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dispatches from the new world of work

26 Rules for Recessions

I spoke last Friday to the Pacific Coast Builders Conference—those left standing remain at the heart of a Perfect Storm. One solution to passing my 90 minutes would have been a prayer meeting. Passing on that due to lack of leadership qualifications, I decided, at the urging of the conference chairman, to talk about "excellence in tough times." I began with a list of assertions, which I reproduce here. The ones which were totally limited in scope (remarks about Barry Bonds, Sandy Koufax, Port Hueneme CA, et al.) have been excised. Though some of what follows is still narrow in focus, most of the "assertions" have reasonably widespread applicability. I have only lightly annotated my simple statements:

**That which goes up also comes down.
**That which goes waaaaaay up also comes waaaaaay down. ("It was in the Beginning and now and ever shall be. Amen."—maybe I could have led a prayer meeting after all.)
**IQs rise as markets go up. (Isn't it amazing how smart we all were 18 months ago?)
**Why have we done this s%^# over & over & over?
**Why will we do this s%^# again & again & again?
**The "madness of crowds" is the most profound statement of truth ever.

[Sooooooo many "smart" people get conned over and over and over. This is the second time in a single decade—dotcom crunch time was 2000 more or less. Near the end of the dotcom era, I admit that I tossed a few bucks at the market. I'm not all that interested in stocks—real estate is my indulgence. But my irrational side said, "Sure, it's overpriced, but you can't sit the whole damn thing out." So I invested, and a year later got about 2 cents back on the dollar. Timing is, of course, everything—but that's not enough to explain our chasing markets whose valuation is nutty-squared to the naked eye. The dotcom cycle was even more absurd, if lower in impact—companies valued at fives of billions of dollars, without a penny of revenue in sight. It is plain madness, the provenance of shrinks, not economists.] [And, alas, forewarned is definitely not forearmed.]

**Bigger is almost never better.
**Big mergers are stupid.
**Big mergers spring naturally from big egos.

[At times of market uncertainty, the biggies, even the so-called "good" biggies, bulk up to defend themselves. We've seen it in financial services, consumer goods, pharmaceuticals, steel—you name it. The strategies invariably lead to the loss—rapid loss—of even hundreds of billions of dollars in market cap. And yet we do "it" again and again, and the perps are often our most "heroic" execs.] [And, alas, forewarned is definitely not forearmed.]

**It doesn't get any better than this—the likes of U.S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, and John C. Fremont were born for moments such as this. There is no such thing as a good-great leader who has not confronted, been battered by, and stumbled through-overcome a catastrophe. The Upside for the resilient and gutsy and creative is as high as the downside is low for those who attempt to hide in the closet until the fur stops flying.

[Find me a single example of someone who made the history books who hadn't had the crap kicked out of him-her—typically time and time again. Adversity is the soil of great accomplishment—period. Which doesn't make getting kicked around any more fun at the time. I'm at a bit of a loss here for pragmatic ideas—assuming you are not the boss of bosses, perhaps a good bet is to form some sort of offensive support group—The Resilience Rambos? The idea is to dwell on the opportunities that doubtless lie amidst the wreckage.]

**Take advantage of others' timidity; tighten the belt with a mighty tug, but in a key area or two, double the strategic project budget rather than halve it.

[When the dotcom implosion occurred, most IT budgets were slashed and slashed again—but Sysco's CEO saw a once in a lifetime opportunity in others' timidity, and pulled in the reins very hard in general to free up money to act hyper-aggressively on IT. Some others in this wee wise wedge have taken advantage of slower times to juice up the training budget, hence increasing the quality of the workforce.]

