May All the Gods Smile Upon Them!

See directly above. It is the "control panel" of my new Black & Decker SmartBrew coffeemaker.

One switch.
Two positions.
"On."
"Off."

I hereby declare that B&D not only wins Tom's User Friendly Grand Award—but retires the cup!!

(Some of you snobs will go on & on & on about the limitations of my Dearest Delight. And I will reply with a smirk. In a blind taste test, my coffee will be as good as yours!)

Speaking of Superb User-friendly Design (and Simplicity) ...

Below you'll see ye olde fashion nubby scorecard pencil—directly from Fenway Park. Doesn't get much better than that, either!

Speaking of Design:
How to Spend $50,000

If I had $50,000 to spend on the design of a new home—or smallish professional office building, here's how I'd spend it:

Home:

Interior designer: $25,000.
Landscape designer: $15,000.
Architect: $10,000.

Logic: We live and work and play inside the dwelling (mostly) and outside the dwelling (some to a lot, depending on the climate). The skin that divides in from out, the architect's work, is a third-order concern.

Office:

Interior designer: $30,000.
Landscape designer: $12,000.
Architect: $8,000.

Logic is pretty much the same, with a little added emphasis on the interior.

If this makes sense from a use perspective (and "use" is what we do), why is the architect typically treated like God, and the interior designer and landscaper as second-stringers ... if we use them at all?

I suppose because "we" like pictures of the places we live and work better than the places themselves? (Ever notice that in architectural magazines, there are never people?) (Okay, I'll be fair, there are rarely people pix in interior design mags either—again, alas, we design for a good picture rather than livability.)

Full disclosure:

My wife is a tapestry artist and home furnishings designer-entrepreneur.
My hobby is landscaping.
I despise most Frank Gehry buildings as extravagant ego-exercises.*
[*There is one architect I love. Christopher Alexander—coauthor of the magnificent Pattern Language. He focuses on living in/using a space—inside and out—rather than the sexiness of the skin.]

Mary Pennington, Ignaz Semmelweis,
And the "Last 98%"

Mary Pennington, IBD tells us (June 22), was known as the "Ice Lady." The Philadelphian saved countless lives via her successful campaigns for sanitary food practices in the early 1900s. Her engaging demeanor was such that she was time and again able to gain the support of both producers and distributors. (A Ph.D. chemist from Penn, remarkable in itself, she became the first woman employed by the USDA.)

Reading about Ms Pennington, I was reminded of the virtually opposite story of Ignaz Semmelweis, another pioneer in the field of sanitary conditions. While his work, and that of his peers, eventually had enormous impact, it fell flat for decades—in spite of the obviousness of his findings. Rather than making common cause with the doctors whose practices he was trying to alter (wash your hands), he instead did such things as writing letters to the press at times denouncing the docs, per Wikipedia, as "irresponsible murderers."

It is "just" a "Monday rant" from me reminding us, as the week begins, of that "all important last 98%" called implementation—and, of course, that implementation is a matter of respect and listening and carefully nurtured relationships 98% of the time.

Success Tip #176:

Skip the Trashtalk!

Sure you're pissed off that the folks who will be the BENEFICIARIES (!!) of your Magnificent Work "just don't get it."

Hint: Calling them the likes of "irresponsible murderers" won't help!

Rule: Don't trashtalk prospective users of your programs—even in the most private of private conversations with your most trusted friends and allies!!

TomChirp #19

I desperately want to see a thoroughgoing healthcare overhaul (patient safety, an end to pay-by-procedure, and the exaltation of primary care docs are the main planks in my platform). But I was nonetheless fascinated by the lead article in the June 29 IBD/Investors Business Daily—"Uninsured Figures Overhype the Lack of Health Coverage." IBD points to several reasonable analyses that tally the involuntarily uninsured in the U.S.A. at about 20 million, or even less, rather than the "popular" 45 million+ stat. IBD is a conservative rag, to be sure, but this analysis points up the always obvious state of affairs: it's a dead flat cinch, left or right, to "interpret" statistics about the same phenomenon in RADICALLY different ways.

TomChirp #20

Recommendation: The July 2009 issue of Wired is particularly good.

TomChirp #17

How's Your Day Going?

Flash.
CitiGroup to raise base pay of key execs by 50%.
And you?

