In every revolution there are casualties. But you don’t have to be one of them. The current stagnant economy is playing a cleansing role similar to the recessions of 1981 and 1990. It’s clearing out old industries and inefficient companies, to make room for innovators who better understand today’s demanding customers.

Among the collateral damage are thousands of senior executives. Perhaps their divisions were downsized, or they didn’t show sufficient understanding of new digital/ global markets. If you’ve been reading the papers, you’ve probably read that the chances of getting a new corporate gig after age 50 are slimmer than winning the lottery.

But today’s entrepreneurial economy offers second chances to anyone who can leverage the new tools that empower individuals even as they shake old institutions to the core.

It’s all in your attitude, says Jim Crocker, an entrepreneur who has served as a consultant, chief executive of a public company (Virtek Vision of Waterloo, Ont.), and interim chief for several technology companies.

Understanding companies’ needs for different kinds of management, he reinvented his consulting firm, Boardroom Metrics, to focus on unemployed senior executives, whom he characterizes as competent, capable leaders caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Boardroom Metrics is now signing up unemployed execs as coaching clients, and also markets them as prospective consultants, interim managers and chief executive officers. “We’re now a talent agency for senior executives,” Crocker says.

It’s a double-barrelled business model that fits today’s hyper-efficient markets: Crocker collects monthly dues from those who join his circle of “Accomplished Executives,” and also takes a fee if they get a gig (temporary or permanent) through Boardroom Metrics.

He is betting 50-plus executives can find new jobs and purpose, but they have to want it. He contends many don’t understand how to get hired again or how to build consulting practices. So he coaches his team to think more like entrepreneurs: figuring out their unique capabilities and mastering social-media channels such as LinkedIn, blogging and Twitter to create awareness and demand. “It always takes longer than you think,” he says, “but we’ve been able to help most of the people we’ve worked with find their next big thing.”

Boardroom Metrics walks the walk. Most clients find the company through social media – whether it be Crocker’s blogs, tweets and YouTube videos or its website, which has been fortified through SEO (search engine optimization). Crocker tells potential Accomplished Executives their personal networks will never go out of style, but social media lets them increase their contacts, promote themselves more effectively, and build deeper relationships. “Social media is a complementary tool,” he says, “but most people don’t know how to do it well.”

First, you need to understand what you’re selling. Crocker and his partner, Karen McElroy, start by helping underemployed executives develop a unique identity, based on their experience and accomplishments, and what the market wants. Crocker says many executives commit a common error of diminishing their individual uniqueness by trying to be all things to all people. “Stop being a generalist!” he urged in a recent blogpost (boardroommetrics.blogspot.com). You may want to be perceived as a generic strategist/change agent, but you’re more likely to make the short list if you focus on your unique skills, Crocker says.

Crocker and McElroy urge everyone to master Linkedin. Most executives, especially those who never expected to be back on the job market, have a barebones profile on Linkedin at best. You have to manage your presence, playing up your accomplishments and achievements, deleting some of those old jobs from the 1980s (let people guess your age), and adding compelling recommendations from co-workers and clients.

The next step is to reach out, signing up for professional and industry groups on Linkedin, joining the conversations already in progress, and starting new ones. This is how you get noticed and make connections. Then you start connecting with these new friends in real life.

Boardroom Metrics also teaches clients to blog – to demonstrate character and thought leadership – and leverage Google AdWords, the pay-per-click tool that allows you to match your own online ads to people who search online for your chosen keywords. Some clients wonder why they have to blog more than once. But Crocker emphasizes it’s a competitive market, and brands are not built in a day.

One executive he worked with went a step further, setting up Google Alerts for companies and industries that interested him. He would use Google’s automated updates to select companies and executives to call, and to customize his key messages. Through these efforts he landed several attractive contract positions, proving old executives can learn new tricks. “It takes a long time and there’s a lot of frustration,” Crocker says, “but if you’re unemployed at 50 or 55, it’s not the end of the world.”

Rick Spence, Financial Post – Rick Spence is a writer, consultant and speaker specializing in entrepreneurship. His column appears weekly in the Financial Post. He can be reached at rick@rickspence.ca.

