Proposed Hospital "Organization Chart"

What follows is obviously hopelessly bureaucratic—hence, tongue mostly in cheek. The idea is to demonstrate the mostly missing elements at senior levels in the typical hospital, as suggested by yesterday's Post, "The Healthcare14: U.S. Healthcare Trauma in 2008." However, the post of "Deputy CEO/Patient Safety & Quality" is not bureaucratic—it is a non-negotiable "must-do-now" in "my" hospital, regardless of size.

CEO, CMO/CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, CNO/CHIEF NURSING OFFICER, CFO, ETC. [traditional jobs]
DEPUTY CEO/PATIENT SAFETY & QUALITY
   Director "Hands Clean" Mandate
   Director Error-free Medications Program
   Director Simple-Tools-That-Save-Lives Programs
   Director Over-treatment Evaluation & Management
CHIEF CLINICAL EVALUATIONS OFFICER
   Director Evidence-based Medicine Initiatives
   Director Best-practices Program
   Director Error Reporting & Evaluation Initiative
CISO/CHIEF INFORMATION SYSTEMS OFFICER
   Director Electronic Medical Records
   Director Cross-functional IS Engagement &
      Implementation Teams
DEPUTY CEO/HEALTH & HEALING & COMMUNITY OUTREACH
   Director Wellness & Prevention Programs
   Director Follow-up Patient Behaviors Program
   Director Public Health Initiatives
   Director Wellness Programs
   Director Kids' Education Programs
CPCCO/CHIEF PATIENT-CENTRIC CARE OFFICER
   Director Patient Experience Programs
   Director Planetree Practices Programs
   Director Patient "Home Port" & Self- & Family-
      Management Programs
DEPUTY CEO/PEOPLE
   Director Teams-based Organization
CCCO/CHIEF CHRONIC-CARE OFFICER

DEPUTY CEO CROSS-FUNCTIONAL COORDINATION OFFICER
   Director Patient-Treatment Teams Implementation
   Director Cross-functional Communications Initiatives

[See Tom's Healthcare Master (PPT) posted 9 April 2008.—CM]

The Healthcare14: U.S. Healthcare Trauma in 2008

I have screamed and shouted about customer service—to the point of physical and mental exhaustion and near collapse. I have screamed and shouted about our failure to embrace design as a rock-solid basis for differentiation. I have hissed and booed from on high and on low at the mis-direction of our education system in an age where creativity counts most. I have screamed and shouted and harangued and begged and cajoled and sworn like the sailor I once was on the topic of truly putting people first. I have screamed and shouted and been vicious and rude on the topic of women in leadership roles. I have insulted, with maximum verbal violence, every marketer I can find on the topic of inattention to the market power of women and boomers-geezers. I have pilloried every CEO I can lay voice on over the utter stupidity of 9 out of 9.1 major mergers. And I have begged and begged and begged some more on the topic of ... Stop talking, get on with it, whatever your "it" may be.

And now I'm engaged in another hysterical, and perhaps quixotic, campaign. This time the topic and target is American health"care." No doubt of it, I am the beneficiary of incredible care and have been aided by extraordinary medical devices and the skilled hands of exceptionally well-trained surgeons. (Just as I have gotten great service at the gazillion-dollars-a-night Four Seasons hotels in which I sometimes park my weary carcass.) Nonetheless, the American healthcare story is by and large a nightmare—and I don't just mean the un-insured. Below, after a dozen-years study, the last two of which have been rather intense, you will find my summary, shorthand List of American Healthcare Sins. Moreover, and most important, you will see that, in my opinion, most of these problems could be reversed without resort to either Mr McCain's or Mr Obama's Big Policy Initiatives. Using a simple, paper airline pilot-like checklist in ICUs can reduce infections and stays dramatically. Supplying simple compression socks to in-patients could avoid thousands upon thousands of deaths via deep-vein thrombosis. Clean hands—don't get me started. Scanners to certify accurate drug administration to in-patients—don't get me started.

As with customer-care and people practices, we have the wherewithal within to make Giant Performance Leaps. So when will we do so with the Total Determination the issue demands?