**Women rule. And make (almost) all the residential real estate decisions.

[Tom on his high horse again—women make the purchase decisions, yet my audience was mostly male. Stupid. In talking with folks afterwards two themes emerged: First, women are less ensnared by competition for competition's sake; their drive for excellence is as high as any man's or higher, they are just less inclined to try and prove themselves by outbidding "the other guy" for an already overvalued asset. And second, women simply are better listeners—which makes them particularly more effective in the homebuilding world, where the customer's decision is one of the most important in her life. Listening is also a miracle strategy when times are tough—e.g., the Great Listener is far more likely to get the loan extension!!]

**Decency must not be sacrificed in tough times.
**Decency is more important than ever in tough times.

[Insanely, great numbers of businesspersons, panicked by rotten market conditions I suppose, resort to shortcuts and churlish behavior to last out the day. In fact, bad times are the best times to behave well—for pragmatic as well as philosophical reasons. At the very least, if you go under, your personal reputation will be in tact—which is the ultimate cornerstone for a comeback.]

**Painful decisions must be made—make them as gracefully as possible; doing so is the best investment in the long term possible. Your reputation will be shaped by the long memory of how you behaved when the fan was covered with yogurt.
**Tough decisions mostly affect other people's families. You must still make the tough decisions, but the minute they cease to be agonizing, resign—you're not worth saving.
**Character rules in adverse times.
**Now is when investment in relationships pays off—and now is when you pay the full price of not having invested in relationships when times were good and you didn't "need to be nice" to others.
**Keep good people—if it kills you.

[Don't mess with your franchise players. Nurture them as never before.]

**Practice transparency to a fault.

[People in the know—from receptionist to EVP—are far more likely to be positively engaged and supportive during a nasty downturn. "In the know" means "the works," not just a few breadcrumbs of sanitized info.]

**If your world is in relatively good order do not be tempted to use this "opportunity" to "consolidate" by acquiring questionable assets at firesale prices—you are not good enough to turn cow pies into gold; only your ego thinks you are, and your ego is, as usual, wrong.

[For example: We'll see, but the Bank of America seems to believe that it can sprinkle some sort of pixie dust on the remaining Countrywide staff, and create a real estate powerhouse down the road. I, instead, see a washout and 6,000-foot drop at road's end.]

**Smaller but really good is a better place to be.

[As always, in my remarks I referred to Germany's "Mittelstand," its middle-sized, focused stars that propel Germany to the top spot in global exports. I am the unabashed fan of the smaller or middle-sized focused enterprise. The Mittelstand Spirit and commitment to Excellence are also the best defense against hard times!]

**Work out more and harder in bad times—get high or less low on chemical cocktails generated by killer workouts.

[Bad times are killers, literally, especially if you respond with strings of 20-hour days. Among other things, your judgment goes to hell in a handbasket—and your inevitably irritable disposition is an inspiration to no one, starting with your 9-year-old.]

**You will be remembered in the long haul for the quality of your work, not the quantity of your work—the quantity part is just your defective ego talking—no one evaluates Picasso based on the number of paintings he churned out.
**Take advantage of tough times to realize that in the long haul you will be remembered for your humanity not your net worth—think Tim Russert.
**You, too, God willing, will be 65 some day—and when you look back it's never the easy times that pop up in the viewfinders; it's the valiant struggles and adversities suffered and occasionally overcome that fill the highlights tape.

**If not Excellence, what? If not Excellence now, when?

[Pursuing Excellence in all we do is the ultimate turn-on, and the ultimate source of resilience in difficult times, in particular. And, as I see it, there is literally no way to lose. All that "stuff" about "the journey is the reward" turns out to be 100.00% right.]

Tom Peters posted this on 06/30/08.

Comments

re: "keep good people if it kills you". Here is a problem with metrics. Some of my more strategic thinking clients are concerned about the coming (is it here?) war for talent. So they are watching their turnover numbers closely, thinking it might be a key metric. I think the numbers belie an important issue...alll turnover aint bad. The problem is, your most talented bail early, the ones that aren't marketable stay for the long haul. So don't fall in love with numbers...fall in love with talent...and make sure you are romancing them through these tough times.

