As for Success Tips, it's free, as are many other books at the site. We hope to feature Pursuit of WOW!, Brand You50, and other Tom books in the near future. Access to those titles will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of US $5. Still a bargain!

We all hope you enjoy reading Tom in this new format. If you don't, comments are open. (Of course we wouldn't mind hearing from people who love the service, either.)

Axiom: Only excited people can excite customers over the long haul—i.e., again & again.
Corollary: To cause our colleagues to be excited we must put—and keep—the maintenance of their well-being and their opportunity structure at the top of our agenda.

Before the week [day?] ends, somehow or other begin a serious conversation about your attitude toward and approach to the Boomer-Geezer market.

(Like race in the world of politics, try to examine your implicit biases—eventually with the help of an outside facilitator.)

If at all applicable, consider Very Radical Alternatives—e.g., re-aligning strategy around Boomers-Geezers.

Big idea/s:

    (1) It is a big idea.
    (2) Stir the pot. Now.
    (3) The opportunities are enormous; the response so far is pitiful.
    (4) Don't be an idiot.

At some point today (today!), despite "overload" ... just say, "what the hell" and go for it in some way or other.

(Likewise, worry if it's been more than a week or so since you said to yourself, "what the hell.")

Stop.
Right now.

Check the reception desk.
Check the reception area.
Check the bathroom.
Check your last Client email.
Check etc.
Check etc.

Check 10 "little things."
Right now.

Is each one stunningly, amazingly excellent?
Does each one confirm & extend & broadcast your "brand promise"?
You, personally?
Your training department?
Your 3-person accountancy on Main Street?
Your BigCo division?

Repeat.
Daily.

(Remember: You are in control. There are things you cannot make happen, to be sure; but you can project Brand Excellence on a thousand "atmospherics" that determine Client-Employee perception.)

Communicate!
Communicate!
Communicate!

Over-communicate!
Over-communicate!
Over-communicate!

Whatever amounts to "sensible communication," triple it!

Immediate "command":

Play back the last 24 or 48 hours. Is there an instance where you have failed to Fully Inform a client, or other stakeholder, of a delay (wee or grand) or glitch (wee or grand)? If your answer is "nope, all is well"—you are a liar. (Sorry, it just slipped out of the keyboard.)

Fix it.
Now.
Make the call.
(And if you have, in fact, good for you, let someone know about a glitch ... call 'em again to update the status of the fix, or relay the sad but honest news that the fix is more complex than first imagined.)

As suggested above, a lot of the giant financial-economic mess we're in is courtesy a failure of common sense—sometimes, often actually, by the so-called bestest of the best and brightest. We are all "insiders" in our own worlds—and we all lose touch with reality to a lesser or greater extent.

There are a host of things one can do to deal with this, but in this instance I want only to suggest routinely running proposals or budgets, or whatever, minor as well as major, by a "common sense ombudsman." Said ombudsman, singular or plural, formal or informal, could be a spouse or a neighbor who owns a restaurant or the guy who runs the distribution center in South Podunk who you ran into at the management meeting in Orlando last year.

Napoleon captured the spirit of this idea, ever so long ago:

"The art of war does not require complicated maneuvers; the simplest are the best, and common sense is fundamental. From which one might wonder how it is generals make blunders; it is because they try to be clever." (from Napoleon on Project Management by Jerry Manas)

Get out! [Of your office.]
Get out!
Get out!
Get out!
Now! [Within the ... hour!]
Now!
Now!
Now!

[Attached, as a reminder, is a link to our "'Top 50' 'Have Yous,'" PDF or PPT, posted earlier.]

"Everything in existence tends to deteriorate."—Norberto Odebrecht

Computer terminals at Commerce Bank have a red button on the keyboard. When you (teller) run into a self (bank)-created roadblock to serving the customer, you push the red button. The impediment you discover will be addressed—and if action is taken, and it usually is, you'll get a financial reward for discovering Grunge that had gotten between the customer and an excellent service experience. Commerce calls itself "Yes bank," because it will go to great lengths to be able to say "yes" to damn near any customer request. The bank and its profits have grown like Topsy in a decidedly non-blue ocean—and has so far kept saying "yes" and kept the Grunge to a minimum. As is the case 100% of the time ... the jury is still—and always—out.

My point-suggestion here is that you invent your flavor of Red Buttons for your 3-person department, your 9-person temporary project team, your 17-table restaurant, or your 235-person division. That is, formal tools for identifying Grunge and removing it and getting Everyone in on the GGG—Great Grunge [Removal] Game.

I, in fact, suggest going further. I suggest defining an entire, formal Grunge Removal Process or even "Culture"—that is, in effect, an anti-process process. One needs nothing less than a formal infrastructure to try and keep the "inevitable deterioration" in check—and maybe even reverse it. A host of possibilities are there for the taking (including some gems from the Lane-Welch book reluctantly cited above): an anti-grunge Pledge of Allegiance every morning—and an anti-grunge item on every meeting agenda. A C-level anti-grunge exec: CGRO, Chief Grunge Removal Officer. Rewards for Grunge Removers at all levels, punishments for Grunge Growers at all levels. Devices to continually purge systems and procedures and processes of complexity creep. And Red Buttons for one and all.