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Your brand image creates and carries expectations. It defines who you are, how you operate, and how you’re different from your competitors. In essence, your brand image is a definition of anticipated brand experience.
The customer experience can’t be left to chance. It should be actively designed and controlled in a manner that enhances your brand image. It must consistently reinforce the brand across every entry point or the value of the brand itself is at risk.
Here are five easy steps to building a strong experience:

• A reason to believe.
  Your brand experience is irrelevant if your product does not live up to expectations. Therefore, the experience must be supported by reasons-to-believe. The brand must be defined with certain qualities that can’t be found in any other product. In addition these qualities – benefits – must always perform. Lack of performance will lead to poor a poor experience and eventually loss of revenues.
• Create entry points
  Each step in your business process contains a number of entry points. When the customer comes in contact with your brand your ultimate goal is to have each entry point reinforce and create a positive brand experience. Entry points must be available for all stages of consumers brand life – consumers must be allowed to progress through a brand offering new and supportive experiences. More experience will equal more revenue.
• Determine the most influential entry points
  All entry points are not created equal. Some will naturally play a larger role in the brand experience. To determine the entry point driving your customers’ overall experience, your brand can use a wide array of techniques ranging from quantitative research to market place demand. The methods you use will depend on your consumer base and the experience you’re trying to create.
• Design the best experience.
  Once you’ve determined brand position and characteristics, you should be able to design your desired experience. Engineer each entry point to allow for the maximum positive brand exposure. Re-enforcing the benefits will send a clear message to your target audience – you’re prepared to offer a superior product with a superior experience. Anything less will result in a failure and loss of revenue.
• Consistantly deliver the best experience.
  Look internally to employees and the organization plus externally to brand carriers that will have direct contact and influence with your customers. The impacts of behind-the-scenes individuals are less obvious but no less important. Identify which activities don’t align with your desired experience and make the changes as required.

Finally, every product or service you bring to market, yields a brand experience. By orchestrating the desired experience plus allowing consumers the opportunity to grow with the brand it will naturally re-enforce a positive brand experience. A positive brand experience will always result in positive revenue.

He had recently received a call from a recruiter. It was a firm that he was not familiar with. However, the role and the client they were representing appeared to be somewhat interesting to him.

His concern centered on the notion that he was quite happy in his current role and was in fact really not in the job market. “What do you suggest that I do?”, he asked.

First of all, I suggested that the fact that he had not heard of the firm was in a sense irrelevant. Ask for references if you have a concern as to the credibility of the firm. Most credible firms should be able to readily supply them in order to make someone comfortable.

As for whether he should invest his time to investigate the role, my answer to him was, “why not?”.

If one is indeed happy in their professional life, then one can be truly objective in determining and assessing the opportunity. In other words you can set criteria for yourself that the client and their role should be able to meet and or exceed relative to your current situation both tangibly and intangibly. Job content and reduced commuting time are potential examples of the criteria you might use.

Too frequently individuals believe that they have to be in a somewhat negative professional situation to consider entertaining a call from a recruiter. In point in fact while understandable to a certain extent it is perhaps an incorrect sentiment.

Recruiters like working with, and companies like hiring individuals with a positive frame of mind – individuals whom are attracted to their clients and subsequent opportunities for the right reasons and not because they are looking to get away from their current circumstance.

Companies want to hire individuals whom are excited by the opportunity and looking forward to the prospect of contributing, not so much someone who is looking because they feel they have been passed over for a promotion or are unhappy with their salary or performance review.

If you are happy in your current situation, you invest the time to investigate an opportunity, and if it turns out to be not right for you, then you simply return to your current situation and role – perhaps feeling even better about your professional lot in life.

If the opportunity is one that meets and or exceeds the differing set of criteria that you had identified for yourself to become involved in the recruitment process, then your decision should be that much easier.

After it as all said and done, while no one likes a tire-kicker, one can always turn down an offer.

Therefore, the next time a recruiter calls you out of the blue, ask yourself this question, what exactly is my downside to listening. Quite frankly the answer should be none.

It’s always been difficult for a brand to maintain its presence or dominance of the landscape and still survive as a meaningful and relevant communication tool. As time marches on, brands can become stagnant and their meaning “confused”, not to mention primary and secondary target audiences could change and alter their needs.

The development or evolution of any brand must have a plan in place for further development and consideration. The loss of touch or relevance with the target group can be devastating.