Tom Peters/The U.S. Healthcare14

U.S. Life expectancy rank: #45.
WHO, overall American healthcare system performance: #37 (#1 in cost).
Access: Denied to 10s of millions un/underinsured.
Unnecessary annual health-system deaths: 200,000-400,000 or more.*
Performance/top med centers: Problematic re quality of care and follow-up.*
Over-treatment (meds, tests, procedures): Pandemic.*
Use of hard evidence in medical decision-making: Spotty at best.*
Collection of evidence based on reported treatment errors: Low.*
Use of S.O.P.s in treatment regimes: Spotty.*
Incentives for appropriate care: Low.*
Incentives for inappropriate care: High.*
Emphasis on prevention and wellness: Low.*
Emphasis on chronic-care: Low.*
State-of-the-art IS/IT: Rare.*

*Fixable without legislation or major societal change—e.g., can by and large be improved dramatically without some form of mandated universal access to care and in the absence of, say, a full-fledged War on Obesity. (Evidence in support of this proposition is the fact that in every category starred above there are Pockets of Excellence—hospitals and other health-service organizations, facing the same realities as their peers, that really "get it.")

NB1: Many of these problems are equally applicable to other nations. But as is true with education issues, various nations use various approaches, so de facto generalization is dangerous.

NB2: This rant was triggered by a testy conversation with a client who inferred (in no uncertain terms) that I was being too hard on the healthcare folks. And to think, I thought I was letting them off too easily!

[Michael Millenson, author of Demanding Medical Excellence: Doctors and Accountability in the Information Age, which Tom has been quoting since its Y2000 publication, sent him this link to Millenson's 8-Day Health Care Diary (it mentions Tom, by the way).—CM]

Happy Birthday to Us

We started the blog before Tom joined in, so there are entries prior to four years ago today, but today is the day we consider our birthday. The official start of Tom's blogging is 28 July 2004, and today marks four years of blog posts! We'd like to thank all our readers for staying with us and contributing to the success of this blog.

Stop Telling Stories

What does it feel like to be engaged in genuine dialogue?

I have asked this question in many workshops and speeches lately. Audience members have given very rich answers. "It's like a flow." "It's learning from each other." "What I say depends on what the other person says."

In his 1930 essay, "Dialogue," Martin Buber distinguished between genuine dialogue and "monologue disguised as dialogue," which he as "characterized ... solely by the desire to have one's own self-reliance confirmed by marking the impression that is made."

[read more]

Everything Matters ...

I have grown a little frustrated with business's current love affair with cost cutting. Increasingly, little thought is being given to the impact on the brand. Just this week, I observed four examples that come to mind.

First, a restaurant I frequent that earned a deserved reputation for its wine list was out of several popular reds. The manager's directive to the employees? "It doesn't matter, they [customers] will just order something else." My note: It does matter, and maybe they will order their wine somewhere else.

Second, my health club started using a cheaper detergent and the towels are scratchy. And they lowered the temperature of the pool by five degrees. Since the people who made those decision don't actually work out at the facility, or overhear the talk in the locker room, I can understand their belief that "it doesn't matter."

Third, standing at the counter of a premium-priced golf course, I overheard a customer complaining to the pro that the round was excessively slow and the rangers (whose job it is to police the pace of play on the course) didn't seem to feel they could do anything about it. The customer said he wouldn't be back. The pro just said, "Oh well, nothing we can do about that," as if losing one customer doesn't matter. But, it doesn't matter only if there is an endless supply of golfers waiting to get on this course. There aren't. By the way, don't expect to see that golfer's buddies at your course, either.

Lastly, perhaps a small thing, but it is a case of the disappearing amenities at hotels. Sure, I can carry my own Q-tips, and if I want more than one cup of coffee, I can call room service. But I notice they haven't lowered the price of the room. And pardon my cynicism, but I have to believe that the option they offer of not changing the linens every day is based more on a desire to cut costs rather than saving the earth.

In my mind, a brand is built on a historic value proposition that builds a certain loyalty. If you start messing with the perceived benefits, those adjustments can't do anything but hurt the long-term interest of the business. I understand the need to be frugal, but I wish decision-makers had a better sense of what matters in the customers' eyes.

