius, talent, personality, effort, ingenuity, passion, slyness, et al – then please, now, extract your engorged head from your ample ass.

Times are tough and going to get tougher. Winning is tough and going to get tougher. Quit being Terrell Owens and start being Hines Ward. If you don’t get the NFL analogy then try this, quit being a self-centered, inwardly-focused, butthead and start being a “if the team wins, I win” component of success.

Because the next glass of Champaign that’s raised, may be to you…..

The art of not getting it

2009-02-26T08:27:00.003-05:00

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.” Thomas Jefferson

Last year before my mojo was stolen, when the economy was merely bad and hadn’t yet become truly stupid, I wrote that this was either the best time to jump in and invest or wait it out. Dark Days Indeed. I also mentioned that my decision was to jump in and start a new business.

Now, it’s not a big business and certainly not something I’d give up my day job for, although there are probably those that would claim they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. But I am blessed (and cursed) with owning a beautiful retail space in a great little downtown that happens to be empty since it’s where my late wife Bonnie had her business. By virtue of the fact that it was originally a gas station it has a large street side patio area that now has landscaping where the pumps used to be.

Bonnie, the true visionary, always looked at the space and thought it would make a perfect wine bar, especially with the patio included. So why not? I love wine, I have the space, and it’s not like people are knocking each other over to lease the space in these times. So I’ve been systematically moving through the steps.

Here’s where it starts getting stupid. I learned of a state program to assist small business owners improve the appearance of their facility. Cool. Although my patio area is beautifully landscaped it’s not conducive being a good area for commerce. In other words, it needs to be totally redone. Perfect situation for the state funds, right? Uh, not so much.

Here was the exchange between the State of Michigan and my city representative: SoM: “Is this the place?” City: “Yes”. SoM: “It’s already been improved.” City: “But it doesn’t work for the business he wants to put in”. SOM: “But it’s already been improved”. City: “It’s been landscaped, but it needs to be fenced in and be restructured for commercial use”. SoM: “But it’s already been improved”. And so on.

Needless to say, I’m getting no state money.

Then there’s my bank – my commercial bank. I won’t bore you with the exact dialog but the essence of the conversation comes down to that I have plenty of equity and great credit, but, uh, well, the best I can make out banks don’t make loans any more. Actually to be more accurate, the quote was “we’re making no loans to anyone at this time”. So, I’m not sure exactly what they do, but providing capital doesn’t appear to be one of them. I asked my handler from the bank what their Mission Statement is. When he fumbled for an answer I suggested they use the Hotel California missive. “You can check your money in but it can never leave”.

So essentially the only way you can get money these days is if you take your big company, manage it badly, break all the rules (and a bunch of laws) and then beg the government to bail you out; which they will do and as a bonus not put any oversight on what you do with the money.

Therefore I’m thinking too small. There’s no reward for being sensible, I need to greatly overreach my bounds and when it doesn’t work out I’ll just beg for one of those $250,000+ jobs being created by the stimulus package. I mean, if the package costs $787 billion…I’m sorry…BILLION…and it’s going to created 3 million jobs then each job is worth $262K. Not bad, I could make that work.

So, where’s the XOD advice in this post? Well, for one read the Pragmatic Marketing blog Tuned In where they talk about the 10 steps for winning in a down economy. The other, I guess, is don’t look for help from anyone closer than yourself these days. And you know, that’s probably as it should be anyway.

Thank you, doctor. I feel better.

All things to all people

2009-02-19T11:23:00.003-05:00

“There is no safety in numbers….or in anything else” James Thurber

I’ve said before that I try to keep this blog neutral as far as religion, politics, race, gender, etc. So, I only bring this up as a springboard into what I really want to discuss.

Every election year I’m amused, amazed, astounded, stupefied and horrified by how the person trying to become the elected official of “the free world” pulls out all the stops to portray themselves as ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE. It happened again and now we’re going to put out a lot of money in order that campaign promise gets kept.

I could bore you with how I feel we should all pay much more attention to who we elect locally than nationally but you either already get that…or don’t… so why try to put lipstick on the pig.

The United States of America is arguably the most diverse country on the planet. For as silly as we can sometime be, we are more tolerant than most. Few other places would allow some of the goofballs we have to be prominent figures. So how, I mean HOW, can any one person be elected just to help me or the people like me while at the same time equally helping those that are very opposite of me? I mean, really!

I only bring it up at all to make my business point. Name me the company who successfully pulled off being “All things….”?

Some have tried. Chesebrough-Pond’s grew to have sales in excess of $1 billion dollars in the 70’s (that’d be real money today) until it decided that it could be “All things….”. Here’s the story: http://www.answers.com/topic/chesebrough-pond-s-usa-inc?cat=biz-fin. Likewise the 1990 book “Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco” tells a great, and true, tale of a free-for-all leveraged buyout of a conglomerate that peddled cigarettes and food among other things. In the world of technology no one floats to the top faster than Computer Associates. My buddies and I have always fantasized about being allowed into the CA warehouse where they keep all the cast-off products they got from acquisitions that they never looked at again. I envision it being like the warehouse at the end of the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark.

There is no doubt that companies can lock themselves in too finely. Railroads never seemed to get the fact that they’re in the transportation business, not just the rail business, for instance. The old adage “focus or falter” is still worth paying attention to.

One of the dangers today is there are a lot of struggling companies who can be acquired for what will seem to be a pittance. You’ll be able to work the spreadsheets and convince yourself the risk will be minimal. What won’t show up in the spreadsheet will be the hidden costs of distraction, new baby syndrome, and the inevitable “gotcha” issues that never came out in the due diligence. All of a sudden this piece of cake has become a pile of dung.

Ask yourself a critical question: “Does this company/technology strengthen, enhance or move forward our existing strategy, or are we changing our strategy to accommodate it?”

That’s not to say it’s not a buyers market, but as the signs warning of low ceilings say in England “Mind Your Head”.

Don't fall in love

2009-02-12T19:57:00.003-05:00

“One's first love is always perfect until one meets one's second love.” Elizabeth Aston

Given Valentine’s Day is upon us the theme seemed appropriate.

I was honored to participate in a podcast the other day. Michael Hopkin of Ryma Technology Group (http://www.rymatech.com/) has a blog site dedicated to Product Management (http://www.leadonpurposeblog.com/). Michael also runs a podcast called The Product Management Pulse.

It was great fun and Michael is a great host. Mostly it got me to think, talk and reminisce about my first love – Product Management. Over the 30 minutes or so I was able to cover several of my favorite PM topics but in replaying it I realized I never got around to one of my most stringent rules for being a good Product Manager (although God knows I tried, I even attempted to talk through the break).

DON’T FALL IN LOVE. Not with your product, not with technology, not with any one client, not with any one salesperson, not with any one analyst. The real power of a Product Manager is to always remain “passionately unattached”. Product Management must prove everything, with research, with data, with facts, with backup. And they must also be very passionate about the fact that they have no emotional attachment to anything but the truth. “You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!”

Michael asked me if there was any one path that leads to being a Product Manager than another, tech vs. sales, etc. My answer was that , no, Product Managers come from all backgrounds. I should have answered, “All Product Managers should come from Vulcan”. Mr. Spock would have been a killer Product Manager, totally factual, totally logical, always with a researched answer at hand. Killer.

My yardstick has always been that the Product Manager should always be the first person in the company to recognize when their product has jumped the shark and is looking at a logical, graceful sunset. That’s the easy part, any PM worth their frequent flyer miles can do that. The hard part is they’re also the first person who should stand up in front of the C’s and say so. “Excuse me, Mr. or Ms. CEO, but coming up in the next release my product is scheduled to jump a shark and I think it’s time for Fonzie to hang up his leather jacket”.

That, my friends, is a REAL Product Manager.

Dancin' with the Devil

2009-02-10T09:55:00.003-05:00

“You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.” James Thurber

One of the challenges of being in a key position of a start up that is funded by outside investors is establishing a working relationship with those whose money with which you’re playing. Investors take many forms, from benevolent angels to ruthless venture professionals.

The old joke goes that everyone wants an investor who "gets it” until they have one. I once said to an angel investor when launching a Series “A” round, “let’s try to find some smart money”. He said, “Son, all money is dumb”. Thus the never-ending search to find investors who are smart, knowledgeable, friendly, supportive, patient, involved but not too involved. Most of all, you want your investor’s pockets to be deeper than his intellect.

The fact is, any time you’re using other people’s money they are going to have more than just a casual passing interest in what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, when you’re doing it, and how you’re doing it.

I’ve had two interesting conversations over the past couple of weeks. One was with a friend who took investor money last year and one with a friend who’s debating taking some. Fortunately they happened in that order so I was able to quote to the one debating taking investment things I had just heard from the one who just took investment. Highlights included:

“I field ‘how’s it going?’ phone calls for three solid weeks then go to the board meeting where I answer the same questions again”

“Most of the questions revolve around ‘is there a market for the product?’. It’s like the due diligence they did 6 months ago has been totally forgotten”

“Their solution for all revenue shortfalls is ‘we need to drastically cut expenses’.

“They constantly bring up other companies they deem to be successful, most of which are in different markets, have been operating years longer and have ten times the capital to work with.”

The net of all of this is the management team gets little chance to run the business. The distraction of constant inquisition means a business flow is never achieved. It now appears that my second friend is going to continue to run his self-funded company at a slower pace without outside investment. I think he’ll end up healthy, wealthy and wise.

However, if you choose to take the money, or if you’re in a company that already has, here are some universal truths:

The only thing faster than the speed of light is bad news

Good news will be treated with skepticism

No, they don’t have to understand

Yes, it is their money

Anything you say can and will be used against you in board meetings

Anything your people say can and will be used against you in board meetings

No, someone didn’t switch those nice people you met before you got the check

No, they probably don’t remember all those conversations about how the money would be used

If you’re considering taking outside money then please understand these universal truths and plan accordingly. That is, plan on not having time to execute your roadmap, develop your product, develop your sales force, plan a marketing campaign or talk to your customers. You can, however, go ahead and get started raising the next round of funding that you’ll all too quickly find out you need.

Operator, can you help me make this call?