TomChirp #18

MBA "Musings"

The Financial Times reported yesterday that Harvard b-school students created, and over 1,000 have signed, an oath specifying acceptable behavior. Among other things, they promise to pay equal attention to "shareholders, co-workers, customers and the society in which they operate." On the one hand, as writer Michael Skapinker says, it's easy to dismiss; the oath hardly represents "breakthrough thinking"—except perhaps in prestigious b-schools and on Wall Street. On the other hand, it is perhaps a small step in a useful direction, and deserves a tiny nod or at least temporarily suspended laughter. Some of this seems to follow not only the financial crisis, but the famous/infamous recent Jack Welch disclaimer. Welch, father-patron saint-cheerleader-haranguer-in-chief of the ubiquitous "shareholder value movement," recently dissed the primacy of shareholder value as "the dumbest idea in the world." Presumably dismissing as scurrilous the primary thing you stood for in your widely heralded career does not tarnish your reputation (Welch was just reported as starting an online B-school); to me, it makes the former GE icon a self-anointed laughingstock.

Speaking of laughingstock: My b-school alma mater, Stanford, has just appointed a new dean, Garth Saloner. I am sure he is a fine fellow, doubtless very bright—and of course I wish him well. But Stanford surely wins no out-of-the-box honors; in fact they seem to have defined "trapped in the same frigging box we've been in approximately forever." The new dean is a white-male-economist. Dear God-oh-God-oh-God-oh-God, why why why why why why another economist? Solaner, the latest poster child for non-diversity, makes the third or fourth economist in a row—I've lost track. (Before the economist streak started, we had an accountant who starred in the Enron fiasco.) The lack of imagination is nothing short of mind-boggling. I only wish I'd been giving my b-school a lot of money, so that I'd have the unalloyed pleasure of cutting them off.

Speaking of the Stanford b-school redux: I recently mentioned an excellent Harvard Business Review article, "The Buck Starts (and Stops) at Business School," in which author and former b-school dean Joel Podolny says at one point, "The degree of contrition at business schools seems small compared with the magnitude of the offense." In the issue of Stanford Business I just received, the outgoing dean, Robert Joss, offers his own assessment of b-school contrition: "A better balance is needed."

Please pass the barf bag!

Summer Banner, Excellent Idea

For our summer banner (which went up two days early because the Solstice occurred on Sunday), we asked Joy Stauber, who has been designing our banners for a couple of years now, to think about Summer and Excellence. While Joy has been designing a seasonal banner every three months for tompeters.com, this time we asked her to also consider Excellence, for Excellence is what this site is all about. Of course it hearkens back to the book Tom co-authored with Bob Waterman. It's an idea that launched Tom's speaking career and also an idea that at some level overwhelmed Tom, so that he found himself shying away from it for a long while.

To quote Tom from an April, 2006 blog post:

I got so damn sick of "excellence," so worn out by "excellence" ... for years after "the book" became a hit. Distanced myself from it. Ran from it.

But no longer. Excellence is back in a big way. If you've looked at any of Tom's slide presentations lately, you'll see that the first slide always includes: "Excellence. Always."

When Joy began to think about Excellence (which hereafter will always be capitalized at this site) and images for a banner, she thought about the wheel, and when she thinks wheels, she thinks bikes. (As a fan of bicycles myself, I’m glad that the banner begins with a bike in motion.) Joy discovered the black and white spiral while exploring the Golden Mean, also known as the Golden Ratio, and she liked the energy of it. (Cathy's concern: "When you scroll down our front page, the black spiral seems to pulse in and out. I hope we don't cause any seizures.") Yes, we all here at tompeters.com hope we don't cause any seizures, either, unless you’re seized by an urge to sit bolt upright and realize that you can begin right now to always be Excellent.

Flowers are Excellent, of course, but especially this flamboyant one. (No meek and mild-mannered flowers here.) (Recall also that Tom suggests not cutting back on your flower budget even during this recession.) And what could be more Excellent than fresh-grown garden tomatoes? From the earth, pictured next. As for the star, isn't Excellent work always rewarded with a star? (Maybe not in real life, but certainly in school. But maybe real-life Excellence should be rewarded with stars, too?)