Am I just feeling a little grouchy today? Or have you noticed this as well? At what point is the brand compromised?

Event: McKesson

Tom is speaking for McKesson Provider Technologies at the 2008 Executive Leadership Summit in Colorado Springs at The Broadmoor. According to the McKesson website, they are "a healthcare IT company, dedicated to delivering comprehensive solutions with the power to make a difference in how you provide healthcare." If you went to the event, we'd like to hear from you. If you'd like to download the slides, the links are here:
McKesson Provider Technologies, 2008 Executive Leadership Summit, Final Version
McKesson Provider Technologies, 2008 Executive Leadership Summit, Long Version

Believe It or Not: An Original Take on Leadership

Dov Frohman is a pioneer in the semiconductor industry. Among (many) other things, he started Intel Israel and was largely responsible for the growth of Israel's potent high-tech sector. With Robert Howard, he has written a truly original book on leadership, Leadership the Hard Way: Why Leadership Can't Be Taught—and How You Can Learn It Anyway.

A few of the provocative chapter titles are: "Insisting on Survival," "Leadership Under Fire" (literally, Israel remember), "Leveraging Random Opportunities." In a chapter titled "The Soft Skills of Hard Leadership," Frohman astonishes as he insists that the leader-manager must free up no less than 50% of his-her time from routine tasks. To wit:

"Most managers spend a great deal of time thinking about what they plan to do, but relatively little time thinking about what they plan not to do ... As a result, they become so caught up ... in fighting the fires of the moment that they cannot really attend to the longterm threats and risks facing the organization. So the first soft skill of leadership the hard way is to cultivate the perspective of Marcus Aurelius: avoid busyness, free up your time, stay focused on what really matters. Let me put it bluntly: every leader should routinely keep a substantial portion of his or her time—I would say as much as 50 percent—unscheduled. ... Only when you have substantial 'slop' in your schedule—unscheduled time—will you have the space to reflect on what you are doing, learn from experience, and recover from your inevitable mistakes. Leaders without such free time end up tackling issues only when there is an immediate or visible problem. Managers' typical response to my argument about free time is, 'That's all well and good, but there are things I have to do.' Yet we waste so much time in unproductive activity—it takes an enormous effort on the part of the leader to keep free time for the truly important things."

Yet another surprising idea from the same chapter is "daydreaming":

"The Discipline Of Daydreaming": "Nearly every major decision of my business career was, to some degree, the result of daydreaming. ... To be sure, in every case I had to collect a lot of data, do detailed analysis, and make a data-based argument to convince superiors, colleagues and business partners. But that all came later. In the beginning, there was the daydream. By daydreaming, I mean loose, unstructured thinking with no particular goal in mind. ... In fact, I think daydreaming is a distinctive mode of cognition especially well suited to the complex, 'fuzzy' problems that characterize a more turbulent business environment. ... Daydreaming is an effective way of coping with complexity. When a problem has a high degree of complexity, the level of detail can be overwhelming. The more one focuses on the details, the more one risks being lost in them. ... Every child knows how to daydream. But many, perhaps most, lose the capacity as they grow up. ..."

And so on. I admit to having some quarrels with Frohman, yet every idea in the book performed that most valuable of services: challenged my long-held and thence hard-and-fast views.

Two Thumbs Up.

Our "Flirtatious Old Man" in Paris

You well know my bias, especially of late, that it's the nuts and bolts of relationship development and maintenance that make all the difference in outcomes of issues of tactical and strategic importance. Nothing has been of greater importance in American history than acquiring an ally in the Revolutionary War. That essential ally was France, and one can say in this rare instance that the efforts of Ben Franklin in Paris are almost single-handedly responsible for bringing the French on board. In its Independence Day issue, U.S. News & World Report reviewed Franklin's masterful performance, and a performance it was. The following is extracted from the article "In Paris, Taking the Salons by Storm: How the Canny Ben Franklin Talked the French into Forming a Crucial Alliance":