2009-01-24T08:57:00.005-05:00

“If the phone doesn’t ring, it’s me” Jimmy Buffett

Got an email today from a guy I used to work with. I guess I’d call him a work friend in that I know him and like him but don’t socialize with him. We live in the same town so I run across him now and again. So, the email says, “hey, how you doing? Call me sometime”. OK, but if he wants to chat why didn’t he call me? If he had time to email me he had time to dial my number. Why is the responsibility now on me to call him?

Then I realized this happens a lot where someone tells you to call them. I guess it’s like that “One Minute Monkey” thing from the book I wrote about a while back.Monkey. But in this case they give you the phone monkey. Now if the two of you don’t talk in the next several months it’s because you didn’t call. It’s your fault, not theirs.

Further I’ve paged back through my memory banks trying to remember if I’ve said “hey, call me” to someone and although I can’t pinpoint exact people and places I know I have and when I did it was because I really didn’t want to talk to that person and I hedged my bet that they would never call me.

Years ago I called an old buddy of mine and while talking to him apologized for it being so long since I’d called. He said, “no problem pal, the phone lines run both ways”.

Yes they do.

They run both ways in business too. Constantly having to be the one to call a prospect once you’ve had an opportunity to pitch your product or service is a clear warning sign of something being amiss. Either, the prospect doesn’t have the need or the money (thus poorly qualified), you did a poor job of representing your value (you need to train and practice your value proposition), or your product/service has a poor value ratio (it doesn’t hit the mark or isn’t worth the price tag).

The hard – but extremely important – part is determining which reason (or combination of reasons it is that’s causing the silence. Fixing it will be a separate blog for each one.

So, my newest resolution is I’m not going to use the “call me” line. If I want to talk to someone I’m going to call them, and if I don’t want to talk to them I’ll email them and say “write me sometime”…..

Lookin' for my mojo

2009-01-19T16:38:00.013-05:00

"I'm sorry I can't, baby. Dr. Evil stole my mojo while I was frozen" Austin Powers

To say I've been in a blogging funk would be like saying the economy has been in a mild slump. Probably never in history has there been more material for someone like me to use as a trampoline. But, it just hasn't been there and no amount of self-pep talking was going to change it.

My blogging mojo is MIA. I know why (and many of you know too). But knowing and doing something about it are two different animals.

Well, maybe I've found sparkle of "mojo light" that can lead me back to my old, cockeyed, sardonic self.

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet our new President.

Last year I wrote a blog entitled "What's your Say:Do Ratio?" Say:Do. The essence of it is that not many people DO what they SAY they're going to. A correction to the blog, as sent in by a reader, points out that the lower the number the better the Say:Do ratio. That is, if someone does everything they say they're going to, then it would be a Say:Do ratio of 1:1. A perfect score.

So I have a buddy, Craig Levy, who read that blog and using it as inspiration back during the pre-election days started logging what each candidate was saying they were going to do if elected. Once a winner was declared he built a spreadsheet of all the major promises. In this case Mr. Obama's (he was going to track it regardless of who won).

So, before I go forward a couple of full-disclosure points. I did not vote for Mr. Obama. However, I would like nothing more than for his first four years to be a resounding success to the point that the Republicans don't even run someone against him next time. The country could use a real hero right now. Also, I think it's sad that any candidate has to make blind promises just to get elected. Mr. Obama has done that. Mr. McCain was doing it, too. Sadly no one will elect a president who says "I'm sure there are things that I don't even have a clue about until I get to look under the hood at the White House, so promises made right now may be hollow."

But, that's the system and Mr. Obama got elected on a platform of hope and change. I hope he's careful about what he changes and doesn't play into the old joke "we have the greatest country in the world and I'm here to change it".

So, Mr. Levy and I will be tracking - I can say it as of today - President Obama's Say:Do ratio and reporting along the way.

What does it have to do with my XOD blog? I dunno, but if it helps me find my mojo then the new president has already helped one person out.

More to come.

Dark Days Indeed

2008-10-23T21:02:00.003-04:00

Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens. J.R.R. Tolkien

Many of us who grew up (or at least grew older) in the tech industry tend to be bemused by the raw panic that is prevalent these days with the economic “crisis”. Borrowing capital is tough whether it’s for business or personal. Geez, they actually make you qualify in order to borrow money.

A good friend of mine who makes his living in the home finance business likes to say that things have only reverted back to how they used to be before banks lost the ability to say “NO”. I grew up in a time when not only did you actually have to show some ability to repay borrowed money but also produce some collateral that would back the loan if something happened. Wow, what a concept.

How’d we get here?

Things started to get fuzzy during the 80’s with Uncle Ronnie’s trickle-down economics (voodoo economics critics called it) and the economy kicked into high gear. Property values skyrocketed, the ability to borrow money based upon the future not the present was in vogue and the stock market started to be played by some brave souls who were not Wall Street experts.

My mother worked for a farm credit institution back then. She was relating to me the other day that the housing market crisis today is an exact replica of the farm credit crisis in the 80’s. Farmers were getting loans too big to buy equipment they wanted rather than needed on inflated land values that couldn’t stand up over time and it was being forced by Congress.. She watched this current situation unfold with one hand over her eyes going “Lordy, I know how this movie ends”.

Then the 90’s came and Wild Bill took a good (albeit dangerous) thing and opened it up to everyone. Not only were loans based upon nebulous futures but you no longer had to show proof of ability. In fact, large institutions were threatened with lawsuits if loans weren’t made to low income, non-qualified individuals. Plus now the stock market was opened up to Joe Plumber. By the way, Ronald Regan once said “never confuse the stock market with the economy”.

Unfortunately W became obsessed with war and let the bad decisions ride on. The new millennium has been a roller coaster ride for the ages. The highest of highs and the lowest of lows and we still have over a year left in the first decade.

So what’s an entrepreneur to do? Well, it’s somewhat of a gut check time. Do you believe that our capital system will win out over the potential of a government run economy?

My good friends at Pragmatic Marketing (http://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/) are doing a follow up to their successful book “Tuned In” by writing an e-book “Winning in a Down Economy”. You can check it out on their blog http://www.tunedinblog.com/. They're talking to a lot of people and will have interesting, pertinent and timely information that'll be worth paying attention to.

This is either the best time in years to jump in and invest in something you believe in or it’s the best time in years to lay low, hold on to whatever you can and see what 2011 looks like.

As for me? I’m taking a chunk of my retirement money and opening a business.

Remembering Bonnie

2008-09-30T21:15:00.005-04:00

Bonnie Strouse - July 15, 1952 - September 6, 2008

On Saturday September 6th I lost a large piece of my life. My wife, my friend, my partner, my one true love lost her four year battle with cancer. In the end the disease and the never-ending treatments left her physically unable to fight off the infections that were constantly attacking her. I've had people ask me if she was "ready to go". Hell no! She was absolutely not ready, but just didn't have anything to fight with anymore.

Bonnie was a remarkable person who along with being a wife that made a slug like me realize he'd hit the ultimate jackpot was also a wonderful mother, an incredible cook, a fiercely loyal friend and an accomplished business person. Saddest is how our little granddaughters will never get to know their Nana because this was a person who was custom made to be a dynamite grandmother. Most remarkable was how absolutely oblivious she was to all of those things. She was blissfully clueless as to how special she was. Yet another reason to love her dearly.

Since this blog is about business let me concentrate on those traits. On a spring day in 1999 Bonnie announced to me that we should buy an old, run down, deserted gas station in the middle of the town we lived near. When I asked why she stated "for my business". That started the odyssey that took the town's eye sore and turned it into an award-winning renovation project of great acclaim. She also - with no prior experience - opened her dream business La Bella Vita that became the gem of downtown Brighton Michigan.

Bonnie had an Associates degree in Accounting from Robert Morris College in Pittsburgh. Me with my Bachelors and MBA would of course be the business compass for her, right? Well, let me tell you something. She had more business acumen on her worst day than most of us have on our best. And the reasons are very straight-forward. She had vision, passion and the unique ability to see things that others can't (or won't). Others saw an abandoned gas station and she saw a beautiful building. Others bought merchandise that other stores were selling successfully and she saw the next hot thing (i.e., she was carrying Webkinz two years before they became hot). Other stores made returning merchandise too difficult, she made it too easy. Where some would buy lesser merchandise and sell it at a premium she would only buy quality and sell it fair. When she finally had to give her store up because she couldn't physically run it anymore every single item sold after only 6 weeks. We've actually seen display units advertised on Craigslist locally as having "come from La Bella Vita".

Here's your lesson. Education is nice. Experience is nice too. As for me I'll bet on the person with vision, passion and that magic touch every single time.

I'm told that the hole in my soul will lessen over time. Right now that's difficult for me to believe. I do know this, the world is a lot less bright, a lot less interesting and a hell of a lot less tasty without her.

Yet another meeting I wish I could have attended

2008-09-05T13:00:00.002-04:00

“As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it” Dick Cavett

I received a letter from American Express today concerning a change in their program. This particular Amex card pays me cash back at the end of each year based upon the amount of purchases made. The letter informed me (after thanking me for my continued business) that “…the increasing cost of gas is impacting consumers and businesses alike. Given this we are making a change to your card”. It goes ahead to spell out that gasoline purchases on the card will change from 5% to 3%. And that the “steep cost of gas has made it necessary”.

Interesting. Now along with being punished at the pump I’m also being punished by my credit card company.

Yet another meeting I would have loved to have been able to sit in on just to hear the so-called logic that went into the decision. Naturally we all know in this case the logic is one purely of Amex profits vs. customer satisfaction. The truth is I didn’t know how much cash back I got on gasoline purchases. Actually, didn’t actually know how much I got on any purchases.

Had I been in the meeting I would not have argued against changing the percentage. Actually I probably would have argued to reduce it to 2%. I only would have argued to not go to the trouble of writing the elaborate and lame excuse of why they were changing the cash back percentage, just send the notice of change and get on with it. “Dear valued customer, or current resident, American Express is changing the percentage of cash back from 5% to 3%. Thank you and have a lovely day.” The Amex exec who drove this must have come from the airline industry who have made what I call “excuse policies” an art form.

By the way, other meetings I would have loved to have sat in include both presidential candidates when they chose their running mates. Mr. Obama creates a dynamic message of change that resonates well enough to knock the powerful Clinton train off the tracks. Then he chooses a 36 year Washington inside old boy as his running mate. Mr. McCain creates a dynamic message of experience that resonates well enough to close to within a whisker in the national opinion polls, then chooses someone with less experience than almost any other possible choice.