Posted by Mike Neiss at June 30, 2008 7:28 PM

Perhaps the best strategy relative to talent and turnover might be to create and sustain a workplace that enables all to have an opportunity to excel and advance relative to the level of the organization they work in. When you define talent, does this definition take into consideration where it works? Aren't those folks on the phone or the floor in direct contact with the customer talent? What are the costs...both tangible and intangible...when these folks churn, In tough times, customer retention would seem to be a concern? Does the front line team get a little love given the "value" they add to keeping customers ....customers?

Leadership should be concerned about the war for talent. When folks leave...whether they have the label talent or not...it costs. And the factors that contribute to their leaving are usually environmental. Who controls that? Leadership.

Posted by Dave Wheeler at June 30, 2008 8:42 PM

Good stuff, Tom. Further validation of what you say here is that most of it also seems to be core material in the Warren Buffett playbook. It's funny how he gets laughed at, time and again, by The New Smart Money who are investing in dot-coms, CDOs of subprime loans, etc. And then even funnier to watch him calmly "recover" when the going gets tough -- while he's sitting on a mountain of cash and a lifetime of good relations and sound nights of sleep.

In fact, Buffett and Munger have taken explicit steps to save them from the insanity of market binges. Like Socrates, they're smart enough to know how smart they're NOT -- and so they avoid the pitfalls that befall self-consciously smart types like Jeffrey Skilling.

The real trick, for those managing public companies, is to find a group of shareholders who are willing to take the Buffett-&-Munger approach with you as you BUILD value over the years. (Or maybe the real trick is to avoid getting stuck managing a public company?)

Regarding this: "I'm at a bit of a loss here for pragmatic ideas — assuming you are not the boss of bosses, perhaps a good bet is to form some sort of offensive support group — The Resilience Rambos? The idea is to dwell on the opportunities that doubtless lie amidst the wreckage."

Actually, I think the personal solution is the same as the corporate solution: build value over time. As you say, this includes building relationships -- a network -- over time, and before you need it. Folks who have some sort of assurance, even if it's as simple as six months' pay in the bank and a jumbo Rolodex of true-blue friends, have a lot more freedom to act boldly when the chips are down, because they don't make an emotional connection between the risks (real or perceived) in the marketplace and the risks to their own mortgage or the kids' college accounts.

(By the way, I'm also with you on the BofA/Countrywide deal. Good thing BofA has deep pockets . . . I guess.)

Posted by Tim Walker at June 30, 2008 9:15 PM

"Actually, I think the personal solution is the same as the corporate solution: build value over time."

Yup--I guess I got caught in my own trap--looking for something sexy when something straightforward is the "bingo" strategy!

Thx, Tim!

Posted by tom peters at June 30, 2008 9:40 PM

Tim...From a recent experience I had at Bank of America it appears that they have a serious liquidity problem as do many other banks, hedge funds, and REO's. Last week while traveling from one end of the metro Detroit area to another, I tried to withdrawal 3K from Bank of America and was told by the teller that they were "low on cash." What? You can only imagine my complete dismay! I couldn't believe my ears!

I asked to speak to the bank manager who, in fact, instructed the teller to fork over the dough without ever coming over to address my concern. I guess she could tell my looking at me that I had a mouth full for her. Although I was able to make a withdrawal, the experience was quite scary indeed. It also confirmed a process that my partners and I have developed to bring a solution to the liquidity problem in the financial/housing market.

My partners (a group of very astute successful entreprenuers from various fields and backgrounds) and I have a comprehensive sensible process for the financial/housing crisis which we will present in Washington next month. We are excited about the opportunity and pumped about the potenital of bringing needed change. Perhaps more later.