"In the same bitter winter of 1776 that Gen. George Washington led his beleaguered troops across the Delaware River to safety, Benjamin Franklin sailed across the Atlantic to Paris to engage in an equally crucial campaign, this one diplomatic. A lot depended on the bespectacled and decidedly unfashionable 70-year-old as he entered the world's fashion capitol sporting a simple brown suit and a fur cap. ... Franklin's miracle was that armed only with his canny personal charm and reputation as a scientist and philosopher, he was able to cajole a wary French government into lending the fledgling American nation an enormous fortune. ... The enduring image of Franklin in Paris tends to be that of a flirtatious old man, too busy visiting the city's fashionable salons to pursue affairs of state as rigorously as John Adams. When Adams joined Franklin in Paris in 1779, he was scandalized by the late hours and French lifestyle his colleague had adopted, says [Stacy Schiff, in A Great Improvisation]. Adams was clueless that it was through the dropped hints and seemingly offhand remarks at these salons that so much of French diplomacy was conducted. ... Like the Beatles arriving in America, Franklin aroused fervor—his face appeared on prints, teacups and even chamber pots. The extraordinary popularity served Franklin's diplomatic purposes splendidly. Not even King Louis XVI could ignore the enthusiasm that had won over both the nobility and the bourgeoisie. ..."

I guess this makes it less surprising that in the current issue of Time, in the cover story on Nelson Mandela's leadership "secrets," one was the great man's smile!

Grand Strategy may be of significant importance to an earthshaking success, but the likes of skill in the salon and a great smile often as not are the key ingredients of that "last 98%," persuasion and implementation.

Dear God, I'm Tired

I performed a brutal brush cutting-landscaping chore this morning in 90-degree heat. I truly pushed my ancient body to the limit and beyond.

But I got it done.
Or did I?

As I packed up my tools, I took a final look at what I'd done. Fine and dandy, but it was still a tiny-tiny-bit ragged here and there. Problem was, in the literal sense I didn't have an ounce of energy left. "F%^# it, I'll get it later" I said to myself and turned on the engine of my 4-wheel-drive Kubota.

I sat there a minute, dripping with sweat, and then I turned off the engine. With every muscle screaming in agony (I do not exaggerate—or so it feels), I got out of the Kubota, gathered a couple of tools, and spent the next 20 minutes doing that final touch on the job—and then just a little more, and a little more.

While the vignette is unmistakably self-serving, it is also one of those "reminders of the obvious" worth reminding you of. Namely, one cannot overestimate, in, say, our project work "the last two-percenter." That person who, at 2 a.m. takes one final look at the presentation to the Board tomorrow, and discovers that two key numbers are transposed on the footnote on Slide 47—and then looks "one last time" when she returns at 5:45 a.m. The carpenter who, finished, adds one final touch that alters the character of the cabinet he's spent two weeks building, and then hauls the piece back to his shop for a significant (to him) revision. Etc.

Sometimes we call the last two-percenter a "pain in the ass." True, but no one is of greater importance to the success of what we do. Funny thing, I felt less tired and achy after my "last two percent" drill than when I started it.

100 Ways to Succeed #131:

Cherish the "Pain in the Ass."

Reward the "last two-percenter/s" as if she/they were the Ultimate Gift from The Gods! They are!

Nothing New Under the Sun Redux Redux

"For Real Globalization, Look at Ancient Rome": "There is nothing new about a global world. We were living in one 2,000 years ago. ... The Roman in the street ate bread baked with wheat grown in North Africa or Egypt, and fish that had been caught and dried near Gibraltar. He cooked with North African oil in pots and pans of copper mined in Spain, ate off dishes fired in French kilns, drank wine from Spain or France. ... The Roman of wealth dressed in garments of wool from Miletus or linen from Egypt; his wife wore silks from China, adorned herself with diamonds and pearls from India, and made up with cosmetics from South Arabia. ... He lived in a house whose walls were covered with colored marble veneer quarried in Asia Minor; his furniture was of Indian ebony or teak inlaid with African ivory. ..."—Peter Jones and Lionel Casson, The Spectator, 0521.08

The value of this Post? You decide. For me it's a reminder that our foremothers and forefathers have been through "all this" before—often as not—so enough with the "Oh my Gods"! Instead, enjoy the summer—even if the $4 gas keeps you a little closer to home.

Economic Growth Insulates Against International Violence?