This is not derogatory toward either Veep candidate, but neither makes sense given the powerful message that had been created.

It is so incredibly difficult to create a message that resonates that is just kills my soul to see someone succeed in creating one just to then throw it away with a head-scratching decision that makes people say “Huh?”.

This “meeting I would have liked to have been in” may become a multi-part blog, there’s too much material to ignore. Watch this space.

Greg Shrugged

2008-08-26T13:11:00.003-04:00

“Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.” Ayn Rand

When I was in high school (roughly during the empirical rein of Tiberius Claudius) the novel “Atlas Shrugged” was required reading. Now, for those who haven’t read it, “Atlas Shrugged” is a large book. Think “War and Peace” and start adding some chapters. It was also one of the most radical books of it’s time, thus boring for a typical teenager. Think someone with ADD sitting through an Al Gore speech and you’ll kind of get the picture.

Therefore, when book report time came I did the only sensible thing, bought the Cliff Notes, wrote some garbage, took my C minus and went to baseball practice.

Now though, like so many things in life, I’ve discovered what the entire hubbub was about. Thanks to iPods and a great site called Audible I’m listening to “AS” and coming to these conclusions:

One, I was not a classic underachieving loser in high school…well, I was, but not because of this. This book has no place with normal kids. It’s way too political for all but the gifted, advanced or mental.

Two, it’s still topical. Although the business example of railroads is outdated its message is as on track now as it was when published in 1957.

Three, if any presidential candidate was to – god forbid – ask me for their vote I would ask them this: “Have you read ‘Atlas Shrugged’? If the answer was “No” I’d tell them to read it and get back to me. If the answer was “Yes” I’d want to know their opinion of it. How they answered would tell me a lot.

“AS” is an opus written by Russian-born American Ayn Rand. Ms. Rand developed a philosophy called “Objectivism” which as the name suggests involves some pretty deep thinking. However, the essence of “AS” is simple. There are those who create wealth (and the capital, jobs, progress, philanthropy, and dynamics) that come with it, and those who plunder all those things from those who create it.

A buddy of mine tells me “AS” is a favorite of Alan Greenspan. Given his unabashed love of capitalism I’m not surprised.

The essential business lesson is this: The first rule of business is to stay in business. If you do not make a profit you cannot stay in business. If you do not stay in business you cannot generate capital, which would generates jobs, which would stimulate progress which would allow the giving spirit of philanthropy, thus creating no dynamics of any sort. And that, my friends, would be a sad world.

I’m growing rather tired of the apologist that today’s culture is cultivating. Set out to work hard, work hard to be successful, measure your success by building wealth and use the wealth to make things better, starting with you, your family and your company. It’s OK, really.

Pursuing Moneyness

2008-08-13T09:57:00.002-04:00

“Designing your product for monetization first, and people second will probably leave you with neither.” Tara Hunt

Going through the mail today I received a letter from one of my credit card companies thanking me for being a great customer and offering me a FREE book as a show of their appreciation. This $29.95 value was mine for FREE. It was totally FREE. All I had to do was agree that I would pay for any future books that they would periodically send me. Oh, and pay the $2.99 shipping and handling fee.

So, it’s not FREE. It’s $2.99. I mean, free would be $0.00. $2.99 is not free and frankly don’t bore me with “but shipping and handling is a separate thing”. Bull!!! It was a pretty cool looking cookbook, and as much as my family cooks those are always of interest. Frankly, if they would have said, “For only $2.99 you can have this cookbook valued at $29.95” I might have ordered it.

Today I read that Delta Airlines is going to start charging $50 to process your FREE frequent flyer miles. So, they design a program to entice people to fly them by offering free tickets, but then charge to process the free tickets. Got it.

For me what’s worse than FREE (for a charge) is the “the cost is not really the cost” schemes.

Like when you book a hotel room and they tell you the room is $159. But it’s not, its $185.70 after Sales Tax, Local Tax, Luxury Tax and Occupancy Tax. Why don’t they say, “the room is $185.70? I mean, anyone who has stayed one time in a hotel knows it not really $159.

Airline tickets are not $350, they’re $379 after September 11th Security Fee, Passenger Facility Charge, Segment Tax, Arrival/Departure Charges and Fuel Excise Fees.

It’s as if they’re trying so say “it’s not our fault, look at all these things out of our control”. Yeah, it’s called the cost of doing business. What’s next, the local deli advertises Corned Beef at $4.99/lb plus 15¢ shipping surcharge (because, after all, with the price of fuel it costs more for to truck stuff in these days). My six pack of beer is $4.79 plus 39¢ cooling charge.

Hotels have been allowed to get away with this for years but the airlines should be stopped right now. They’re already poster children for the worst run businesses on the globe, they last thing they need are loopholes that make them look dumber.

The next meeting you’re in where someone suggests “a great way to raise prices and make more revenue without it looking like we’re raising our prices” and cites the Airline or Hotel industries as Exhibit A take them out and have them caned and then deduct $100 from their paycheck as a “stupidity extraction fee”.

Changes in Latitude....

2008-08-07T20:47:00.002-04:00

I wrote last year about my good friend Paul Johnson and his quest to sail the five Great Lakes. He's now on his last portion of the last lake. Lake Superior. Mother Superior. Lake Gichigami. I continue to both envy and live vicariously through his adventures.

Here's the link to his blog http://travelwithalbion.blogspot.com/

Read, enjoy and be inspired. This, friends, is what the pay off to hard work, dedication to your profession and it's ultimate reward should look like.

How Dumb Are These Guys????

2008-08-06T11:02:00.004-04:00

“Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.” Unknown

I have been inundated recently with stories and personal experiences of airline stupidity. I’m finding it somewhat unsettling that an industry that is so low on the profitability and popularity pole continues to make decisions that almost defy imagination.

Recent headlines:

JetBlue now charging for pillows on flights

Delta raising baggage fees

UAL says pilots abuse sick leave to disrupt flights

Lufthansa cuts 10% of flights due to strike

Which of course leads to the inevitable:

British Airways post 88 pct fall in Q1 pretax profits

I’ve had three calls in the last two days from friends whose opening dialog was about a horrible flight experience.

Thankfully I fly very seldom anymore but the two times I have flown in the past couple of months have been horrible. The attendants are surly, the flights are packed, and there’s no longer even an attempt to pretend to take off or land on time.

The funniest – in a sad way – thing that happened was when Northwest Airlines credited by frequent flyer account by 1000 miles because of the 6-hour delay coming back from Montreal. That was nice. The funny part is that they didn’t credit my account for the flights themselves. It was because the ticket was issued under by first name where my Worldperks account is listed under my middle name. Now, if it wasn’t for the fact that I have nearly 2 million miles on NWA and have often flown under tickets using my first name it wouldn’t be much of a debate point. But, given the years and mileage flown it’s safe to say they know me. When I wrote to complain I got a response that began with this: Please note that due to increased security in airports….” Yes, let’s hide behind National Security for our lack of customer service. Let’s hide behind our employees demanding we honor the contract we signed with them for our lack of business service. Let’s create tariffs and surcharges to hide behind our inability to run a profitable business.

The last time I looked commercial airlines had a primary business – moving people. Sure they’ve added package and postal sub-businesses, but moving bodies is somewhere in their mission statement. Today, they want to abuse their one primary customer and ignore their primary mission.

Does this make any sense? We just want to get from place to place with as few delays and irritations as possible.

I’m convinced this is a market absolutely ripe for the taking. The only carrier with a shroud of common sense continues to be Southwest Airlines who continues to do what they do best. Get you there and get you back. The 19 stops can be problematic but for short hauls they’re the best.
What is your company’s core business? Who is your primary customer? Are you making decisions on a daily basis around these? And if you’re not, why?

By the way, if you're going to write a complaint letter to an airline here's the gold standard one to imulate: http://www.stupidvideos.com/pictures/Best_Airline_Complaint_Ever/#43179

Kobayashi Maru

2008-07-24T11:20:00.004-04:00

"I'm not a magician, I'm just an old country doctor." Leonard McCoy

I wrote a coule of weeks ago a blog titled “Things you can learn from the sports page” where I made the statement that in business you should probably take the decisions made by professional sports owners and do the opposite.

This led a buddy to write me asking, then, how would I handle a Bret Favre situation in the business world. A well-loved but totally self-centered star performer who left on his own terms, you’ve replaced him with someone that you believe has talent but certainly can’t immediately fill the shoes and now the departed star wants to come back as if nothing happened or be blessed to go to a competitor.

My answer: Kobayashi Maru, the “No Win Scenario”.

The only way the Packers make out on this deal is if they trade Favre, get some value for him and then he suffers a career-ending injury during training camp with the new team. Or, they bring him back and he takes them to the Super Bowl. With one of these the Packers brass look like geniuses. Almost any other scenario is bad for them.

No win scenarios happen in business all the time. It can be with key employees, with customers, with competitors, with market conditions, with partners and on particularly bad days all of them at the same time.

A case in point: I was talking with a guy the other day whose company had committed to a specific Business Intelligence provider (and their strategy) two years ago. Now, however, one of their most important business partners had acquired a BI company competitive to the one being used, and to no great surprise, had convinced the owners that a change in BI direction was critical to the relationship. This guy was given 2 months to make the change and report to the board a successful transition. Kobayashi Maru.

I was once given the assignment relocate an entire development team from California to Michigan with no interruption in release schedules and no unhappy customers. Given how many of these Silicon Valley folks were jumping to relocate to Michigan...in January...Kobayashi Muru.

To beat the No Win Scenario you have to be strong of will, decisive of actions, flexible of thinking, and damned lucky. I was lucky, I had an incredible team of people who essentially brute-forced the transition to happen successfully.

Or take the Kirk way and cheat…..

Do you have a room for me and my monkey?

2008-07-15T13:09:00.004-04:00

“Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town” George Carlin

My son recently told me about a book it was suggested he read by his company called “The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey”.

“The One Minute Manager” was required reading back when I was at about the same stage of my career as he is now. I liked it because it was short and the relevant points were easy to follow. I hated it because it was my first exposure to lunatic managers who couldn’t speak or hold a meeting without referencing the damned book. See my blog from February on the subject A Book I'll Read.