Posted by Judith Ellis at June 30, 2008 10:18 PM

‘Adversity is the soil of great accomplishment’.
At the risk of sounding perverse, I (kinda) ‘like’ hard times. Because it becomes a filtering process for what works and what doesn’t, what is a good idea and what is not.
And without hard times, I would not be here.
If I had not burnt myself out as a playing-it-hard/working-it-hard executive in 1999, I would not have taken the leap to work for myself. And if I hadn’t seen tough times in 2003, I would not have had the vision to reinvent my business into its latest – and constantly-changing - incarnation.
As Tom has said before Survival is a case of being ‘distinct not extinct’ and whilst I am not under-estimating how the current climate is hitting people hard, and that people are suffering – in the progression of great business ideas, times like this can still nurture really good stuff like change, like entrepreneurial spirit and that R word. Resilience….

Posted by Ian Sanders at June 30, 2008 11:50 PM

Damn!!! Another bloody post that talks about frippery like 'excellence and leadership'.

When do we get back to the really important issues like football and Mrs Thatcher?

Posted by Fake Trevor at July 1, 2008 2:02 AM

Very interesting observations TP

I agree on the competion for it's own sake My new favourite slogan seen recently:
"Competitiveness is for losers"

I don't think it's the IQ that is the problem (in terms of the comments about being here before) the issue is the complete and utter unwillingness of business people to listen to negative people.

I have been in and around IT projects most of my working life and the MOST valuable person in the team is the person who can point out what's wrong or why something won't work. Before anyone jumps on my back and tells me that such naysayers destroy creativity, drive and excitment in the project I totally agree but it is the leaders task to coach that individual about how and when to make those comments and use them wisely not the leaders job to exclude or silence them.

Posted by PaulH at July 1, 2008 7:51 AM

I can't believe either that we have been caught out twice in a decade through over indulgence, greed and a breath taking ride for short term gain. It's easy to blame others but it's everyone's responsibility.

There are some basic rules of business that Tom highlights such as what goes up goes down and bigger is not always better. More than ever, talent is the key to making our way through the storm (Mike Neiss' comment says it all) and whilst big business has been hit so has small business. I posted on my blog a couple of weeks ago the key things I think we need to be considering:

1. Its a long haul
2. Understand what creates the true value in your business
3. Differentiate, differentiate, differentiate
4. Lead the team though the period
5. Concentrate on customers more
6. Do something now to plan

See www.annholman.co.uk for the full blog post on entitled "It's not all about cutting costs."

My only problem with all of this, and it's a negative point..... you know, I don't think we'll learn and 10 years from now we'll be talking about it all over again!

Posted by Ann Holman at July 1, 2008 7:58 AM

"no one evaluates Picasso based on the number of paintings he churned out."

Indeed. A lifetime of achievement almost always outweighs any single achievement.

At the Oscars, the 'Lifetime Achievement' awards always seem to be treated as 'give a dog a bone' when they're more important than 'this year's model' will ever be.

Myrna Loy never won a 'real' Oscar; she got a 'Lifetime Achievement' in 1991. I'll take that over the momentary 'hurrah' for Cher in 1987.

When I close my doors and retire to my cottage farm, I want a lifetime achievement award from my clients and family and friends. The Oscars along the way are nice, but they probably contribute to that b0rken ego Tom keeps rabbiting on about . . .

Posted by Joel D Canfield at July 1, 2008 10:02 AM

#27...the glass is half full. Arrageddon is not at hand. This 4th of July grab Chicken Little by the neck, lather the little bugger up with your favorite sauce and put him on the Weber.

Posted by Steve Waugh at July 1, 2008 10:52 AM

Beauty, Steve! We'll start today here in the Great White North!

Posted by Lois Gory at July 1, 2008 11:17 AM

"it is the leaders task to coach that individual about how and when to make those comments and use them wisely not the leaders job to exclude or silence them."

And the individual's opportunity to learn the gorgeous skill of making the "mistake" look like a great learning experience which is a brilliant building block for the next step, maybe even the basis for a leap.