There are five key points to consider when developing or evolving your brand strategy:

• Stand for something and own it. By owning some specific territory, a brand can dictate what is acceptable by the consumer. These brands are typically synonymous with a category; etc. Apple – computers, Kleenex – facial tissue and Tylenol – pain relief. The messaging constantly reinforces the brand, its beliefs, continues to keep the consumer engaged and the competition.

• Use colour to your advantage. Colour provides brands with instant recognition. A strong brand will use a colour to its advantage at all times. Coca Cola – Red, General Motors – Blue and TD Bank – Green all dominant brands with dominant colour recognition that defines their category.

• Operate within your category boundaries. All categories have a set of cues that denote their brands. Nike uses a swoosh to denote athletics and the Royal Bank uses a lion to denote strength and security. These stake out territory and as leaders set the accepted category trends. Consumers need to be reassured they are supporting the correct brands – visual cues are necessary.

• Be aggressive and take risks. Brands will need to take risks in order to preserve dominance and maintain control of their territory. A&W re-introduced a nostalgia theme on its root beer cans – targeting parents and grandparents who remember the “earlier” brand, Federal Express re-introducing it’s brand as FedEx, using the “street name” to formally identify the brand. Taking a risk can lead to market dominance and is therefore worthwhile.

• Change or die. Change can be as simple as a change in colour, typography, and graphic interpretation or as drastic as a change in brand personality.  Don’t be complacent or consumers and your competitors will forget you.

As time progresses, so should your Brand – it should change on a regular basis, matching, outpacing or anticipating your target audience needs. This thinking and planning will require forward thinking but demonstrate your commitment to your Brand and how it’s valued by your target audience. This practice will produce less target audience risk or alienation – plus minimal lost revenue.

Brand Equity is worth the investment – always!

Poor planning and foresight will eventually result in a Brand disaster. If your Brand identity fails to keep pace with your corporate message, product or target audience expectations, the goodwill or equity within the Brand will diminish. In addition, a political disaster can quickly put your Brand in the spotlight for the wrong reasons – perception being reality, this could mean your Brand is all of a sudden associated with some very negative baggage.

• British Petroleum’s Oil Spill

British Petroleum once known as ‘Beyond Petroleum’ is tarnished for its spill in the Mexican Gulf. The BP’s brand was valued at $20 billion January 1st 2010 declined by 100% to $0 in June 30^th 2010.

• Johnson & Johnson Children’s Product Recall

On April 2010, McNeil Consumer Healthcare, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson voluntarily recalled of 43 over-the-counter children’s medicines. . The brand valued at $45 billion on January 1^st 2010 plunged into a 27% decline to $33 billion on June 30^th 2010.

• Toyota Prius Recall Worldwide

Toyota’s Prius recall worldwide damaged the brand significantly. The recalls, negative PR allegations and liability suits resulted in a loss of 20% of the brand’s value – from a $30 billion on January 1st 2010 to $24 billion on June 20^th 2010

The restructuring and rebuilding of your Brand will prove costly and very time consuming. The re-education of the marketplace and your audience will be awkward and difficult at best. Unfortunately, some political disasters will prove unrecoverable – although these may be few and far between – the process of redeveloping and establishing the Brand will be costly and at the same time revenues will be lost.

Nurture your Brand and have a disaster plan at the ready – just in case!

I’m not exactly a jazz fan. Admittedly, I could pick the saxophone (but not the saxophonist) from a police line-up every time, but that’s about it.

However, last night hanging out at Chalkers in Toronto watching some extremely talented musicians do their thing, I was blown away:

1. they’d never played together before – they may never play together again
2. they invited people to play with them through the evening for just a song
3. when new talent was better, it made the group better
4. there wasn’t any talking – whatever signals were being used to make key decisions were being communicated by eye contact, intuition or some kind of mental Bluetooth that isn’t on the market yet.

It was inspiring. It got me thinking about how this MIGHT apply to business and where it might ALREADY apply:

• Small, talented high performing groups
• Diverse skill sets and expertise
• Short bursts
• Collaboration vs. leadership

My friend Dave, who was there last night and knows exactly 100% more about jazz than I do, added this is an email this morning:

“There is typically a structure to a song, whereby there is an underlying melody that gets played (and what makes it so incredible is when these musicians are able to read the music to that melody so quickly, often for the first time and play it exactly as it should be) and then there is a point where each player is given a ‘free’ turn at extending the melody on their own. Each player typically has a set number of bars of music that they play at that time, although they certainly take loads of liberty and go beyond that time allotment. The gesturing usually happens when they are queuing the other players that in 4 or 8 bars they will be finished and they should rejoin.”