So, I get TOMM but what would monkeys have to do with it? Thus I was compelled to read it.

Now, let me digress. I love monkeys. I love monkeys in jokes (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RIY_MQ5x4G4), I love monkeys on television http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancelot_Link,_Secret_Chimp) and I especially love monkeys in advertising http://www.trunkmonkeyad.com/). So it only made sense that monkeys would work in How To books.

Not so fast, my friend. These weren’t monkeys like chimps, these were monkeys like Reefer Madness. When you got a room with this monkey you were still by yourself. The essence – so you won’t have to take an hour to read the book yourself - is delegating a task to someone is “giving them the monkey” to take care of as opposed to you taking the money from them and having yet another monkey on your back. There’s a lot of good, sound management stuff like clearly assigning the monkey and following up on the monkey but there’s things like “insuring” the monkey that I’m not so sure about.

Like all How To books this one is based on nice, sound, common sense principles that only have the flaw that all these books have which is that people in the corporate environment never follow nice, sound, common sense principles. However, it is apparent that like it's predicessor it's going to be waved around with great zeal and discussed incessently in meetings.

I guess I’ll now have to rename my fictional book The Seven Flat One Minute Long Tailed Monkeys Who Stole My Cheese.

Things you can learn from the sports page

2008-07-10T11:17:00.002-04:00

“We learn something every day, and lots of times it's that what we learned the day before was wrong”. Bill Vaughan

I love reading the sports pages – well, to be accurate the sports web pages. Reading about the trauma and drama of players, teams, coaches, fans and owners offers a great microcosm into life in general and business specifically. When you watch these ultra wealthy pro franchise owners, who became wealthy by being successful business people, make some of the most lame-brain decisions and do things they would NEVER do with their companies its great entertainment in a head scratching way.

What I’ve been watching recently involves the ongoing saga of my alma mater Indiana University. I’ve written some past blogs on some of it and it appears to be about to come to a sad close and maybe, just maybe, they can get back on the road to not being embarrassing again.

The final chapter in this mess involves the resignation of Rick Greenspan the Athletic Director. Under Greenspan the University hired and subsequently fired a known rules violator in Kelvin Sampson. Because he repeated his bad behavior IU is being penalized. Because no one monitored Sampson’s behavior Greenspan has been forced to resign. The big debate is did the former IU President force Greenspan to hire Sampson. Rumor suggests this to be the case. That President, however, is gone and not talking. So was Greenspan the fall guy?

Many moons ago I got my first promotion to “Vice President”. The title came with a relo to a new region with lots of problems. The new General Manager recruited me to come in and “fix things”. What I learned was that his idea of fixing was essentially getting rid of the entire existing management team. This became my duty. Greg Strouse, Ax Man. He ID’d them, I whacked them. I thought some of them were pretty decent employees and certainly had a ton of experience. But, I was told to whack, so I whacked. Once all the cleansing was done and new people hired the performance of the place went even deeper into the hole. Too many new people and morale was terrible. I was unceremoniously fired. After all, everyone hated me and blamed me for the problems.

Now my story has a happy ending that I’ll tell you someday but here’s what I learned.

If you are an executive level performer with a large budget, lots of employees and the responsibility of running a successful operation it is your duty to assess the entire landscape and if need be go to battle with your boss on the proper path. You may lose. Actually, you’ll probably lose. But personal accountability and professional honor should win out.

Read the sports pages, see how it’s usually done these days in the world of sports…and do the opposite.

The sounds of silence

2008-07-01T10:41:00.002-04:00

“Hello darkness my old friend….” Paul Simon

They say you don’t see the punch that knocks you out. I'm sure this guy didn't.

They say you don't hear the bullet that gets you. The silence must be deafening.

People hate being criticized, dressed down, yelled at, publicly embarrassed, scolded, written up, et al. And it is terrible and often depressing. We’ve all worked for the maniac who had no decorum when it came to criticizing, they’d do it anytime, anywhere, in front of anybody. Very motivating.

But, you want to know something worse? Silence.

Have you ever been on the inside of a RIF or had knowledge of a colleague who was about to be terminated? It’s the purest form of seeing dead people, except they don’t know it. But have you also noticed how invariably someone will ask “is everything ok with me?” They don’t know, but they know because no one is talking to them. Their peers aren’t joking with them and their managers aren’t managing them. Silence.

Now, have you ever been on the outside? Did you look back on things and realize you could have and should have seen it coming because of the silence?

Rarely if you’re being beat on – even improperly or unfairly – is it because you have an X on your forehead. And that is the time to make some fight or flight decisions. If the criticism is well-intentioned and designed to help make you better then it’s worth paying attention to even if it’s poorly performed. If it’s unjust and basically cruel then it may well be a shot across the bow.

Either way – Pay Attention!!

Missing George

2008-06-25T17:24:00.005-04:00

“There's no present. There's only the immediate future and the recent past.” George Carlin

George Carlin died this week and I’m really going to miss him. Maybe because he was of my generation, I remember him as The Hippy Dippy Weather Man on The Johnny Carson Show circa 1966: “Weather forecast for tonight: dark. Continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning.” Here’s a link http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HMd5qaRlJ20&

Maybe because he was so irreverent: “I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death”.

But mostly, I think, because he made me laugh: “I'm not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a PART of hell will break loose... it'll be much harder to detect.”

Whether it was defining “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” or professing he prayed to Joe Pesci because "he's a good actor", and "looks like a guy who can get things done!" Carlin was always enough left of left field that I was continuously entertained by him. Yeah, he’d become edgier and much more cynical in recent years but hell, he was 70, he’d earned the right.

The thing that probably most defined George Carlin was his ability to call Bullshit, whether it was religion, government, sex, gender, race, even himself: “Not only do I not know what's going on, I wouldn't know what to do about it if I did.”

Which brings me, finally, to my point. Too many bad decisions are made in the business world because not enough people are willing to call Bullshit. We see examples of it all the time where edicts, policies, rules, and mandates are taken foreward where you go “HUH?” followed by “Who was in THAT meeting?”. Well, there were a lot of people in that meeting who either didn’t have the clout, the voice or the gumption to beat down a dumb decision.

Here are some recent examples from Business 2.0 magazine:

Northwest Airlines issuing a “101 Ways to Save Money” guide to laid-off workers that includes tips on dumpster diving.

Spirit Airlines “Hunt for Hoffa” promotion where customers are encouraged to dig for Jimmy Hoffa (actually that’s pretty funny).

Fiji Water runs magazine ads for its bottled water with the headline "The Label Says Fiji Because It's Not Bottled in Cleveland." Cleveland officials retaliate by running tests revealing that Fiji bottled water contains 6.3 micrograms of arsenic per liter, while the city's tap water has none.

Radio Shack fires 400 staffers via e-mail. Affected employees receive a message that reads, "The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated."

Disney rejects the request of grieving British parents to put an image of Winnie the Pooh on their child's gravestone.

Carlin always said “It's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.”

More businesses need a comedian in some of their executive decision process. Others, like the companies above, need less of them I think.

I love spam

2008-06-23T12:54:00.004-04:00

“There are people I know who won't hurt me. I call them corpses.” Randy K. Milholland

No, not that kind of Spam (more on that at the end)

I just received an email telling me I was the Grand Prize Winner and had won a new “Peugoet” car. Now, two things: first its spelled P-E-U-G-E-O-T and second even if it was true I would suppose 2nd prize would be two cars. Frankly, Peugeots have all the bad French qualities (small, slow, noisy and smoky) without any of their redeeming qualities (i.e., they don’t come with a lady from Bois de Boulogne Park carrying a case of Bordeaux).

Spam is today what snake oil salesmen were in 1800’s, part fact, part fiction, part entertainment, part annoyance, and totally for the naïve.

I feel bad for the naïve. Often times they are more desperate than dumb, more out of step than out of mind. And some of these offers just seem SO…DAMNED…GOOD. You want to believe. I want to believe. We all want to believe. But alas, the old adage “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is” usually wins out.

So, once you get over your outrage and annoyance of spam you can see it for what it is….pure entertainment. I mean, come on, you absolutely have to find great entertainment in the offers: ED remedies, free computers, discount drugs, discount girls, the list is endless. My absolute favorite is the letter asking you to act as a financial conduit for their foreign company. That for simply funneling these foreign funds into the U.S. for them you’ll receive a large sum of money. And all you have to do is email them your bank account information. Now really, what could be more harmless than that?

One of the biggest problems of spam, of course, is the occasional legitimate email of some importance that gets trapped in the myriad filters used to combat these pests. Deals get lost, opportunities get missed and relationships get postponed, much like lost mail but at cyber speed.

If you rely on email – as we all do – for your business communications you must fight the battle when a client or prospect doesn’t respond to an email as to whether they’re purposely not responding, have poor communication protocol or never received the message. If your email signature is getting trapped in a spam filter then sending more emails won’t solve the problem.

So, pick up the phone. If they’re purposely ignoring your email they’ll ignore your call THEN you’ll have something to fret about.

By the way, click here for the famous Monty Python skit about Spam. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE

Service vs. Product

2008-06-12T16:42:00.002-04:00

“At my lemonade stand I used to give the first glass away free and charge five dollars for the second glass. The refill contained the antidote.” Emo Phillips

My wife and I got into an interesting discussion this evening. The theme, Service vs. Product, came about because of the restaurant where we had dinner. This restaurant is her absolute favorite. Me, on the other hand, could never go there again and be very happy. So, naturally we go there a lot. And by a lot I mean on average twice a week.

Here’s the debate point. The food is quite good. Good standard fare, good specials that change monthly, interesting special events. What’s not to like? Well for me it’s this; the prices are premium and the service is spotty. The wait staff can be mediocre and they tend to be inflexible. There’s also this, after 5 years and thousands of dollars spent the owner still acts as if he’s never seen me before. Now, I’m truly not vain enough to expect a “Well, hello Mr. Strouse, I have your favorite table waiting” every time I walk in but a simple “Hi, it’s good to see you again” would be really nice.

In contrast there’s a restaurant I go to maybe a half dozen times a year. Yet when I walk in whichever of the two owners who happen to be working will see me act as if I’m the proverbial long, lost cousin. Now, they don’t know my name from Adam, but they at least recognize me.

So, what’s more important, Product or Service?