I've been "one of those" who has blithely proclaimed that globalization and the more general spread of wealth and modernity (China, India plus) is the most probable path to more or less universal peace and stability, instability in the Middle East notwithstanding.

Maybe.
Maybe not.

Consider these confident assertions from Europe, just prior to World War I, from The Guns of August, by Barbara Tuchman* (*I just finished a re-read):

"By impressive examples and incontrovertible argument [Norman] Angel [in his book, The Great Illusion] showed that given the present financial and economic interdependence of nations, the victor [in a war] would suffer equally with the vanquished; therefore war had become unprofitable; therefore no one would be so foolish as to start one."

[NB: Tuchman reports that Angel's book was published in 1910, four years before the Great War, translated into numerous languages, and studied by the highest level statesmen from the UK and all of Europe to Japan, with almost uniform nods of agreement.]

"New economic factors clearly prove the inanity of aggressive wars. ... Because of the interlacing of nations, war becomes every day more difficult and improbable."

[Lectures in 1910 by Viscount Esher, chairman of the UK's "War Commission" and senior advisor on foreign policy and the military; he believed that the Angel doctrine was as accepted in Germany as in the UK.]

This from Niall Ferguson, The War of the World, on the 1900s, the bloodiest century in human history by far: "The hundred years after 1900 were a time of unparalleled progress. In real terms, it has been estimated [that] average per capita global domestic product increased by little more than 50 percent between 1500 and 1870. Between 1870 and 1998, however, it increased by a factor of more than six and a half."

TP remark: Hmmmm.

Great Read! Important Read!

I've rarely seen such raves as for Amanda Ripley's The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes—and Why.

Read it!

The idea, told almost exclusively through compelling stories, is that we can do better than we imagine when shit hits the fan—and that it's up to you and me, not the pros, to do most of the work for ourselves and others. If there is a "secret," and there more or less is, it is practice. Fullscale drills, among other things, but little stuff is at least as important. For example, the office worker who walks down the stairs (many floors) to lunch once every couple of weeks—it's a way to train the body, when virtually paralyzed by fear, to do the right-useful thing.

Here are a few one- or two-liners from the book:

"Regular people only feature into the [standard] equation as victims, which is a shame. Because regular people are the most important people at a disaster scene—every time. ... The vast majority of rescues [are] done by ordinary folks."

"Since 9/11 the U.S. government has sent over $23 billion to the states and cities in the name of homeland security. Almost none of that money has gone to intelligently enrolling regular people like you and me in the cause. Why don't we tell people what to do when we are on Orange Alert against a terrorist attack—instead of just telling them to be scared?"

London 2005: "Emergency plans had been designed to meet the needs of emergency officials, not regular people."

"Without too much trouble, we can teach our brains to work more quickly, maybe even more wisely, under great stress. We have more control over our fate than we think. We need to stop underestimating ourselves."

"Realistic practice brings out our faults—and then makes us stronger." "Abilities we think are innate almost never are." "Skill is my ability to do something automatically, at the subconscious level. How do I get that? I do that by repetition, by practicing the right thing. The only way you learn it is to program it."

The idea here is not to scare the hell out of you or me. Or to turn us into fanatic Exit sign watchers. It's to tell some useful stories, and to provide us with some useful strategies. When it comes to the terrorism bit, anyone who thinks we have seen the last of it is living in la-la land.

Great beach read?
Whatever.

FDR: Master of Marketing Technology

I just finished a wonderful book, The Defining Moment, by Jonathan Alter. The book focuses on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first 100 days in office, during which FDR successfully lifted the hopes of the American people from the depths of Great Depression-induced depression.

There are many facets to the story of FDR's first 100 days, but the one I want to focus on here is FDR's interest in creating an intimate conversation with the American people. Alter tells the story of Roosevelt sitting in the Oval Office writing his radio address, his first "Fireside Chat," less than a week after his 1933 inauguration. He looked out his window and saw a worker taking down the inauguration platform, and said to himself, "I want to give a speech that worker will understand." Then, while on the air, he imagined he was speaking one-on-one with this person. Often, just before giving a radio address, FDR would visualize a construction worker, an office worker, or a girl working in a store. The White House received thousands of letters from people who said they felt like the president was speaking directly to them as they sat by their radios.