So – and this makes sense – they aren’t just winging it. There is an underlying structure – a set of tracks if you will, that enables collaboration, co-operation and even accountability.

The end product is a high quality outcome that probably can’t be exactly duplicated and is a little unpredictable.

Self-Directed Groups

What’s so intriguing about watching the jazz process last night is that it appeared to have multiple leaders on one hand (the sax player at times, the drummer at others, the guest pianist when he showed up) – and no specific leader at other times.

‘Self-directed groups’ is a basic element of the Agile process for developing software. This seemed like a really pure example of group ‘self-direction’.

Perhaps ‘jam sessions’ like this are common in many businesses and I’ve just missed it (I keep thinking most companies could benefit just by learning some basic facilitation skills!). Reading the Steve Jobs book, the teams at Apple must have figured out some higher form of collaboration to deliver on Jobs’ extreme demands for both timelines and perfection.

Collaborating for a reason

Which raises a final thought. If jazz-like collaboration has a place in business there must be a goal. It cannot be merely for the sake of collaboration.

Last night what I saw was a great product, delivered very efficiently (they just showed up and performed).

That sounds like a worthwhile outcome!

Taking a look at the tweaks we’ve been making to everyone’s blogs, here’s a quick list of tips to make your executive or CEO blog as visible and popular as possible.

• think Google – solve pain: write from a searcher/potential client’s perspective – what is it they would be putting into Google where your blog is the answer to their pain? typically searchers are thinking – “how do I?”, “what do I?”, “what is?”, “tips/suggestion for….”, etc. Think of how you search, then write from that perspective.

• write strong titles. Titles are the most important content to a search engine. MAKE THEM RELEVANT TO A SEARCH QUERY, PAIN-ANSWER REQUEST, eg (from Louis Nastro’s post this morning) “Three Ways to Invest in Innovation”(that answers the query “how to invest in innovation?”)

• use words that searchers would use, eg, searchers use ‘paper shredding’, not ‘document destruction’. Talk how customers talk, not necessarily how your industry association/competitors talk.

• use them often. ‘Key’ words used frequently (and naturally), increase the relevance of your post and attract Google to serve your post as the answer to a searchers query.

• FOCUS ON MAKING ONE KEY POINT. If you have more to say, write another 1, 2, 10 blogs. Don’t say it all in one blog. A good blog is 300 – 500 words. When you’ve finished writing, study your blog and answer the question – “so what was my point?“. Tip: it should show up in the summary sentence or paragraph at the end of your blog.

• assume your readers are short on time and attention to detail. Use bold, bullets and numbers to highlight key points so readers (like me) can skim through and get the information they need.

• include links to other articles, information in your blog. Google believes the web is about sharing. So blogs with links to other content (it could even be your own – or something else on the BRM website) get better rankings, more interest.

• include images. They attract attention.

• be careful with “I” – first, blogs are ALL ABOUT individual perspective – it’s what makes them so interesting. Just be careful not to overuse “I” in every sentence. Ultmately it sounds condescending and selfish.

• be careful with “you” and “must”- we’re in the advice business. However, always telling someone what YOU MUST do runs the risk of becoming arrogant and condesending. You want them to view you as a partner, not a know-it-all (how about this for softening the ‘you’ in the last sentence?: your goal is to have them view you as a partner, not a know-it-all)

Blogging fulfills a fundamental goal of any CEO, executive, consultant, interim manager and coach: building credibility across an expanding audience. It takes some effort but the effort can be worth it (my blog posts on RIM governance have attracted attention from some well known publications and my CEO Christmas speech blog post is viewed 50 – 100 times/day, every day during the month of December ).

Keep the blogs and letters coming! We love posting them. If you provide the content we will do the rest. Jim

As I read it, I am again reminded of the fact that employees have been telling us for decades what we need to do to inspire excellence in them at work. The question that I always ask myself when I read books like this is “Are we as managers prepared to listen? Or do we let our power position as managers convince us that we simply know better than they do what they need in order to excel?”

But what if I have been asking myself the wrong question? Maybe we are listening as managers. Our problem might be that responding effectively to what we hear from employees might be “harder” than simply saying the things and behaving recommended in “The Progress Principle”.