The answer is of course both. If you have both great product and great service you’ve unlocked the keys to the kingdom, and doing everything to provide this should be your obsession every waking minute.

But, if you can’t yet pull off having a great product, you’d damn sure better have great service. Because if having both is nirvana then having neither makes you a Detroit car company, a major airline carrier, a cable company, or the NBA.

Here’s my question. If you’ve achieved the hard part of creating a great product why oh why, outside of stupidity or greed, wouldn’t you surround it with good service?

A little time away

2008-05-06T21:18:00.004-04:00

Sorry, I needed to take some time away to attend to some things. Game on.

What's your Say-Do Ratio?

2008-04-24T14:42:00.004-04:00

“When everything is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done” Murphy's Other Laws

I was having a meeting the other day with a friend who was lamenting that multiple projects at his work was in various stages of disarray. The primary cause, he said, was that his company is filled with too many people with low Say-Do ratios.

“Say-Do”, I asked?

“Say-Do”, he said.

So he went ahead to explain that the Say-Do ratio is the equation between the things a person say they’ll do and those that actually get done. If people would only consistently do what they said they were going to do things would run a lot smoother, projects would get done correctly and on time, budgets would stay, well, in budget, and people would probably sleep better at night.

Say-Do ratio.

There are many reasons people don’t do what they say they will. Some certainly are legitimate and can’t be helped. Many are due to inexperience, bravado, ego, irresponsibility and simple stupidity.

Driving home I started calculating my own Say-Do ratio. I’d probably be OK in a Pass-Fail situation but I’m not sure I’d care for my actual percentage grade. Yet another personal improvement goal but one worth paying attention to.

So, how is the Say-Do ratio of those you work with and for? How about friends? Family? How much better would life be if all those people had a high Say-Do Ratio?

By the way, how's yours?

Paid to be dumb

2008-04-15T20:26:00.009-04:00

"Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. And scratch where it itches.” Murphy’s Laws on Technology

So, the big news currently revolves around the merger of Northwest and Delta. They are two old, big, recognized air carriers who have been bleeding money for decades. So now they’re going to take their corporate stupidity and join them together. Any 5th grader should be able to figure out the outcome of this one.

I remember when I was working in Chicago but still living in Michigan. I called Northwest and inquired into pre-buying multiple tickets for a set price. At the time (pre-911) tickets between Detroit and Chicago went for about $100 bought in advance and $250 bought the day of departure. I offered to buy 50 (essentially a years worth) for a preset price somewhere in between the two prices. All I really wanted was to not have to pay the change fee ($100) when I had to change my flight days. The response? “We don’t have a program like that”. OK, so I worked my way up the chain with the same response. So here’s someone TRYING to give them money and they “don’t have a program for that”.

Doomed!

So now I’m listening to all these “experts” talk about how bad this merger will be. Bad for, pick one: the economy, the employees, the passengers, global warming, ED, whatever.

I'm listening to industry experts, economic experts, transportation experts and, of course, politicians blather on and on about how BAD this merger will be for ______. It’s amazing to me how so many allegedly intelligent people can sound so dumb. One of two things, either many of these experts are really dumb or they’re being paid to be dumb. That is, someone with a special interest is paying them to pitch a viewpoint. I’d like to think it’s the latter, because if there really are that many people roaming around being paid mega bucks to be an “expert” or being paid mega bucks to be in office (yeah, I really believe most public servants make a lot of money to think a certain way) who really are as dumb as they sound then we really are all doomed. “Doomed, as doomed as doomed can be”.

I don’t know much, but let me tell you what I do know. Any space, once void, will be filled. I’ve watched this phenomenon happen over and over again in the technology world. Two giant companies will merge, the “experts” will predict doom for the customers and low and behold some new startup will come along and offer a better solution, with better service for a better price.

Happens every time. Will happen again this time.

Just shoot me

2008-04-13T08:48:00.003-04:00

There's something intrinsically therapeutic about choosing to spend your time in a wide, open park- like setting that non-golfers can never truly understand. Charles Rosin

I try to keep this site as neutral as possible when it comes to race, religion, sexual preference or gender. However, the first part of this one will speak primarily to men. Others will have to derive their own analogy to fit.

I love to play golf but when it comes to watching golf I limit it mainly to The Masters, The British Open, and any tournament played on a course I’ve been privileged enough to have played. Otherwise I use golf like baseball, for napping.

While watching The Masters my dear wife decided to become interested in competitive, televised golf….for an hour. “Who’s ahead?”, “Where’s Tiger?”, “Why is -2 better than +2?”, “Why is that guy spending so much time looking at his ball?”, “This is stupid!”.

*sigh*

I know, I know. What a great opportunity to interest your wife in one of your hobbies, to spend some time together explaining something you understand to someone who doesn’t, yada yada. The great thing about watching golf is you don’t have to actually watch it, you can sort of hang around doing other things (like writing this blog). So when someone asks you a detailed question about something they just observed on the TV there’s a good chance your answer is “Uh, what?” Then they try to explain what they saw, but without being able to interpret it correctly and then, the whole conversation becomes a stressed, tense, marital experience. So much for a relaxing weekend afternoon.

That was Saturday. Today, on Masters Sunday, I’m going to put this damned PC away, we’re going to cook food together, have our kids over for dinner, and I’m going to watch The Masters with my wife instead of in spite of her.

You see, resistance to concentrating time and attention at home will directly correspond to the same trait at work with colleagues. Both are wrong and both are risky.

TRUST (little of what you hear and half of what you see)

2008-04-09T09:34:00.002-04:00

“I don’t really trust a sane person” Lyle Alzado

Trust is a funny thing. Everyone wants to get it but no one wants to give it up.

To not be trusted is one of the most inglorious states one can live in. There are two times that not being trusted is the most maddening – when it’s not deserved…and when it is.

Conversely, being the trustor can be a scary proposition.

You get so busy running your piece of the business that being on top of every, single thing gets to be overwhelming. So when someone says “yeah, I took care of that” you want (need) to believe them. The problem is, when “it” wasn’t taken care of properly you’re still the one on the hook. This causes the “it’s just easier to do it myself” syndrome which is just as career-limiting as being surrounded by untrustworthy people.

Experience will teach you which of the people you deal with will always give it to you straight, which will hedge their answer, and which will flat out lie to you.

There’s an old adage that goes “people do what you Inspect, not what you Expect”. In lieu of knowing who you can totally depend on revert back to the most dreaded words from high school algebra “show your work”.

Implement a standard, consistent and equal process of written (email) or verbal (voicemail) confirmation of all completed tasks each and every time.

If done consistently and without indictment, everyone you deal with will quickly adjust to verified proof just being Standard Operating Procedure when dealing with you.

Oh, and as a tip, the ones who bellow the loudest about it? Well, I trust you to figure it out.

Rolodex Man

2008-04-02T15:56:00.001-04:00

“Actions lie louder than words.” Carolyn Wells

I was helping a friend and ex-colleague by being a professional reference for a potential new employer. At least I hope I was helping.

Anyway, he finished First Runner Up to a person who “had a better Rolodex” in the area of M&A (Mergers and Acquisitions). Interesting this person who scored the job came from a company that had just filed for Chapter 7. That is, they went bankrupt. Seems to me a person with a great M&A rolodex could have brokered a deal to sell the company and prevent the doors from closing. I’m sure there’s more to the story, but it makes you go “Hmmmm”.

Having a rolodex is a funny term, especially since most people under the age of 50 have probably never used, hell, seen one. But the meaning is clear. It’s someone who knows and has the ability to contact large numbers of people who can help move business.

For me it’s also become a giant flashing yellow light. It has been my experience that anyone who touts their rolodex is immediately suspect. This is because I have been disappointed and frustrated multiple times by these alleged rainmakers.

In my “You can’t fix stupid” blog from January 11th I refer to a situation I was in that couldn’t be fixed. My big flashing light that I saw, understood, but continued to try to fix, was when given two choices for a head of sales the owner took the name-dropping, rolodex-waving, flashy young dude whose reference list included a relative and a girl friend over the understated, highly professional, middle-aged person whose reference list included a collection of C-level people who bought millions of dollars from him over the years but without any recognized names.

I, of all people, value a great network but only when it includes real people not just names and numbers.

Hiring people is the most critically important yet most neglected part of running a business. Good ones make you rich and successful and bad ones make you poor and bitter. Yet we choose people with less intensity than we pick fruit at a market.

I recently read a Fortune Magazine article about Target Corporation and how the CEO personally interviews the people in the top 600 positions of the company. Any way you do the math that is a large chuck of time. But maybe there’s reasons they’re one of the most successful companies around.

Beware Specialists

2008-03-28T08:55:00.002-04:00

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin. H.L. Mencken

It seems I’ve spent my entire career being sold specialists. Every investor, advisor, analyst, friend and enemy has spent an inordinate amount of effort to council me on using and introducing me to some kind of specialist. Sales specialists, Marketing specialists, Fund Raising specialists, Operations specialists, Office décor specialists, and so on. Unfortunately most of them share a couple of common elements. One, they’re usually tied somehow to the person recommending them, either through blood, greed or bondage; and/or two, they’re unemployed.

Now, you have to be careful about arbitrarily blowing off the recommendation of an investor/board member/ally but at the same time you have to protect your budget and your time. My experience is these “specialists” can be very time consuming and expensive. They can disrupt the office and stall momentum. Worst of all they either perform the “pigeon ritual” or jockey for a full-time position you don’t need.

Here’s what you need to do when presented with an unrequested specialist. What “problem” is the specialists suppose to fix? Is the problem real? If it’s real is it a serious problem or a nuisance? If it’s a real problem with serious ramifications and you do not have the talent on staff to address it then it may be a good idea. It’s also a good way to “test drive” an individual who you feel might be a good fit.

But, if it’s pretty apparent that someone on the outside of the daily operation is just trying to find a payday for one of their cousins it’s time to carefully but directly deflect this distraction.

Searching for Luke Harangody

2008-03-19T16:21:00.003-04:00

Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits. Thomas Edison

Tis NCAA March Madness and since my once-beloved Hoosiers will most likely be One-N-Done come the weekend I thought I’d spend time writing a semi-relevant blog rather than wasting my time on the Indiana message boards.

Luke Harangody plays basketball for Notre Dame. He’s 6’8” and weights 250 lbs. He was named the Big East Conference Player of the Year. He’s a sophomore!