For centuries, before the invention of microphones and public address systems, orators had to speak very loudly to reach large audiences. This stentorian style carried over into the early days of radio, with announcers using their booming voices in the only way they knew how. FDR was among the first to recognize the opportunity for intimacy that the new technology afforded, and he used this opportunity masterfully.

I believe that there are two kinds of technological innovations (which I describe in Chapter 1 of We): those that put barriers between you and your customers ("please enter your 16-digit credit card number") and those that bring you closer to your customers (the Apple Genius Bar reservation system). FDR taught us an important lesson. Instead of looking at the new tool of radio as a way to talk to 60 million people at one time, he looked at it as a chance to talk to one person, 60 million at a time.

[Read more by Steve Yastrow at yastrow.com.—CM]

Summer with the Red Sox and at tompeters.com

I am a special fan of pitchers' duels. Zero-zero with 2 down in the ninth—then Boog Powell (old Baltimore Oriole) hits a walkoff home run and Dave McNally racks up a one hitter. That'd have been my idea of heaven. On the other hand, I enjoyed the heck out of the Red Sox game I attended last Wednesday. Sox won. Fine. (I'm an A's fan—still. Mostly.) Sox won big. 18-5. But what was a kick, to this fan of pitchers' duels, was a game with 37 hits! Twenty-three for the Sox, 14 for the Twins!

But neither the Red Sox nor the Twins nor Boog Powell is the topic of this Post.

Susan and I and my stepson Ben were in the sun behind home plate on Wednesday in Fenway for the Hit Parade. The temperature in the shade was well over ninety—edging toward triple digits. And the humidity was as you'd expect from a waterfront city in July. That is, it was hotter 'n stickier than hell—with room to spare.

I have decided that such hot weather—and accompanying high humidity—must be the norm this summer. How did I reach this conclusion? Simple. By reading recent sets of Comments. I love them one and all, and that's the truth—but I must say that there must be a lot of folks, certainly not all, or even most, suffering from the blistering summer heat and accompanying Houstonian humidity. That is, there are those who are cross. And those who are angry. Those who are sarcastic. And those who favor ad hominem attacks. Those who border on (border on?) rude—woulda merited a face slap from my Mom. And those who can't resist another gotcha, call it a "gotcha gotcha," added to their string of prior gotchas.

That's all.
Whatever.

Damn heat.
Damn humidity.

(Our rules of open discourse will not be suspended by invoking any special Heat Index Clause in the Patriot Act—hey, fall is coming, the temperatures will fall, and doubtless civility will rear its ever so dull head once again.)

Cool Friend #125: Dan Ariely

Our latest Cool Friend, Dan Ariely, is a behavioral economist. As such, he studies how people actually act in financial transactions. He observes behaviors such as buying (or not), saving (or not), ordering food in restaurants, and decision making under differing emotional conditions. He is author of the New York Times bestseller Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions, and in our interview he calls the book the evil step-brother of Freakonomics. You can read his Cool Friends interview here, or visit his website, www.PredictablyIrrational.com.

In keeping with our recent Cool Friends posts, here is an MP3 with Three Things from Dan Ariely. Something new, however, we are counting the Cool Friends interviews, and we're proud to say that Dan is #126 in our collection. [Addendum, 3 August 2008: Oops, I can't count. This interview is #125, and I changed the title above.—CM]

RSS Feed for Comments

Some of our readers are very active in adding comments to our blog posts. For those of you who use RSS to read this blog, you may enjoy our new feature to keep track of the conversation: an RSS feed for the comments. We've added a new button to the top right of the banner to access the RSS feed. You can see its location above and more detail below.

Thanks to Michael for commenting on this post with the suggestion.

Getting Clear on We

My post "The Downturn Is a Rounding Error" and Tom's subsequent post on this topic generated some great discussion on the concept of forming long-term relationships with customers—what I call We relationships.

Here's how I define a We relationship: When your customer never thinks of you without thinking of both of you. A customer can think that your company is wonderful, as in "They do a great job." But, when your customer can't think of you without thinking of her relationship with you at the same time, then you've achieved a higher level of connectedness.