Joy likes to include a silhouetted character in her banners. You may or may not think it's Tom, flying a kite. (His hair has never been that long in our recollection.) Think Ben Franklin and the discovery of electricity, think wind power. The words in the speech balloon clearly are Tom's, part of his new clarion call, "If not EXCELLENCE, WHAT? If not EXCELLENCE now, WHEN? " After that, we move on to the sunset, our Excellent reward at the end of each day.

That's the lowdown behind the new Summer/Excellence banner.

With that, we here wish all of you a wonderful, warm, relaxing, and Excellent summer. (As always to our friends in the southern hemisphere, best wishes for an Excellent winter.)

Excellence. Always. Brazil.

Tom is speaking at ExpoGestão, the annual congress of the Federation of Entrepreneurial Associations of Santa Catarina. He's in Joinville, in the state of Santa Catarina in Brazil. Tom is joined at the podium by the likes of Gary Becker, who won the 1992 Nobel Prize in Economics, and Sharada Ramanathan, who's a director and entrepreneur—and often the face of Bollywood to the rest of the world.

As always, we welcome your comments if you were there. And you can get three PPTs for the event here: Excellence. Always. ExpoGestão, ExpoGestão, Long Version, and a special deck titled The Innovation 24.

100 Ways to Succeed #175:

Stop!

In preparation for a short speech at a Nature Conservancy fund raiser, I re-read Bill Birchard's Nature's Keepers: The Remarkable Story of How The Nature Conservancy Became the Largest Environmental Organization in the World. When former president John Sawhill was at TNC's helm, at one point he appointed a key task force to do a ground-up look at the organization's strategy. More specifically, per Sawhill's charge: "What areas should the Conservancy focus on and more important—what activities should we stop doing?"

In general, for you or me or our organization, consciously-systematically-strategically working on "stop doings" is of the utmost importance—and often overlooked. We might stop doing some distracting thing, or lower a priority—but that's not the same as a personal or organizational look at entire areas to excise from our agenda. (And then planning in exacting detail how to withdraw.)

So, I suggest:

In the next 90 days, work with your leadership team on a "Stop Doing Strategic Review." As I said above, once decisions have been made a careful execution plan must be developed.

(Along the way, do the same thing for yourself—with the eventual help of a "stop counselor.")

TomChirp #16

On the way from Boston to Miami to go to São Paulo on the way to Joinville, I read in Newsmax (June 2009) "Cyber Warfare: Could It Bring Us Down." The article is very well packaged—with an interesting set of threat assessments.

[This is the article with a different title.—CM]

Cool Friend #139: George Whalin

Author of Retail Superstars: Inside the 25 Best Independent Stores In America, new Cool Friend George Whalin points us to the most remarkable places to shop in this country. Each has its own fascinating story, which Whalin details in the book. In his interview with Erik, he also recounts a story about George Harrison, a stolen guitar, and a Federale in Guadalajara. George Whalin is the founder of Retail Management Consultants, which provides business-building services to retail companies and industry suppliers all across North America. He has worked with companies in every area of retailing from single-store merchants to leading national chains, as well as retail trade associations, franchise organizations, and some of the world's best-known consumer products manufacturers, distributors, and suppliers. You can see what Tom said about Whalin's book in a blog post titled "Guarantee!," or learn more at his Retailer Blog. We welcome George to our group of Cool Friends.

The ONE Thing ...

In New Delhi a couple of weeks ago, I had a general in the Indian Army in the front row. I don't recall the details, but evaluating senior officers for promotion came up. I ventured, boldly, that there "was one issue that stood head and shoulders above the rest."

Namely: What is this candidate's track record—in exacting detail—in developing people. Though hardly locked in concrete, I posited that "the ONE question" might go something like this:

"In the last year [3 years, current job], name the three people whose growth you've most contributed to. Please explain in some significant detail where each was at the beginning of the year, where he or she is today, and where each is heading in the next 12 and 24 and 60 months. Please explain your development strategy in each case. Please tell me your biggest development disappointment this past year—looking back, could you or would you have done anything differently? Please tell me about your greatest development triumph—and disaster—in the last ten years. What are the 'three big things' you've learned about 'people development' along the way."

As I see it, it's not the boss' role, for instance, to make strategy. It's the boss's role to develop the best strategist—and the boss's role to ensure that the process thereof is moving along rapidly and imaginatively. And so on.