Luke grew up in Indiana. His brother played football for and graduated from Indiana University. Luke was not recruited by then-IU basketball coach Mike Davis. There are lots of theories on why the young man wasn’t recruited by IU but the most substantiated reason is he didn’t necessarily show himself to be a “big time player” while in high school. He didn’t show “up side”, an overused word to describe an athlete’s potential.

Mike Brey, Notre Dame’s basketball coach, obviously did see “up side”. Not only saw it but developed it. Mike Brey was recently named the Big East Conference Coach of the Year. For the second time. In two years.

Indiana University is now searching for their 3rd coach in the past three years. Hopefully they’re looking for one with “up side”.

Every time Luke Harangody shows how much “up side” he has the Indiana faithful fill up their message boards with the same banter. “How could we not even recruit such a talent?”. I’m sure Mike Brey doesn’t read the IU message boards, but if he did he’d probably smile.

There’s a great story about when Luke arrived on the Notre Dame campus and got into some pick up games with the upperclassmen. He called his father and said, “Dad, these guys are so much better than me. I’ll never be anything more than a backup here.” He then went out and worked harder than anyone else. He then became the Big East POY, as a sophomore.

So? How often do you miss the Luke Harangody’s when recruiting people for your business? Maybe they don’t have “the resume” or “the rolodex” or “the experience”. All they have is smarts, dedication and work ethic. All they need is a chance and someone to develop them.

Just like Notre Dame can’t be good with all their players being Luke Harangody, a business can’t be good with all one type of worker. But having a few Luke’s around sure can be rewarding.

Tragic, just tragic

2008-03-14T10:10:00.004-04:00

“Only after disaster can we be resurrected” Chuck Palahniuk

I have a friend who is a quote machine. One of my favorites is “a tragedy is horrible, but to be tragic is pitiful”.

So, this is one of those absolutely, totally out of bounds, I’ll rot in hell, and never, ever “work in dis bidness again” subjects. So, get out your long ropes and get ready to hang me high.

I’m reading my umpteenth article about how New Orleans is struggling to get people to come back and visit their city. In these articles the blame is usually passed around to the government, the media, big business and God.

Now understand, I’ve been to NOLA many, many times. It’s one of my absolute favorite places in the world. Not just the country, the world. Like most everyone else I hurt for The Big Easy after Katrina. I donated money and chipped in any way I could. But over time it started to become like a South Park episode. It went from being a tragedy to becoming tragic.

Tragedies happen around the world constantly. We’re insulated from most of them, mainly because CNN and FOX choose to enlighten us about Britney Spears instead. But the fact is disasters happen, people suffer and then the survivors dig out and start over. It’s been that way for time eternal.

However, for some reason New Orleans is different. After all the public and private time and money they’re still “a tragedy”. Sorry N.O. you’ve become tragic. You live in a hurricane zone below sea level. Deal with it or get out. Here’s an offer. Come up to Michigan and live in cold, cloudy, crappy winter while it drags on till June when the only thing you have to look forward to a pseudo- summer in the worst economy in the country. (But they’re also surrounded by 20% of the World’s fresh water, something I suspect will soon become a large global bargaining chip.)

Here, kids, is the XOD lesson: Don’t ever let a tragedy become tragic. Business tragedies like human tragedies happen all the time. They can be caused by conditions over which you have no control. When they happen, deal with the aftermath quickly and professionally. But before the tragedy happens, look around. Are you in a hurricane zone living under sea level?

Appreciate different

2008-03-10T09:16:00.004-04:00

“Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.” Henry David Thoreau

We all want to work with people we like. We normally like people who share the same interests, backgrounds, personality or drives as us. How many of us, when pounding away at some faceless, soulless company, hasn’t said “If I ever have my own business I’m going to staff it with people just like me”.

Great! Noble! Stupid! Yes, stupid. A startup needs, no demands, different. Different skill sets, different experiences, different cultures, different tastes. Thus, to put together the BEST small team it’s improbable you’ll only hire your buddies. In fact the best way to make sure they’re not buddies a year from now is to surround yourself with a bunch of them.

Now, that’s not to say you should stay away from people you already know, just make sure that you’re working with them because of their skills and not because you like hanging out with them.

Find the people who share a passion for success and possess the skills, mentality and attitude to handle the crazy, topsy-turvy, no-holds barred life of a startup. If you develop friendships out of it consider it a bonus.

Nice guys finish....

2008-03-04T09:38:00.004-05:00

“Patience to an extreme is cowardice” George Jackson

In a conversation once upon a time with a colleague when discussing (gossiping) about another colleague and discussing the other colleague’s professional merits (shortcomings) I said, “but he’s a nice guy” and my colleague said “we’re all nice guys, it has nothing to do with it”.

Damn! Aced again!

We all want to be thought of as “nice guys”. We want people to like us and say nice things about us and invite us to functions and introduce us to their friends, and…you get the picture.

The fact is we often confuse like with respect. We think if people like us they’ll automatically respect us. And, that’s partially true. If people like you then they want to trust you and thus they tend to give you more rope than people they don’t like (or trust). A longer rope may mean that when the horse is whipped out from under you your feet may hit the ground…or not. Now, I’ve never been hanged but I would think a short rope would give you a better chance at survival whereas a long rope (if not long enough to get your feet to the ground) would create a SNAP that could take your head off.

Regardless, the trouble is, sometimes being nice comes part and parcel with being patient. And patience, as we’ve all been taught, is a virtue. Well yeah, but…..

….there are situations where you need to take hold of things and just make them happen regardless of whether you pinch a few toes and fingers along the way. Maybe it’s in everyone’s best interest for the rope to be short.

Fact is, your high-caliber colleagues, your subordinates and your bosses are rooting for you to do just that. It may involve an under-performing employee, a dishonorable vendor, a profit-eating customer, an out of control investor or a time and resource sucking prospect.

Some problems fix themselves, or so I’ve been told. Fact is, like being hanged, I’ve never actually experienced it.

Dancin' with Joe

2008-02-27T11:38:00.003-05:00

“Almost nobody dances sober, unless they happen to be insane.” H.P. Lovecraft

I was reminiscing with an old friend the other day about the time we both worked for a guy who took the fun out of dysfunctional. Often times working around people who chase every new shiny object can be highly entertaining and as a bonus if you’re not in a particularly motivated mood you can get out of doing anything tangible by doing the “LOOK, OVER THERE” routine which flitters them off in a new direction for days, weeks, hell sometimes forever.

This guy though was clinical. Goofing off has it’s moments but most of us actually do want to be contributors to success. But when you’re stuck with or (worse) under one of these people it becomes the Dance of the Macabre personified.

So, while reminiscing with my friend, who knows me too well, he asked me what my mental image was of that past situation. You see, I’m a highly visual person who relates almost everything to something else. So the first thing that popped in my mind was trying to dance with Joe Cocker. Youngsters are right now asking “Who’s Joe Cocker?” (think Michael Stipe of R.E.M or most of the people on American Idol). I love listening to Joe sing, I hate watching him sing. It’s like watching someone with a horrible golf swing just before you tee off, it’ll mess you up for weeks.

This ex-boss was like that in that he could throw you off your game. You could never get a rhythm or a stride due to the fact that he would change course before you could get the sails set.

So, how does one deal when trying to dance with Joe? Well, as difficult as it can be you have to stay on task while doing the shuffle. Think of it as guiding your dance partner across the crowded floor to end up by the punch bowl. It takes practice to do it smoothly but once accomplished you have a happy dance partner a cool drink and a sense of accomplishment.

Lyin', Cheatin', Stealin'

2008-02-15T11:17:00.006-05:00

“Are you gonna believe me or your lyin’ eyes?” JR Ewing

I’m distressed. As a life-long Indiana basketball fan I’m clinically depressed about what’s going on with the program and their coach Kelvin Sampson. In a nutshell Sampson came to IU under a cloud because at his previous school (Oklahoma) he had violated a NCAA recruiting rule on how many phone calls are permissible when recruiting high school kids. It wasn’t severe and it’s certainly not the dirtiest thing a coach can do but he did it and was on probation with the NCAA because of it.

He assured everyone that it was an honest mistake and that we would be clean beyond reproach. Well, now it’s come to light that he violated the rules of the probation he’s been under and “may” have lied about it during the school's internal investigation.

Now, I like Kelvin Sampson as a coach. His kids play hard, he attracts good talent and wins games. However, like most IU fans, I was spoiled by all the years that Bob Knight ran a successful and extremely clean program. I remember Knight making Steve Alford sit out a game for appearing in a calendar a campus sorority had made to raise money. A grey area in the rules but one he didn't even flinch at doing something about.

So now there are two potential issues. One, that Sampson re-committed the same crime and two that he publicly lied to his boss about it.

So, what do you do when you have a talented employee who is generally well-liked and successfully runs his department in major KSF’s (key success factors) of business generation (wins/losses), revenue (sold out games and national tv exposure) and great staffing (recruiting). But, the guys a little slimy and lies to you about things.

In my blog of October 8th last year I talked about the 10 simple rules of being a successful employee. http://executiveondemand.blogspot.com/2007/10/ten-simple-rules.html. One was “Never (ever, ever)….(ever, ever, ever) lie, cheat or steal. It will create a stigma that can never be overcome.”

So Mr. or Ms. Big Boss (or in this case IU Athletic Director Rick Greenspan) what are you going to do with your talented but issue-riden employee?

A book I'll read

2008-02-08T19:52:00.001-05:00

“Frankly, I’m suspicious of anyone who has a strong opinion on a complicated issue.” Scott Adams,

The Seven Flat One Minute Long Tailed Black Swans Who Stole My Cheese – By Scott Adams (who hasn’t written this book but should)

I love “How to be better” books, especially when they involve business. They prop open doors, press damp papers back into shape, and most of all look cool lying around your house or office. OK, I’ve even read a few of them. My problem with actually reading them is I always somewhere in Chapter 3 find myself saying to myself “Well Duh”.

Each one is filled with total common sense.

The only thing worse than the common sense syndrome is the moron co-worker or (much worse) Boss who latches onto the “Well Duh” Book du jour with the ferocity of a dog with a new chew toy.

You’ve been there. They buy everyone they know copies of it, quote chapter and verse from it in meetings, add a quote from it in their email signature. This does, however, bring up another use for the book… to bash the new disciple senseless in mid-quote!