(This assumes it's not a dumb-jerk mistake from which we can learn nothing, resulting from blatant sloppiness or negligence.)

The VA hospital system--arguably the best in the nation--developed a process that allowed incident reporting that avoided the blame game, except in the case of egregious stupid errors. By doing so, in an arena where admitting mistakes is uniquely counter-cultural [docs don't make mistakes--it's not just lawsuits that drives this!!], the VHA was able to increase the # of incidents by a factor, get this, of 30. (FACTOR OF THIRTY.) One can only imagine the profound contribution to the learning process! [Lest you wonder, many "theys" including almost all the patient safety-quality gurus rate the VHA #1 by far among big health systems.]

Posted by tom peters at July 1, 2008 11:31 AM

"My only problem with all of this, and it's a negative point..... you know, I don't think we'll learn and 10 years from now we'll be talking about it all over again!"

It's a thorny issue, Ann. The upside is that wholly unwaranted enthusisam-optimism is also the basis for all significant progress, social or commercial.

(The research is clear, the unduly optimistic are the best sales people--the depressives are the realists who come closest to seeing the world as it is. Yuck. See Martin Seligman's seminal work.)

Posted by tom peters at July 1, 2008 11:38 AM

The last two really speak to me. If we can weather adversity and come out on top (even though it can seem daunting during the process), we come out stronger and better. Not saying I like recessions (I don't), or that I'm affected (I'm not) but when recession affects you, it's an opportunity to rethink yourself.

Posted by Lance at July 1, 2008 12:34 PM

Is it overly optimistic to give people 500,000 dollar mortgages without
verifying income and then expect to get your money back?
Is it overly optimistic to invade a country
and believe that you will be greeted with flowers?

Posted by zed at July 1, 2008 1:28 PM

zed, 20 years to life in a public stockade for Angelo Mozilo would be too kind a fate in my opinion. On the other hand--and for me there is an other hand--I think the "lost" dot-com money was in fact well spent on the whole--a trillion dollar "research" investment that changed the world!

Posted by tom peters at July 1, 2008 4:19 PM

I don't know which Tom Peters wrote this stuff but I much prefer the one that kept all his observations simple... What I learned from that Tom Peters is we are caught up in a 'brawl without rules'...

Posted by Richard Lipscombe at July 1, 2008 5:58 PM

Let's grab a couple of T's points:

1 >wholly unwaranted enthusisam-optimism is also the basis for all significant progress, social or commercial.

2 >(The research is clear, the unduly optimistic are the best sales people--the depressives are the realists who come closest to seeing the world as it is. Yuck. See Martin Seligman's seminal work.)

On 1... 'all'? You sure about that?

Harvey-Jones would probably have had a few words to say on that - and likely 'pragmatic determination' would have been just two of 'em. Following the 'let's pick a military leader from history' thing, Churchill is a good example of a decidedly unjolly someone-who-got-the-damn-job done. Enthusiasm? Optimism? Maybe. And not in that pseudo 'let's all smile and cheer and clap' Anthony Robbins-esque manner which now seems to have been foisted upon us.

And on 2... I question whether the unduly optimistic genuinely are the best sales people. There's a stack of stuff that'll suggest they're not.

More importantly, you and I (plus a few others reading) are depressives - with the concomitant manic upswings. It's this 'you gotta bleed a little while you sing, or the words don't mean a thing' which provides the perspective to see and the desire to speak about the senseless destructive shit rather than simply let it all glide by.

'It is what it is' - of which 'yuk!' is a natural element. As we're not labrats, 'Authentic Happiness' is a questionable real-world ideal. So sure, pulling from Jamison... 'exuberance is incomparably more important than we acknowledge' - and let's not lose sight of the fact that it comes from deeper in the well... them dark places we go when we're not slamming-in five quickfire posts.

I think there's a very real danger that, if we're not careful, those of us not already so-infected will catch 'Americanism' - that highly contagious pestilence (and I use that word very specifically) that creeps in and steals wit... replacing it with a form of dumbed-down mindlessness.