Get on with this today—begin by making Grunge Awareness and Grunge Removal a belated New Year's Resolution. (For us "older" folks it starts with bodily Grunge Removal—a Life or Death commitment to diet and exercise and learning to say "no" to stupid requests. I.e., this really is the ultimate Big Deal in both our personal and professional lives.)

(Attached you'll find a "beautiful systems" PPT extracted from our Master Presentation—sorry, but I didn't have time to annotate it, which I will do in a few days.)

Happy Monday!

It's the 14th of January. Gut check time. Are your New Year's Resolutions still intact? Have you made some tiny start on the Big Thing you promised yourself, personally or professionally, in '08? Have you bagged that All-important Small Win #1 in these first two weeks of the New Year, that All-important Small Win #1 that keeps your Main Promise alive—and advances the odds of long-term success immeasurably?

It's not too late. Yet.

At least, try "the PSF idea" on for size:

What is a "PSF"?
Are we (department?) a "PSF"?
Do we ("department"?) truly do WWPF—Work Worth Paying For?
Do we have ...

To spur discussion you'll find two attached documents. First is the core, bare-bones "50 List" from my 1999 book, The Professional Service Firm50: Fifty Ways to Transform Your "Department" into a Professional Service Firm Whose Trademarks Are Passion and Innovation.

You will also find my "PSF35" list from Part 3 of the current Master Presentation.

Among the 33 ideas-tactics just presented, this one, after careful examination, comes in #1 on the importance list.

Remember Gust Avrakotos from Charlie Wilson's War: "He had become something of a legend with these people who manned the underbelly of the Agency [CIA]." (Gust helped these unempowered folk with many problems way beyond their typical reach.) When I was a junior in the Pentagon, I discovered a link to the E-3 (very junior enlisted rank) English major from Brown University who was the letter-speech writer for The Secretary of the Navy, John Chafee (from Rhode Island, home to Brown). I shamelessly used my own Ivy League/Cornell link to him, which he got a kick out of—and was able to get a few favors (not too many or too extreme!) which allowed me to do some stuff that made no sense for a junior officer (O-3) to pull off.

Hence: Invest heavily and continuously in those several levels down in the organization, particularly executive assistants, who hold the keys to access and working with ease through convoluted processes.

Remember another piece of advice: C(I) > C(E). Internal customers are perhaps more important than the "bottom line" external customers; engaged internal customers will help you get an unfair share of internal attention which in turn allows you to perform miracles of implementation for your external customers.

Referring to the protagonist, Paul Christopher, a CIA field officer (again—and very consistent with Charlie Wilson's War) in Christopher's Ghosts, author Charles McCarry, says: "He [Christopher] had learned when he was very young that if he kept quiet, the other person would fill the silence." McCarry also tells us at one point that Christopher's key to a debriefing is to shut up and not interrupt—Christopher claims that "everyone has a story to tell, if only you have the patience to wait for it and not get in the way of it."

So: Shut up!

I'm practicing (a 2008 resolution) keeping quiet, and waiting for the story to emerge. (Fat chance, my colleagues would say—screw them.)

(More from the Charlie Wilson post.)

Become a Master of Internal Processes. Recall, from the Charlie Wilson post the reference to Tom DeLay who effectively controlled the House of Representatives by grabbing control of internal processes. This requires heavy investment (again) (what doesn't?) and a passion for details. This one, too, is open to junior folks.

Addenda: If you are boss of a project team, no matter how small, include a Master of Process, preferably with corporate staff experience, for your team. Also bring on someone who likes to "do lunch" with those in the "underbelly" (Gust Avrakotos—CIA) of the organization; this, Ms Project Manager, is your job, too—personally. Incidentally (not so incidentally, actually) "Ms" is likely to be far more effective at this than "Mr."

(More from the Charlie Wilson post.)

Follow the money!
Follow the money!
Follow the money!

A CIO, who was remarkably successful in a huge organization, declares that the key was a five-year stint in the corporate Finance Department as a mid-level guy—he had many friends and many "favors due" in finance, which allowed him to acquire assets, exceptions to rules, etc.

Hence: Seek out, by hook or by crook, a tour of duty in Finance—early on.

Returning to my 1231.07 Post (FLASH! FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION!) DURING THE Christmas-New Year's period make the damn 50 calls.

Period.
No baloney.

During his days as Goldman Sachs boss, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson had an invariant habit. He would call "60 CEOs in the first week [of the year] to wish them happy New Year." During my brief White House stint in the mid-seventies, I spent eight or nine straight hours one New Year's Eve on my office phone. I called close to 100 people I worked with—in agencies all over Washington and in embassies around the world—to thank them for their help in the prior year. In addition to enjoying the chats, which I did (I suspect Paulson did, too), I admit that I was purposefully engaging in an ADRE ... Act of Deliberate Relationship Enhancement.

While I fully buy "If you aren't sincere, it won't work," I nonetheless urge you to develop some similar ritual. Moreover, I urge you to do it in the next couple of weeks!