You see, the problem isn’t the enlightened, common sense, “gee I knew that” material of the books. It's certainly not the authors who have spent countless hours writing the book. Look, we all can use refreshers and a little "Well Duh" never hurt anyone.

The problem is that PEOPLE DON’T ACTUALLY DO THE COMMON SENSE STUFF THAT MAKES YOU GO “WELL DUH”!!!!! They talk about it, preach to others about it, get tattoos about it and generally bore everyone else senseless about it but they don’t wake up in the morning and actually practice these common sense principles.

You’ve probably figured out by now that I’m into quotes. Well there’s one that goes “When everything is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done”. So, if you read one of these “Duh” books and it moves you then PLEASE, just go out and do.

I QUIT!!!!

2008-02-06T19:35:00.000-05:00

"All of us learn to write in the second grade. Most of us go on to greater things." Robert Montgomery Knight

I got a call from a friend the other day telling me how much he enjoyed my blog. I was flattered. He then proceeded to launch into the 973 ways I could improve it and if I dedicated more of my attention (and his suggestions) to the site that it could "become viral" and "become my profession" and "wouldn't that be cool".

Thus, following the lead of the person I've most admired over the years, The General. I QUIT....

Let me explain. Bob Knight and I showed up on the Indiana campus the same year and were both met with about the same amount of acclaim. He was a young coach from Army whose greatest claim to fame was playing college ball alongside John Havlicek at Ohio State. My credentials were...uh...less.

Over the next many years I came to enjoy RMK for many reasons: the undefeated 1976 season, the National Championships, the candy-striped warm ups. But most of all because here was a guy who got to do what he wanted for a living, get paid great money for it and....best of all....do it on his terms. Yeah, yeah, don't bore me with the trangressions. I've heard them all and actually know them better than you do.

So this week, in the middle of the season, Coach Knight "retired". On his terms. Now, I've not talked to Bob about his decision but I'll bet that somewhere in his decision process is the element "it had become A JOB". And the minute it became A JOB he was out.

Well, same thing. The minute this blog thing becomes A JOB...I'm out.

See ya' Coach. College basketball just became a lot less interesting.

Geniuses need not apply

2008-02-04T10:37:00.000-05:00

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." Albert Einstein

I read a recent article on ESPN.com titled “Who is this guy?” about Ernie Adams and how this totally unseen, unknown (until now) person is maybe THE REASON the New England Patriots have been dominating the NFL. Even with a second string QB from Michigan. (Actually after watching the Super Bowl maybe he still is).

Sorry, I couldn’t let down my GO BLEW constituents.

Anyway this got me thinking about Art Petty. He has one of those blogs that I really enjoy. Find him at http://artpettyonmanagement.typepad.com/bestpractices.

Art writes a lot on the subject of Leadership. Art’s observations and advice are probably ignored by most people in Executive Management because he’s insightful and honest and his advice is logical and pretty straight-forward to implement. Thus, no high-powered exec worth this Rolex would probably pay attention. Now, Art also has the advantage of being able to go onsite and charge the same exec money for his advice, which would actually make both sides feel better, so let me stay out of it. I mainly wanted to introduce you to Art.

But, back to the plot….

While reading this article about Ernie Adams I wondered how many successful companies have an “Ernie” on staff. That resident “genius” who doesn’t seek out the limelight and is not necessarily someone you would take out in public but is so passionate about what they do that they are a huge asset. The TV show “Boston Legal” had a guy like that (Jerry) who was in research but then they made him a main character and now he’s still goofy but also out in public. Good for the show I guess but wouldn’t happen in real life.

Anyway, coming from the tech world I’ve known more than of few of these people and a common theme always seem to occur. When the company is small and private these “Ernie’s” play a pivotal role in the early success of the business. As the company grows and involves more “professionals” – outside investors, hired-gun executives, etc. – the “Ernie’s” get diminished both physically and professionally.

Is there an “Ernie” in your organization? If yes, get to know them. If not, find one.

By the numbers

2008-01-29T10:00:00.000-05:00

“There are lies, damn lies and statistics” Mark Twain

One of the biggest obstacles people new to the C-level face is understanding the numbers. Even with your MBA and managerial experience understanding financials can be daunting (unless you came from the CFO position). And using them properly can be the ultimate exercise in frustration.

CFO’s love to create elaborate spreadsheets with thousands of row and columns and dozens of links to other enormous spreadsheets; You just want to know how to answer the questions your investors are going to ask you at the next board meeting.

Finance people can be a lot like programmers in that they want to tell you in excruciating detail where all the numbers came from, how each one links into other pages and each ones importance. In essence they want you to love their spreadsheet as much as they do – just like developers want you to love their code.

What to do? Well, here’s what you don’t do. Don’t fake it hoping you’ll “catch up along the way”.

Here are some options:

Along with your CFO sit down with a representative of your investor(s) and have them detail to both of you what they want to see and how they want to see it. The sooner the better. If phrases and acronyms that you don’t understand are thrown around suck it up and ask for an explanation. Better now than getting caught later.

Use your network. You didn’t get to this point without establishing friendships along the way. Some of those people are or have been CEOs. Call them, visit them, buy them dinner. Allow them to become your confident. Believe me, you’ll find it useful for more than just financial jargon.

I once worked with a guy who had a sign in his office that stated: “When someone tells you it’s not about the money it’s about the principle…it’s about the money”.

If you’re in a C-level position no matter what people may say otherwise…it’s about the numbers.

Forget how to tell time

2008-01-25T14:05:00.000-05:00

“Lack of money is no obstacle. Lack of an idea is an obstacle” Ken Hakuta

I once worked for this serial entrepreneur who was notorious for never being on time, and not by minutes but hours, days and yes, even weeks. Drove everyone nuts. Those who learned to cope either were already good at or got good at always having work to do so productivity wasn’t totally lost waiting on him to show up for a meeting. You also got agile at carrying on with clients or prospects without him.

Those who didn’t cope well got overly wrought about him “not respecting others”, “being self-centered”, etc.

But the man is a creative genius. He sees things outside of boxes where others (myself included) don’t even see the box.

One day I’m riding back from an important meeting in the neighboring city with a colleague who has known our genius boss since they were kids. We decide to call him to see if we can catch up with him to tell him about our meeting. So my colleague calls, gets him and tells him we’ll meet up with him in 10 minutes. All’s good except we’re still over an hour away. When I mention this small detail to my colleague he shrugs and says “that’s ok, he can’t tell time anyway”. I laugh. He looks at me and says “No, I’m serious, he’s never been able to tell time. Clocks just get in his way”.

I pondered that statement for a long time and started watching this guy with a different eye. You know, clocks really do get in the way, especially when you’re first starting a company. You’re so much better off when traditional rules of time are ignored. Where’s it written that the work day is 9 -5, or conversations have to happen Monday – Friday? Those are factory rules not startup rules.

Now, there’s obviously a flip side to this that I’ll cover in another blog, but for now that’ll just get in the way of a good story.

Celebrate victories

2008-01-19T13:50:00.000-05:00

“The next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing” Nick “the Greek” Dandolos

In a startup there is always too much to do, too little resources to do it with and way too little time to get it done. The money is running out – quickly - and everyone’s nerves along with it. Then something good happens – a promising sales call, a technology break through, whatever. And then what happens; A brief sigh of momentary relief and then on to all the other pressing issues.

Now, celebrating every minute thing that ever happens is not the answer. After all, it is a startup and money is running out and there isn’t enough time to get things done so you don’t want to be running off to the pub at every turn. Or….maybe you do. I’ll need to consider this more.

But anyway, balance here is the key. Do celebrate the important happenings. It’ll refresh and refocus everyone – including you.

You can't fix stupid

2008-01-11T20:05:00.000-05:00

"Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid" Heinrich Heine

It seems like I've spent a large portion of my so-called career trying to fix stupid. Stupid products, stupid situations, stupid clients, stupid vendors, and yes, stupid people. The comedian Ron White uses the "you can't fix stupid" line in one of his routines when talking about finding the right person to marry with the point being that these days you can fix almost any physical issue with your mate, but "you can't fix stupid".

I've just come out of a situation where I've spent the better part of two years trying to fix stupid and it finally came to me that I was the leader of the pack. The only thing worse than spending more than a minute and a half trying to fix someone who is hell-bent on being stupid is realizing that you've just wasted months of your life trying to do the impossible.

I was talking to a buddy today who's struggling with a non-performer, a sales guy who hasn't sold anything in nearly a year. So, I'm wailing on my buddy about what part of "nothing" and "nearly a year" he's not latching on to. All of a sudden I realize that I do not have the high ground in this conversation because I've just spent twice that time on a more hopeless situation.

So, here's my New Year's resolution and a modification of the "you can't fix stupid" rule. I solemnly resolve to never again make more than a cursory swipe at fixing stupid people. I'll take on stupid situations, stupid circumstances and maybe even stupid products but not stupid people. Life's too short.

The modification: You CAN fix stupid if it's you.

It's not your fault....but it is your problem

2007-12-14T19:18:00.000-05:00

Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

I’ve been enjoying watching my son settle in to an executive-in-training job at a large, successful, growing national retailer that will remain unnamed but you would readily recognize by their red and white circles that make you want to find a bow and arrow.

First off I’m very impressed by how diligent they are at training their people and it explains a lot about why people shop them.

He’s recently moved to a new position at a new store under a new manager. While catching up the other day he was telling me about running head long into a situation that was left behind by his predecessor. Apparently while getting some “direction” from his manager about getting this issue resolved his demeanor, though not his words to his credit, screamed out “It’s not my fault”. His manager’s response is in the headline above.

Brilliant!

If you’re a manager, remember this pearl. It has all the basic food groups that form good management. It’s short, simple, benevolent and direct.

When you come to a fork in the road....

2007-11-29T09:19:00.000-05:00

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work” Thomas Edison

“Be nimble”. “Focus or Falter”. “Opportunity knocks”. “Distractions kill”.

Mixed messages? You bet.

But if you’re going to run a successful, profitable, market-driven company you’d better get used to dealing with such dilemmas. After all, your customers want you to pay them homage by plugging in every feature they think of as they use your product. Prospects want everything (and more) that your competitor is telling them they have. Market analysts are telling you you’re going to miss the “next great thing” if you don’t give your strategy a total make over. Your investors want profits. Your employees want bonuses. You just want that gnawing in your stomach to cease.