Enthusiasm? Optimism? Sure - they're must-haves... and only a part of the whole bloody yin-yang thing.

Posted by Fake Trevor at July 1, 2008 6:03 PM

Damn. Forgot to clear the cookie. That last 'Let's grab a couple of T's points' post was mine.

Posted by g at July 1, 2008 6:05 PM

I’m with Ian 100%

Blatant plug - Pleeeeeease buy Ian’s book ‘LEAP! – Ditch your Job; Start Your own Business; & Set Yourself Free’

Ian provides a brilliant mindset view of how we can do real practical stuff that illustrates how ‘Adversity is the soil of great accomplishment.’

I’m not denying ‘recession’ is painful and stressful in the extreme for the front line ‘victims’ who are laid off and feeling the pain of worrying about how they will meet the next mortgage payment. Especially as at the same time those front line folks see executives getting obscene financial ‘pay offs’ for screwing up.

Nevertheless I’m still 100% convinced we can easily ‘talk ourselves’ into recession ….. The upside in me says we can just as easily ‘implement’ our way out of an alleged ‘recession.’

Dave is right with his take on the leadership role and loving/nurturing/respecting our front line talent as the key attributes of recovery.

By the way thanks ‘Fake Trevor’ - ‘g’ in disguise I guess– flattery will get you everywhere my friend :-)

Posted by Trevor Gay at July 1, 2008 6:17 PM

>‘Fake Trevor’ - ‘g’ in disguise.

Blew my cover with tech faux-pas. Trying to inject a bit of levity into an often-take-ourselves-too-seriously scenario.

Here's a suggestion... how's about instead of commenting tomorrow, we spend the time actually working?

Posted by g at July 1, 2008 6:35 PM

'I don't know which Tom Peters wrote this stuff but I much prefer the one that kept all his observations simple... What I learned from that Tom Peters is we are caught up in a 'brawl without rules'...'

Richard – sorry to disagree but I think Tom couldn't have made it MORE simple. To me he’s using the same language he’s been using for decades:

*Cut out the b*****t;
*Trust front liners;
*Love your customer;
*Be wary of ‘experts’;
*Keep it simple;
*Half glass folks rule;
*Its all about leadership;

‘In Search of Excellence’ said it in 1983 … as did ‘Re-Imagine’ in 2002 ….

Maybe those who have the power to change things are just not listening to TP.

Posted by Trevor Gay at July 1, 2008 6:42 PM

g - Speaking for myself ONLY ... I've never worked harder in my life than this last two weeks ... and tomorrow is just as busy .... but I hope to find time to comment on TP Blog as well. I need my daily fix - I'm merely trying to disprove the myth that men can't mutli-task :-) ..... and I hope I NEVER again to take myself 'too seriously' - Since having the sheer joy of having two Grandson's Sebastian and Reece (3 and 18 months) I now realise they teach me more about all this stuff than anyone.

Posted by Trevor Gay at July 1, 2008 7:03 PM

Tom Peters,
Your comment about spending more in some parts of
your business reminded me of a passage in The
Lengthening Shadow (Belden and Belden's business
biography of Thomas Watson of IBM) :

There were other businessmen who thought Watson
crazy. One of them strolled up to him in an art
gallery one afternoon and remarked with a smile,
“Well, Tom, are you still hiring salesmen? You are
the greatest employer of salesmen the world has
ever known.”

Watson smiled back. “Well, you know, when a man
gets about my age, he always does something
foolish,” he replied. “Now some men run to playing
poker and others to horse races, some to ladies
and one thing and another. My hobby is hiring
salesmen.”

When his wife complained of his friend’s
patronizing tone, Watson was complacent.

“Oh, that’s all right,” he said. “He’s forgot to
compare his balance sheet with ours. His is in
red, and ours is in black.”