Finally, as I see it, this in some form applies to pretty much every promotion. And it even has a bearing on evaluating a non-manager on a 3-month project. That rather junior person will, for example, in several instances be responsible for accomplishing a milestone—and to do so, she must engage her team members, and engage them in a way that they go away with some learnings—that contribute a bit to their development.

What do you think about this riff?

100 Ways to Succeed #174:

Promotion: The ONE Question

See above. The promotion decision should be dominated by the candidates' detailed track record at people development. The candidates' assertions should be carefully checked with the people the candidates claim to have developed.

I Do Not Wish You Harm

I do not wish Barclays PLC president Robert Diamond harm. Nor do I wish BlackRock chairman Laurence Fink harm. Short of that, I surely do not wish them well.
I would love to be in a room with the duo, so I could have the pleasure of not shaking their hands. I would not spit on them—but I would be tempted. Sorely tempted.

Diamond and Fink graced page B1 of Saturday's Wall Street Journal. The story was of BlackRock's purchase of Barclays' money management operation. It was reported that the top 400 Barclays execs would divvy up $630 million—and Diamond would receive about $36.5 million.

What bugged me was not the $$$-signs per se.

What made me gag were the big, gaping grins on the two guys' faces. I think that is appalling-insensitive-stupefying-outrageous-disgusting-sickening in June 2009.

Would I love to find a check in the mail for $36.5 million? Damn right. Might it light up my face? Sure, but hopefully in the privacy of my entry hall at home. Not some big silly ass public grin—as thousands more are in the process of receiving pink slips in the same mail delivery.

One suspects that the pathetic saps actually think they deserved the bucks for "hard work" and personal brilliance. And maybe they even think the 20,000 a day who lose their jobs in the U.S. alone deserve their fates for not having kept their collective noses close enough to the grind stone.

But ...

But (not the first time I've used this phrase of late) ... have they no shame? If the photo was a must, couldn't they have shown a little sobriety of demeanor? I'm not asking for grim—just the tiniest inkling that they comprehend that not quite everyone experienced a $36.5 million payday on 12 June 2009.

Sorry bastards!

I do not wish them harm.
I do not wish them well.

TomChirp #14

I'll report more thoroughly later, but I heartily recommend "The Buck Starts (and Stops) at Business School," by Joel Podolny, in the current (June) Harvard Business Review. Sample: "The degree of contrition at business schools seems small compared with the magnitude of the offense."

As a vociferous 30-year critic of the b-schools, almost every word was music to my ears. Podolny and I share views at the 99.999% level.

[NB: In the same HBR, check out "Relentless Idealism for Tough Times," a terrific interview with Chez Panisse founder (1971) Alice Waters. Among other things, Waters insists that her chefs spend FIFTY PERCENT of their time away from their kitchen learning new stuff!!.]

TomChirp #15

Robert Samuelson is no right-wing nut. But he is a severe critic of President Obama's health plan. And I agree with almost every word he wrote in an Op-ed in the 15 June IBD. Here are a few of those words:

"Much medical spending is wasted. It doesn't improve Americans' health; some care is unneeded or ineffective. [TP: Some estimates of unnecessary care hit the trillion-dollar mark per annum; and some estimates suggest that in cases like bypass surgery, over 90% of the time it's used it's unnecessary.] The central cause of runaway healthcare is clear. Hospitals and doctors are paid mostly on a fee-for-service basis. ... The open-ended payment system encourages doctors and hospitals to provide more services—and patients to expect them. ... That's the crux of the healthcare dilemma, and Obama hasn't confronted it."

[NB: The same day I read Samuelson's piece, I also perused "The Health Reform We Need and Are Not Getting," by Arnold Relman, in the 2 July New York Review of Books. A brief excerpt: "Economists say that the primary reason for high costs is the ever-expanding use of expensive kinds of diagnosis and treatment, such as new drugs, diagnostic tests, imaging methods and surgical procedures. Physicians in most other advanced countries have access to virtually the same resources, but use them less. This difference is partly explained by a higher proportion of specialists in the U.S. who rely more than primary care physicians on expensive technical procedures for their livelihood, and in general are much more highly paid than primary care physicians—one reason why primary care doctors are now in short supply. The American College of Physicians attributes much of the high cost of the US health system to its relative excess of well-paid specialists and lack of primary care doctors. ... In seeking consensus, Obama's health reform policies do not address the central causes of rising costs, and propose nothing likely to have much effect on them."]