Think ADRE. Twelve months a year!

I'm dealing with a thorny problem. Even thought of calling my shrink—he's my "life coach" as much as my esteemed mental health advisor.

In the end I didn't call him. And you can thank crosstown Manhattan Christmas traffic for that.

I inveterately chat with cabbies—about life, not the weather. This driver-advisor-to-be had been around the circuit a couple of times, as, indeed, I have as well. I laid out my issue pretty damn directly. All issues are the same—in the end, relationship issues (see above). His thoughts were "obvious" (all useful thoughts are, in retrospect) and really turned my thinking on its ear.

On the one hand, I was making idle chatter, as I am wont to do; on the other hand, I really wanted to get his reaction. His take on human interaction is likely to be more profound than mine—given his natural laboratory. I'm almost loath to admit it, though I don't know why, but I actually jotted a couple of notes on my Amtrak ticket stub while he was talking. I gave him a healthy Christmas tip, but the fact is that his advice was priceless— or at least a lot cheaper than my psychiatrist's invoice.

In the last couple of weeks, I've talked about Dave Isay's book, Listening Is an Act of Love, and cool friend Matthew Kelly's The Dream Manager. Both are books about stories and listening and hearing. As is my little "Manhattan Cabbie's Tale." If relationships are "everything" (they are), then listening-hearing-story collecting is Tool #1. Stephen Covey and others are wonderful instructors on this topic. I will not attempt to copy them. My suggestion is simpler: During this holiday season, you'll likely go to cocktail parties, open presents, attend family dinners. While not aiming to spoil your spontaneity, I'd suggest that each of these occasions is an opportunity to purposefully practice listening-hearing-story collecting. I have no tricks, except to say tune deliberately into the process. If you want to give yourself an exam, at the end of the party or whatever, review what you heard-learned that was new about an old friend; I learn new stuff about 20-year friends when I really work on my listening-hearing. And keep in mind, as lodestar, the words from Dale Carnegie: "You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you."

Of course you don't want to reward "I didn't bother to ..." laziness, but you do want to reward—Big Time—truth-telling. Hence, cheer publicly the person who admits, in front of a boss, that he or she "does not know" the facts here, or the answer to this or that. In fact, per the above, make a game (serious game!) out of identifying the "DNKs" regarding any analysis or proposed action. Frankly, good inventories of DNKs may be far more important to success than inventories of DKs.

When you squint at the page in the annual report featuring the Executive Team, does the gender and skin-tone roughly match the demographics of the market being served?

(Notice that I purposefully said "roughly"; I'm not looking for quotas, just very rough approximations.)

If you fail the "squint test," what is your 6-month, 1-year, and 2-year program, including immediate "next steps" for addressing the issue?

Note of importance: This holds as much for a 23-person project team as it does for a division or company as a whole.

My opinion: Fix the "women part" first. I.e., more or less ... now.

(P.S. We ain't done yet! #101 on our "Top 100" success strategies comes Monday.) (Probably.)

     (1) See the above list.
     (2) Implement.
     (3) Pick one item.
     (4) Start today.

     (1) See the above list.
     (2) Implement.
     (3) Pick one item.
     (4) Start today.

When an issue is of the utmost importance and at a standstill or in freefall, proactively look for an opportunity to "make a statement" through a gesture that indicates great pain and engagement and urgency on your part. Often, this comes in the form of "5,000 miles for a 5-minute audience" with a key participant.

(Is this Machiavellian? Sure, to some extent—but the fact is that you actually must care to do this. The "insane gesture" simply acts as proof that you'll go to any length to make progress.)

"Most of our predictions are based on very linear thinking. That's why they will most likely be wrong."—Vinod Khosla

"The difficulties ... arise from the inherent conflict between the need to control existing operations and the need to create the kind of environment that will permit new ideas to flourish—and old ones to die a timely death. ... We believe that most corporations will find it impossible to match or outperform the market without abandoning the assumption of continuity. ... The current apocalypse—the transition from a state of continuity to state of discontinuity—has the same suddenness [as the trauma that beset civilization in 1000 A.D.]"—Richard Foster & Sarah Kaplan, "Creative Destruction" (The McKinsey Quarterly)

I have no tidy "tip" here, but rather an extraordinary plea that you implicitly put "non-linear" thinking atop your and your leadership team's agenda—permanently. This may mean hiring poets and astrologers and putting homeless folks on your advisory board. It may mean sabbaticals or yoga, sabbaticals and yoga. Or dropping out for a year or three. Or joining a rock band. Or putting 3-inch heels on one foot only. Though Rudy "dealt with a crisis" well—it's more than such a bland prescription. It's not "dealing well with crisis," though that may be part of it, but more along the lines of dealing constantly and comfortably and quite happily with "very strange stuff," or some such.

REMEMBER. REMEMBER. REMEMBER. YOUR LIFE'S TRAJECTORY WILL BE DETERMINED ALMOST ENTIRELY BY EVENTS WHICH BY DEFINITION CANNOT BE PLANNED FOR. ACT ACCORDINGLY. WHATEVER THAT MEANS.