Example: There are 8 diners near my house that I can choose for a breakfast meeting. They're all pretty good. But I can’t think of one of them, Rhapsody Café, without simultaneously thinking of my connection to this restaurant, and my relationship with Ramon Abarca, the owner. Early on, after I first started visiting Rhapsody with clients and associates for breakfast meetings, Ramon began to acknowledge me and offer to find me quiet tables for my business conversations. He showed interest in me, and, over time, we had conversations and got to know each other. These short conversations were relationship-building encounters, and, as I heard his stories, I became interested in his success. Now, it's impossible for me to think of Rhapsody Café on its own, without, at the same time, thinking of my good times there and how Ramon and his team have made me feel comfortable. That’s a We relationship, and Rhapsody Café gets a disproportionate share of my business.

Consider that your customer thinks about your product only a small portion of the time. But she thinks of herself all day long. When she can't think of you without thinking of both of you, you have connected yourself to what she really cares about: herself.

How often do you experience this kind of We relationship?

[See Steve's book on this subject.—CM]

Place Those Small Bets, Quickly!

Nothing goes so well with that first cup of coffee as having your biases confirmed!

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal ("In Search of Growth Leaders"), University of Virginia/Darden Graduate School of Business Prof Sean Carr, et al., lay out a growth model. There are, more or less, two flavors of companies:

The first sort, focused on avoiding downsides, treats customers "only as data," "manages risk through analysis," "places big bets, slowly," and frequently fails in new situations; alas, its rigidity and fearfulness increases through time in a vicious circle.

The second sort sees life as a "journey of learning." It treats customers "as people"—and constantly seeks new input through direct contact with those customers. The Type Two group "places small bets, quickly" and manages risk through hustle and an abiding bias for test-try-adjust-action. It is relatively more successful in novel situations—which in turn creates a virtuous circle through which a "growth mindset" becomes the raison d'être of the firm itself.

TP reaction: Amen.

My Kind of Acquisition

viagra pfizer online

A couple of thoughts from my pile of tearouts during my just completed China trip. First:

I am considered to be an avowed enemy of acquisitions, and I can understand why. I do indeed decry the typical "Fat 'n Ugly + Fat 'n Ugly = Quick and slick" "logic" behind giant get-togethers of mediocrities for defensive purposes in industries in distress.

On the other hand, there is an acquisition type I applaud, and the Wall Street Journal recently (0703) featured just such a pairing. GE plans to take on Pratt & Whitney in the turboprop market. To spearhead the effort, GE has just completed the purchase of Walter Engines, an 85-year old firm from the Czech Republic—Walter, the WSJ reports, "earned a reputation ... for building rugged propeller engines used heavily in Eastern Europe and niche markets such as agriculture and cargo planes."

Bingo! Fill a need-hole by paying top dollar for a superb, well-regarded firm of modest size that complements your main business. Of course, achieving the desired result is not easy, as the melding of the desirable practices of a non-bureaucratic, independent, and proud firm into a Big Dog's corporate culture is very hard and delicate work—the failure rate is high. Still, the practice makes sense if you are willing to work patiently with such acquired companies.

My Kind of Promotion

While in China-Macau SAR, I was delighted with a headline in the Global Edition of the New York Times on 1 July: "A Big Step for Women in the U.S. Military." President Bush has just nominated Lieutenant General Ann Dunwoody to take command of the Army's Material Command. If Congress approves, she will add a fourth star to her collar—and thence become the military's first female 4-star flag officer.

Bravo!

Happy Birthday, USA!

While we Americans wake on this day each year and look forward to hamburgers, hot dogs, beer, and fireworks in the night sky, we were also reminded earlier this week by William Kristol in a New York Times article to look back at the Declaration of Independence that is the source of our celebration. Turns out that Mr. Kristol now gathers each 4th of July with friends and they read it aloud. "It's a longer document than one thinks; the charges against the king take quite a while to get through," he writes.