What to do?

It’s imperative in a start up, and for that matter at any stage, to have clear and communicated objectives. Along any road you’re going to find new discoveries, opinions, criticisms, afterthoughts, doubts, moments of clarity and epiphanies. Any one of them could lead you riches or to doom. But, if you’ve identified your market opportunity, done your research and plotted your course based upon research and consensus rather than hope and guts you’ll better be able to determine which things that lie along the road to success are opportunities and which are land mines.

In other words, when you come to that fork in the road…you’ll take it.

Ignore the rear view mirror

2007-11-15T21:35:00.000-05:00

“Don’t look back….something might be gaining on you” Satchel Page

Woulda’, Coulda’, Shoulda’. Yes, those who ignore the lessons from history are destined to repeat them. You can also spend so much time looking back that you miss the ice cream stand you were looking for, or worse crash into a tree when you miss the turn.

When mistakes happen – and they will - it’s imperative you:

Realize a mistake happened

Quickly and thoughtfully deal with the mess

Just as quickly and thoughtfully dissect the cause

Adjust/train/coach accordingly to prevent another occurrence

Get back to going forward

So much time and energy tends to be spent on anguishing about a mistake having been made. We grind through the cause, hunt down the culprit, punish the innocent and promote the guilty. It often becomes an exercise that resembles using a shotgun on a house fly.

I once worked for a great guy - Glen Chatfield - who always said, “unless someone has done some illegal, immoral, unethical or with intent to harm we have too much to do to spend time punishing”.

Good words from a good man.

No "do over's"

2007-11-09T10:28:00.001-05:00

“How can you ever get better at golf if you don’t cheat?” Larry Loehrke

We all love “do over’s”. In golf they’re called a Mulligan. Hit a bad shot; take another one without counting the first. It’s harmless, just a little extra practice.

A “do over” in business though is not harmless, they’re costly. Sometimes the situation that causes the “do over” can’t be prevented because market conditions change, new competitors spring up, temporal events happen, opportunity knocks. But many times a “do over” is necessary because of mistakes, bad decisions or rash actions. And these can and should be controlled in order to cut down on the number of times you have to use a “do over”.

I once worked at a place where doing things over became an art form. The founder was always in such a hurry to get to a decision that critical facts were ignored, necessary research was squashed and round table discussions were scorned. So, we ended up rushing out with half-baked products that couldn’t stand up to the stress of production and weren’t robust enough to stand up to the competition. It seemed like we always had time to do things a second (and third) time but never time to do it once.

Now, the antithesis of this is the good ol’ paralysis by analysis where everything is researched, engineered and developed until there’s nothing left but dust. But that’s another topic for another day.

Somewhere between always having time to do things a second, third and fourth time (but never time to do it properly in the first place) and becoming jaw-locked is the magic. But it's hard because it takes someone with enough juice to battle through the "visionary", the "screamer", the "nay-sayer", the "professor" and the "consultant".

If this person is you then go in armed with a lot a facts and and pile of guts.

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

2007-11-02T09:42:00.000-04:00

“You live and learn. At any rate, you live” Douglas Adams

One of the books in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series – and subsequently a song in the movie – is titled So long, and Thanks for All the Fish. It represents a message from the dolphins who vacate the planet Earth just before its demolished. The books are really worth reading (or rereading) for no other reason than to be able to know what “The Ultimate Answer” is. But, my mission isn’t to sell more books for Mr. Adams it’s to try to make a point.

So, how can you be more like the dolphins and know how long to enjoy the fish but get out before everything blows up? This used to be primarily a problem in startups but anymore it’s just as important to figure out in big and what used to be “safe” companies.

Simon says: Take one giant step back. Back away from the Job and To Do lists and Friends and Loyalties and Paychecks (fish) and Upside Potential. Analyze your current situation the same as you would if you were first looking to go to work there, or better yet, if you were looking to invest in the opportunity.

What’s critical is to be totally honest. We all tend to see too much of both the good and the bad depending on mood and circumstance, thus the giant step backwards, for perspective.

Ask these questions:

How healthy is the company?
Is it growing?
Is it profitable?
Does it respect its customers?
Does it respect its employees?
Does it do “the right thing” (See Herb Greenberg article on MarketWatch http://www.marketwatch.com/ 10/28/07)

How healthy is your job?
How do you rate your productivity?
How do you rate your value?
Are you generally happy?
Do you recruit friends to your company for their benefit? (As opposed to yours so you’ll have a bigger support group).
When you get a call from a recruiter do you immediately think of people in your network or yourself?

Final question: In doing a good, old fashion sniff test how do the fish smell?

Lead, follow, or.....

2007-10-26T16:47:00.000-04:00

Things that come to those who wait may be left by those who got there first” Murphy’s Other Laws.

The old adage is “Lead, follow or get out of the way”. But really its only Lead or Follow; getting out of the way means getting totally out of the way (and the company).

I’ve always maintained that I’m a pretty good leader and I’m also a pretty good follower. I’m pretty lousy at in-between. Many companies, especially startups, suffer from entrepreneurs who are sporadic leaders. Between their electric personalities and ADHD styles they tend to flip between mandates that nothing be allowed to happen without their knowledge and consent to rage about having to “do everything” themselves. This tends to plant the hired employee base in the dreaded Twilight Zone of “neither a leader nor a follower be”.

What to do. I’ve seen the Alexander Haig syndrome where people “take charge” whenever the opportunity presents itself. This is high comedy for the rest of the office, only trumped if there are two “Al’s” in the same office. Unfortunately no one listens to these people so no progress happens. The other extreme are the pouters who do nothing since no one told them to. This is painful and without humor.

If you’re that sporadic leader, stop it. Your schizophrenic style is slowing down progress. If you can’t stop then at least make sure there is a clear and understood path forward and some directions. I worked for a VP at ADP once upon a time who said, “Look, I don’t mind if some of us end up in San Francisco and others in LA, but let’s at least all go West”.

If you’re the one experiencing the churn learn to live and love the adage, “I’d rather ask for forgiveness than permission”, then go do your job.

Wait, we can make this harder

2007-10-19T20:48:00.001-04:00

“If you can’t explain it simply you don’t understand it well enough” Einstein

A good friend of mine is one of the best process engineers I’ve ever known. I was watching him operate the other day as he listened to a room full of people chatter, discuss, argue, fight for control of the white board and try hardily to come to some consensus opinion. Then, right on schedule, it happened. The phrase he dreads the most popped out. “Wait, we can make this easier!!”

He hates this phrase above all others because a) it usually comes from someone who won’t have to do any of the work; b) it usually comes just at the time consensus has been reached; and c) its never true.

But then, as is his talent, he wrestled his way through all the new debate, took all the data and mapped it out into a process diagram that nearly anyone could understand and follow. Really, this guy is good.

The problem is sometimes the person who utters the dreaded phrase really has had an epiphany and really can make “it” easier. So you can’t just throw the idea out – well, you can but you shouldn’t.

You may not be able to control your colleagues, but as for yourself when you feel you’ve had a brainstorm take some time, let the idea sink and see if it floats to the top again.

Then smell it…....

Competition? What competition?

2007-10-15T12:26:00.000-04:00

“He who hesitates is not only lost, but miles from the next exit” Murphy’s Other Laws

There's a new blog out that focuses on companies that are " Tuned In" (http://www.tunedinblog.com/). In one of their posts they discuss why some new products/services fail. In this post they say "People who run tuned in companies largely ignore the competition".

Absolutely!!

This is a classic "are you market driven" scenario with Unit Sales up the Y-axis and Customer Satisfaction along the X-axis. The magic upper-right square is “Market Driven” on the “Path to Profitability”. The lower-left square is “Competitor Driven”, which of course puts it the farthest away from strong unit sales, good customer satisfaction and most damaging profitability. Why?

Chasing your competition means you’re a day late and a dollar short. Not to mention that once you’re clearly superior competitor sees that you’re chasing them you become subject to smoke screens and misdirection moves that cost you time and money and gives them great joy.

A friend of mine has this great poster of cowboys riding hell to leather down a hill with the caption, “You either make dust or you eat dust”. I grew up on a farm on a dirt road and I can tell you with certainty that eating dust is unpleasant.

Spend your time and energy paying attention to your market – your whole market. Yes, your competitors are part of that market and certainly you need to understand them and their strengths because casually dismissing your competition is just as bad as following their every move.

Spend your energy making dust.

Ten simple rules

2007-10-08T11:01:00.000-04:00

"Hell, there are no rules here-- we're trying to accomplish something." Thomas Edison

As my kids have grown up and headed out into the work place we've gotten to have more conversations about their trials and tribulations of being wage earners. Around this I wrote for their benefit the following. I pulled this out the other day. Not for them, for me. I felt I needed a refresher. Each point is probably worthy of a blog session but let me give you the meat.

The 10 simple (well, they sound simple and should be simple but really aren’t simple) rules to being a successful employee.

The place you work is truly only interested in what YOU can do for them.
Yes, good employers realize that happy, motivated, well-trained employees are great assets, but….

Never (ever, ever)….(ever, ever, ever) lie, cheat or steal. It will create a stigma that can never be overcome.

Always treat every assignment as an opportunity to learn something useful. Knowledge really is power.

Being positive and flexible can overcome many other faults. Most bosses greatly appreciate “can do” attitudes.

The people you work with want to get to know you, but, uh, not all that well. Actually they mainly want to tell you about themselves.

Ignore the time clock. Getting the job done should always be the priority.

Volunteer (without fanfare) for some real crap assignments. One, you’ll learn something. Two, you’ll show you’re flexible. But the “without fanfare” is the key.

You don’t have to like people to work effectively with them. You also don’t have to be subservient to people who are difficult, by the way.

Get to know as many people as you can (as well as understand what they do and how it affects the company, your group and you). See #3

If you’ve followed the first nine rules and get fired, shame on you for not getting out of that hole before it happened.

Two bonus points:

Get to the point. People generally aren’t interested in the explanation, just the answer.

Learn to drink your coffee black (don't be high maintenance) and understand that business meals aren’t about eating (don't treat a "free" meal like dinner at home). Learn to recognize situations and adapt accordingly.