[NB: In short, per Samuelson, Relman and me, if you don't go after (1) fee-for-service, (2) unnecessary care, (3) mal-practice tort reform, (4) evidence-based medicine, (5) geographic spending variations, (6) redirection of resources to wellness, prevention, and chronic-care, and (7) the excess of specialists and shortage of primary care physicians, then healthcare reform is a joke. Ergo, healthcare reform is a joke.]

On a cheerier note: above, an aptly named "beauty bush" outside my studio; below, one of Susan's Peonies.

Be Irreplaceable

In your next interaction with a customer, try this: Be irreplaceable.

If you wait tables, make sure that the customer's experience depends on you, and who you are, and would have been different with another server who served the same meals.

If you are a technology consultant, make sure that your client's experience would be totally different if another consultant were delivering the same advice.

If you are a doctor, make sure that your patient's experience is made special by who you are, and would be different if another doctor delivered the same diagnosis.

Relationship-building encounters don't happen between "waiter and customer," "consultant and client," or "doctor and patient." They happen between human beings. It is, of course, critically important to treat your customer like a full person, and honor what makes her unique. But that is only half the equation. Make sure that you represent yourself in the encounter, not as a representative of your job role, but as you. Interact with your customer in a way that could only be done by you, a way in which another person could not substitute for you without making the experience different.

Early in my days as a consultant I had a breakthrough moment. I realized that I didn't want my clients to think of me as "our marketing consultant, Steve," but as "Steve, our marketing consultant." This is not a subtle distinction. It's the difference between being replaceable, and irreplaceable.

In one sense, being irreplaceable isn't easy. But in another sense it is, because there's no one else on earth like you. Be you. Be irreplaceable.

[See more by Cool Friend Steve Yastrow at www.yastrow.com.]

Technical Difficulties

If you tried to visit our site yesterday, you may have noticed that we had a day-long outage. This is unusual for us and we were scrambling to fix the issue. Our thanks go out to our trusty hosting service, Joyent, for resolving it and getting us up and running again. We appreciate your patience.

Link roundup

Our Cool Friend Nick Morgan recently published a manifesto at ChangeThis.com that we think anyone who speaks publicly will find useful. Check it out.

Regular commenter Ian Sanders sent us a link to a good customer service story on his blog. Actually, an over-the-top, awesomely out-of-the-ordinary, beyond-what-you'd-ever-expect customer service story.

Tom Asacker is another person who comments regularly on our blog. We got to know him because Tom Peters used to quote something fun he wrote in a letter to the editor at Fast Company magazine (don't ask how long ago). Asacker sent us a link to a PDF at his site you might enjoy reading: Wealth Flows from Health. Again, customer service is the focus, but it encompasses many aspects of business health.

Here's an article that smacked of Tom's leanings so much that it jumped out at us. "The Forgotten Market Online: Older Women" lays out the case that "New Fashion Sites Target Youth—Though Most Web Apparel Sales Are to Women Over 35."

For those Free Agents out there (and the people who love them), this recent article, "Self-Employed Depression," from the New York Times will most likely ring all too true.

Finally, someone turned us on to a new service which might be useful to someone who doesn't have their own website. Nombray.com is about collecting your online identities (LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs, etc.) in one place.

Postscript: Cool Friend Andrea Learned blogged at her site about logo genderfication, and we thought you might like to read what she has to say.

Bias Redux

Tom's mention of bias on Friday sparked a heated debate. As he and I discussed it, we remembered that he'd posted on this topic previously. We decided to re-post his blog from nine months ago where he reviewed a book about research findings on gender differences. See below.

M-F Leadership Styles, Effectiveness of

[This post originally appeared on 30 Sept 2008. If you'd like to see the comments it engendered on its first appearance, you can do so here.]

In my last post, Success Tip #140, I caught myself in an un-rare but un-intentional sexist moment. While discussing crisis leadership, I used typically male language and imagery—including the all-male football analogy!

By coincidence, the day after the post, my mail included Leadership and the Sexes: Using Gender Science to Create Success in Business, a book by Michael Gurian and Barbara Annis. The book is a marvel. The authors begin, "This book is about the practical application of information on male/female brain differences in every aspect of your corporate life, from workplace comfort to competitive edge to the corporate bottom line."