To up the ante this year, he's going to add one text to the reading list: Thomas Jefferson's letter to Roger Weightman of June 24, 1826, explaining that ill health prevented him from traveling to Washington, D.C., to celebrate the 50th anniversary of American independence. As it turned out, that was the last letter Thomas Jefferson would write. Mr. Kristol points to a passage in that letter that perhaps ought to be as well known as the famous phrases from the Declaration.

May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains, under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings & security of self-government.

I intend to put aside some time today to read aloud these two documents and re-acquaint myself with what we're truly celebrating. And then I'm going to fire up the grill and enjoy some burgers and beer.

Later this evening, we Americans will gather on the shores of the Charles River in Boston, near the presidential monuments in Washington, D.C., on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, and on town greens across the country and tilt our heads back and 'ooh' and 'ahh' as we stare into the sky watching the 'rockets red glare' re-enacted again and again.

Happy 4th of July to you all!

Links:
Declaration of Independence

Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Roger Weightman

ZIM

I'm in Macau (the next-door island of Taipa-Coloane, actually), speaking to the global leaders of ZIM Integrated Shipping Services—one of the world's largest cargo shippers. The LONG and PRESENTATION versions of my slides are available.

(Above is a photo from my hotel room window that I've titled "Global warming? What, me worry?" It is a small segment of the cooling towers-apparatus used for climate control here at The Venetian—sister of the Las Vegas property by the same name.)

OMG, A Positive Airline Story!

Never thought I'd be caught saying something nice about an airline, but here goes. Was scheduled to fly United from SF to Macau, via Taipei. Was indulging myself with a 1st class seat. But transfer process in Taipei smelled nightmarish.

Looking around for alternatives I found EVA Airways. (My travel agent-Goddess had booked it as a very second "safety choice." (My contracts require a backup.) I don't pretend to be omniscient, but I'm a little leery of airlines I've never heard of after several million miles and several million years of flying. At the EVA website, though, I had the opportunity to go to a neutral site for customer comments—while a couple were minor complaints, the vast majority were very positive. Given the comments and the fact that the connecting process in Taipei appeared to be painless—we booked EVA about eight hours before I was to leave.

Enough of the build-up. Bottom line, top line, middle line: A fantastic experience. Flew business class—$7,500 (no bull) less than United. Everyone, as in everyone, had great attitudes. Check-in painless and positive. Lounges great in SF and Taipei. Transfer in Taipei very easy. And on and on. All together, a rare A+ experience.

(Guess what airline I'm flying back to Boston?)

(FYI fellow ignoramuses: EVA was launched in 1989 with a $3 billion aircraft order. It is a sister of the much older, Taipei-based Evergreen Marine Corporation, the 4th largest containership outfit in the world. I'm slightly embarrassed that Evergreen Marine is a competitor to my hosts at ZIM!)

Election Junkies

Maybe I'm the last to catch on, but usaelectionpolls.com is a marvelous site with an astounding array of polling info—more than anybody sane could want, but, then, I'm not sane when it comes to either elections or statistics.

(FYI, there is no partisan commentary—but there are very useful explanations of poll strengths and weaknesses and methodology.)

Steve Yastrow Rules!

Steve posted recently on dealing positively with the recession by doing better by your existing customers—and thus getting more of their business. Well, here's some nice support for Steve's view (and a useful quote). Horst Schulze is the legendary former Ritz-Carlton chief—father of "ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen." He's come out of retirement to launch a luxury brand of small hotels. Here in Macau, I came across an interview with Horst in Prestige magazine (06.08). He directly addressed, with aplomb, the issue of starting a new business during a recession: "I [will] not accept the explanation of a recession negatively affecting the [new] business. There are still people traveling. We just have to get them to stay in our hotel."

More or less took the words out of Steve Yastrow's mouth. (And words with which I agree heartily.)

100 Ways to Succeed #130:

Bad Times?
Become Top Line Hypermanic!

Cutting, cutting, cutting is typically Recession Obsession-Preoccupation #1. Cutting may well be necessary, but don't let it get in the way of, in reality or psychologically,* becoming born-again Sales Hounds. With whatever tools you can dream up, re-double your time and effort aimed at increasing your business with existing top customers.

Start within the ... hour!

(*The "cutting psychology" is deadly—most everyone goes into a defensive shell when "cutting-is-all" becomes the odor of the place.)