John

Posted by Shakespeare's Fool at July 1, 2008 10:29 PM

Talent,,,this word is getting to be as empty and impotent as the word empowerment is. How do you strategically exploit this "talent" imperative to improve your performance, productivity, and results? How do you invest in it to increase it's capacity, to maximize the returns you receive for the investment? What skills do you teach it? What tools does it need? If the performance objective is to decrease customer churn by 15% in 2008, what is talent's specific role and responsibility in achieving it? How do you measure it's effectiveness and since it is such a strategic imperative, the effectiveness of leadership in developing and retaining it? Why does it bail early and the one question I would really like answered...why does leadership allow those who are "un-marketable" to remain that way?

Talent, isn't this another word for people? Maybe we changed the label because it makes it easier to escape accountability when they leave.

Perhaps the best "talent" strategy for any "strategic thinking client" might be to stop looking at lagging indicators like turnover metrics and pro actively and preemptively find out why they're leaving and fix those issues first.

Posted by Dave Wheeler at July 2, 2008 1:54 AM

"You will be remembered in the long haul for the quality of your work, not the quantity of your work..."

In the long run, I don't think you'll be particularly remembered for either: you'll probably be remembered for a few key results / outcomes. Some may be good and some bad, it'll be the biggest results.

So, work hard, work smart, work well but make sure you achieve something!

Posted by Mark JF at July 2, 2008 4:20 AM

You mention the dot.com crash and subsequent market crashes. I am not a market person but I am starting to wonder if the sheer size of the institutional investors means that there will always be someone with a lot of money to invest and will start to run out of sound choices so they will have to "bet" some on what logic would say are bad investments. (Such as .com businesses that make no money)

Posted by Ian Pratt at July 2, 2008 5:17 AM

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Maya Angelou

Your legacy is also in the people you build not just waht you achieve.

Posted by PaulH at July 2, 2008 6:47 AM

Thank you so much for that, PaulH. Beautiful.

Posted by Judith Ellis at July 2, 2008 7:21 AM

Character is essential. Cowards resort to what they've always done, or to what is easy to do, or to what satisfies their own ego / issues / dysfunctions.

It takes guts to take "the path less travelled." (If you're reading this, you know the reference.)

Keeping good people (= retaining "talent") is tough. Which is why relationships, vision, inspiration, and heart matter. These are the less tangible things that make us feel alive...even when (or even more so when) funding is tight. "How you made them feel..." is ever so important.

Recessions require us to tap into the elements at our core that make us human. In fact, it's this ability that we rely on to get us out of a recession.

Posted by Manoj Pawar at July 3, 2008 12:37 AM

Dave, agreed. I remember when I was in OD at GM when absenteeism was ridiculous. The treatment, of course, was to up the disciplinary efforts. Now, I agree that people need to be held accountable, and coming to work everyday strikes me as a baseline requirement. However, until we started looking at the reasons people didn't want to be at work, we didn't really dent the metric. We even paid an incentive bonus up to 1500 bucks a year just to come to work, and that didn't do it. I do believe there is some distinction between talent and people. There are a lot of people out there available for the job market, but, cynically, I don't believe there is an equal amount of talent.

Posted by Mike Neiss at July 8, 2008 9:06 AM

Most everyone is a talent. Features are unevenly distributed. Degrees of sophistication vary. You see it, you read it, you hear it, there is a got be more rigorous talent. In the background, though, these people are taking shape in due place. There is not only a war between employers. There is also a cold war between the talents themselves.

At the bookstores, I have seen people –at the moment of paying at the cashier—doing the possible and impossible so that no other client reads the name of the title in the purchasing process. Well, What can one say about the Power of Knowledge?

In any case, it’s better to accelerate the pace since the progresses made with AUTOMATION and ROBOTICS are beyond boundaryless.

Posted by Andres Agostini (Andy) at July 8, 2008 9:19 AM