The most important phrase being, per me, "brain differences"—that is, the book is derivative of the new brain sciences, not anecdotal evidence. (The book is strongly endorsed by the author of another book I found of inestimable value, The Female Brain, by Louann Brizendine, M.D.)

The evidence is brain-science based, but a social-psychological experiment provides a nice snapshot of the findings. What follows is from a sidebar titled, "Gender Experiments Surprise Even the Experts":

"In the 1990s, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/CBC created a short film that recorded an experiment in leadership styles between women and men. CBC didn't tell the participants the objective of the work they would do that day; the director simply divided the male and female leaders into two teams, and gave those team leaders the same instructions: build an adventure camp. The teams were set up in a somewhat militaristic style at first, including team members wearing uniforms, but also with the caveat in place that the teams could alter their style and method as they wished as long as they met the outcome in time.

"Leader one immediately created a rank-and-file hierarchy and gave orders, even going so far as to assert authority by challenging members on whether they had polished their shoes.

"Leader two did not have the 'troops' line up and be inspected, but instead met with the other team members in a circle, asking 'How are we doing? Are we ready?' 'Anything else we should do?' 'Do you think they'll test us on whether we've polished our shoes?' Instead of giving orders, leader two was touching team members on the arm to reassure them.

"As part of the program, CBC arranged for corporate commentators to watch the teams prepare. Initially the commentators (mostly men) were not impressed by the leadership style of leader two; the second team wasn't 'under control,' members weren't lined up, and they 'lacked order' (or so it seemed). The commentators predicted that team two would not successfully complete the task. Yet when the project was completed, team two had built an impressive adventure camp as good as team one's, with some aspects that were judged as better.

"When debriefing their observations, the commentators noticed that when team one was building the structures for the camp, there had been discord regarding who was in charge and who had completed which job and who hadn't. Team one exhibited a lack of communication during the process of completion that created problems (for example, 'Wasn't someone else supposed to do this?').

"Team two, on the other hand, took longer to do certain things, but because of its emphasis on communication and collaboration during the enactment of the task (such as 'Let's try this' and 'What do you think about that?'), the team met the goal of building the adventure camp in its own positive way, and on time."

There is for me a profoundly important "bottom line" here. Not that one style is better than another, but that virtually every proclamation we make ought to be informed by gender differences. In my speeches, for example, I often find myself rambling on ad nauseam about the importance of relentless relationship building—a stunning insight for a male to make or take on board (I overstate ever so slightly), and boringly obvious beyond words to most of the female participants. I am not suggesting that every phrase be presented in two languages, but I am suggesting that the topic ought not be far beneath the surface. Based on my own experience, I will say that we (i.e., me) will not necessarily improve (as in, exhibit increased sensitivity) over time; hey, with the chips down last week, Joe Montana and the SF 49ers were my immediate benchmarks.

I urge you to read the book—there is a lot at stake, and an opportunity to achieve lasting competitive advantage. From an increasingly robust body of research, we know for sure (as sure as sure can ever be) that diverse teams—diversity on any and all dimensions—outperform homogenous teams. We equally have to know how to maximize the diversity advantage—the reward can be performance leaps, not just modest improvements. canadian viagra pack

Now Available on the Kindle

We're happy to announce that you can now subscribe to Tom's blog on the Kindle. We're still working out the kinks. For example, the graphics are not yet appearing, but we hope to have them up soon. The cost to subscribe is $1.99 USD per month. This amount is determined by the Kindle staff, we didn't have any input on that front. For those of you with iPhones, the Kindle app unfortunately does not yet allow subscriptions to periodicals or blogs. We'll let you know when that becomes available. Our thanks go out to all the readers who've expressed an interest in this as well as to David Vugteveen for very helpfully reporting back on performance. Enjoy!

Another Career Option Bites the Dust

I guess I can never be a Supreme Court justice.

I am befuddled by the Sotomayor brouhaha over the view of the world from the eyes of a female Latina.

Of course it's different.
Duh!

For one [big] thing, women, Latina and others, are more compassionate than men—and behave accordingly.
Duh!
And: Praise the Lord!

Racism?
The system of laws under which we [Americans, Brits, etc.] live was built by white guys, for white guys, and is, by and large, administered by white guys to this day.
Duh!

I have made out like a bandit since birth courtesy racism; that is, by being a white guy, better yet Anglo-Saxon white guy, in a world designed for and controlled by white guys—that is, a world designed especially for me me me me!!
Duh!

Do Gingrich and others [read: other white guys] really feel that they are free of bias?
Nobody could be that blind or un-self aware.
Right?
(Gingrich is an historian for God's sake.)

I have biases piled on top of biases piled on top of biases—only a small share of which I am even aware, but which directly and indirectly affect everything I do.
Duh!

(I always start my speeches with the same disclaimer: "Many who do what I do pretend that they are totally rational beings. Well, I'm not. Not even close. I carry a big bag of biases which color every word I utter—for example, I lived in Silicon Valley for 35 years; hence, everything I say inadvertently passes through an absurdly influential 'Silicon Valley-California' filter. Etc.")

Every human being—including our nine Justices—carry to work ships full of biases which get expressed in a zillion ways.
Duh!

This post is only peripherally about Judge Sotomayor.
It is, in the main, about the biases we all bring to work every day—and our awareness thereof; or lack thereof.

The implications are staggering!
(I.e., they determine every decision we make!)

(By the way, just to set the record straight, if I haven't in the last 15 years: I do definitely think the world would be a better place if women constituted the majority—significant majority?—of Prime Ministers and Presidents and Judges. Among other things, I suspect there would be less war, less violence in general, less environmental degradation and, "OMG," more com-pass-ion.)

Imaginary headline, June 2011:

"Sotomayor Brings Compassion to the Supremes"
Horrid thought, eh?

TomChirp #13

Alas, Detroit deserves virtually all the darts and arrows thrown its way. Nonetheless, I would point out that GM's May 2008-May2009 sales fell "only" 29%, while Toyota's (They-Who-Can-Do-No-Wrong) "dipped" 41%. (Honda was down 42%—only Chrysler-dear-Chrysler-uhm-Fiat was worse, at minus 47%.) (And if you want to know just how bad things are, the numbers above were generally considered good news!!??)

Could It Be This "Simple" #1?

In his superb (What's new?) 2 June New York Times column, "The Quagmire Ahead," David Brooks begins his assessment of the GM fiasco by citing an internal memo written in 1988 by EVP Elmer Johnson:

"We have vastly underestimated how deeply ingrained are the organizational and cultural rigidities that hamper our ability to execute."

That quote reminds me of another, this one by Norberto Odebrecht, head of the Brazilian-based heavy-industrial conglomerate, Odebrecht:

"Data drawn from the real world attest to a fact that is beyond our control: Everything in existence tends to deteriorate."

"Simple" fact: Accompanying GM's longtime designation of "biggest" came Olympian accompanying "rigidities." One is reminded of yet another quote, this from Walt Kelly's Pogo:

"We have met the enemy and he is us."

Business schools, the always helpful whipping boys in my rants, focus on the "cool" FMS troika. (Finance-Marketing-Strategy.) And yet it is the internal organizational characteristics, MIA in B-schools (not sexy enough), that trip companies up. "Rigidities" that impede the ability to "execute" are the culprits behind shoddy performance in 9 out of 9.01 cases.

Toyota didn't do in GM.
Honda didn't do in GM.
Nissan didn't do in GM.

GM did in GM.

This is not news.
It is, however, worth restating.
And I shall do so.
Again.
And again.
And then again.

We have met the enemy.
He is us.

(NB: Brooks' analysis of the GM situation is frightening, and, I fear, accurate. Among other things, he suggests that we've put the foxes in charge of the chicken coop—e.g., same tired execs, same tired union bosses; and further distanced the company from outside winds.)

100 Ways to Succeed #172:

Rigidity Watch!
Start Today!

"Rigidities" is not just the problem of Giants. Rigidity is a disease in 3-person accountancies and 11-table restaurants only one year old.

Stop what you are doing.
Right now.

Call your best customer.
Ask: How are we doing compared to a year ago? Six months ago? Are we making your life more complicated? Are we more bureaucratic in any way, shape, or form? Are we slowing down? Do we ever say, "I'd like to do that for you, but ..."? Etc.

Call your best vendor.
Repeat the above.

Visit your newest employee.
Ask: Have you run across procedures since you got here that you think are silly or over-complicated? If so, have you passed your concerns along? If you haven't, why not—do we make it intimidating to surface such concerns? If you have passed such concerns along, have you been praised for doing so? Has anything happened?

At every Exec Group meeting, set aside a 15-minute block to discuss a "dumbest thing we've done lately" item—insist that members bring a case along for discussion.

There's nothing special about my suggestions here—they are not necessarily meant to be followed, but merely to get you thinking about some anti-rigidity rituals you might invent.

Could It Be This "Simple" #2?

cheap viagra overnight shipping Another of our very best business analysts, James B. Stewart, offered this "simple" commentary in the 3 June Wall Street Journal:

"It has been long in coming, this slow death of what was once the greatest and biggest corporation in the world. The myriad causes of its demise have been thoroughly chronicled, but to my mind one stands out: The custodians of GM simply gave up trying to build the best cars in the world. To accommodate a host of competing interests, from shareholders to bondholders to labor, they repeatedly compromised on excellence. [My italics.] Once sacrificed, that reputation has proved impossible to recapture. ... Can anyone say GM builds the best cars in any category?"

100 Ways to Succeed #173:

EXCELLENCE Watch!
Start Today!
Repeat Daily!

Consider the 3 (or 2 or 5) meetings you've been to today. Consider the 3 project milestones just buttoned up—or the 3 on the near horizon:

Has the word "EXCELLENCE" per se been used as a basis for evaluating your actions? Could you personally call the outcome of each meeting or the nature of the milestone/s achieved or approaching "Excellent"?

Key idea: The "Excellence Standard" is not about Grand Outcomes. In Zen terms, all we have is today. If the day's work cannot be assessed as Excellent, then the oceanic overall goal of Excellence has not been advanced. Period.

That is, the "Excellence Watch" must be a daily affair—or you simply are not serious about the overall Standard of Excellence.

The Quality 136:
All Yours!

The "Quality 10" became the "Quality 121," which I sent your way from India. Since getting home, I've added to it, and the Quality 121 has become the Quality 136. You'll find it here, with substantial edits since the original, in both PDF and PowerPoint formats.

How Come?

A friend is going on a tough deployment for the U.S. Army. He is incredibly well trained. What's he doing? Training and training. And then training.

I acknowledge the Army situation is about life and death. But it is also a "profession."

Why does the Army, from recruit to general, train and train—but, mostly, the private sector does a smidgeon of individual training and virtually no unit training, let alone combined unit training?

(What would happen, for example, if you were a retail store owner, and were open one less day than normal each week—and devoted that full day you were closed, with full staff, yes, once a week, to training of various imaginative—and boring—sorts?)

Memory Lane:
Long Time Comin'

During the heydays of In Search of Excellence, a Stanford economics professor under whom I'd studied invited me to a business economists' seminar—my one and only visit to a forum of professional economists.

I have only one memory. Namely, a GM staff economist, red-faced (literally), accosting my prof to castigate him for inviting me. During the prior couple of years, or prior 5 or 6 years (?), GM's market share had dropped from 45% to 36%. I had said that GM had "lost 20% of its market share in the last X years"—obviously accurate. (That is: 9/45 = .20.) This guy went on and on (and on!) about having "only" lost 9%. He was right in absolute terms—obviously. (Yes, 45 – 36 = 9.) And I was obviously right in relative terms.

The memory this morning is of this little-trivial "moment of denial" (dear god, 9% is awful) which, alas, has been characteristic of the last 30 years of GM's history. The depth of the GM malaise, of course, is why we the taxpayers are highly unlikely to get much or any of our $50 billion plus back that we are about to "invest."

(I know why we're doing what we're doing and concede it's probably necessary; but, at age 66, having just flown around the world in one week and eight hours, it is annoying to realize that a few minutes of those grueling hours will have been devoted to generating tax dollars going to GM to extend their public agony; I'd rather have said tax $$, which I don't begrudge Uncle Sam, going to, say, university biotech research—i.e., tomorrow rather than yesterday.)

I chose this morning to think about Cisco and Apple and Oracle and Google and Walmart and Whole Foods and Starbucks and Amgen and Medtronic and Basement Systems and all the other great American companies that now define us. And the unknown wee companies, founded yesterday or the day before, that will knock off the Starbucks and Ciscos—long live creative destruction, the true engine of longterm prosperity.

TomChirp #12

Cisco replaces GM in DJIA!
Welcome to the 21st century!
GM, thanks for the memories! (And that is not not not a sarcastic remark!!)