Turning the ideas in “The Progress Principle” and similar books into action requires that we as managers have a “systematic” way of evaluating our direct reports performance as well appreciating and encouraging their day to day efforts. All of the managers in organization need share that approach.  We need to be part of a thriving organizational culture that “does” the things serves both needs concurrently. We need to be able to provide our folks with performance feedback, including negative performance feedback. At the same time, we need to act as “encouragers and appreciators” of their efforts.  One cannot replace the other. As Jim Collins says in “Good to Great”, it is a matter of “AND not OR.”

Performance contracting allows exactly that “AND”. It is based on some simply stated but complex realities about the way that people behave at work.

1. Every one has an internal mental model of their job.

Our internal model of our job operates concurrently at the conscious, preconscious, and instinctive levels. Emotional intelligence has made us all aware that we don’t just function as conscious beings at work. Our mental abilities span a complex of processing systems that include many pre-conscious,  instinctive components. Some of these ability systems process complex interpersonal messaging by the parts of our brain that have evolved to respond non-verbal social messaging behavior.

When we become part of a work group, we quite naturally build up a “mental model” of our jobs that guides each of us in the work that we do each do each day. Most of the time, we are not consciously aware of the tact that we are doing this. We simple do it. This model allows us to fit our personal work place activities into the “interlocked patterns of repetitive work” that get things done in an organization.

• We all build our internal models of our job through interaction with all of the people that we work with, not just the people to whom we report.

Even the most solitary individual contributor at work does not work in a social vacuum. By definition, working in an organization means working with others at all levels to accomplish shared objectives.

• Performance contracting takes that natural human process of building up and operating an internal model of our job and brings many of the components of it into conscious consideration.

The dialogue that a manager and direct report have as part of performance contracting surface many of the components of our internal model of our job into conscious bi-lateral consideration. One of performance contracting’s great values for boss and subordinate is that it makes explicit many of the implicit things that people need work successfully with others.

• Performance contracting focuses on negotiating shared performance metrics, that are independently available to both manager and reporting individual.

Once such performance metrics are in place, and are regularly available both to individual and manager, the dynamics between the two of them changes in a fundamental, qualitative way. The manager is now free to do all of the things recommended in “The Progress Principle”.

Such praising and encouraging behaviours on the part of the manager are no longer experienced as “game playing” by “the person” who is destined to do a “subjective evaluation of my performance” at performance appraisal time. Instead, the manager’s praising and encouraging behaviors are experienced as true coaching – as messages that motivated by “helping me to do my best”.

The need to provide information about “how I am doing” is handled by the regular arrival of negotiated performance metrics that related to specific performance objectives. (See my previous blogs in this series for more about performance contracting works.) The employee is capable of evaluating personal performance independently of the manager. Most of them will. They will engage in “self corrective” behaviour when necessary. They will appreciate “coaching” information and encouragement from the manager. As a result, their work related engagement increases substantially.

Performance contracting is a necessary part of increasing employment engagement. Organization leaders, the key players in the senior inner circle, must provide the performance contracting processes and training if they ever expect their managers to successfully implement the kind of behaviour recommended in “The Progress Principle”.  The top leaders need to provide shared forward looking performance contracting processes that liberate each manager to effectively praise and encourage. These few individuals need to practice it as well as preach it. They need to support the independent delivery of performance metric information to their own direct reports, and to each employee. Doing so will liberate organizational individuals at all to truly experience encouraging and praising behaviors on the part of their managers. Replacing performance appraisal with performance contracting is a necessary pre-condition to successfully increasing employee engagement.  “Shape The Future, don’t appraise the past.”™

• 51% of all patents in the USA are granted to non-US companies and the USA lags far behind China and South Korea when it comes to patents granted (an overall measure of innovation).

• The Boston Consulting Group’s Report on Innovation indicates the majority of firms polled sought to introduce only marginal improvement in existing products and services (80% of respondents).

• In a survey of 400 CFOs 80% stated ‘they would reduce discretionary spending on potentially value creating activities (such as R&D) in order to meet short term earnings targets’.

Investing in innovation is dilemma, particularly for SME’s.

Your company needs to keep growing but financial uncertainty makes you hesitant – and there is always the ever present threat of the competition taking that one gamble which pays off and makes you irrelevant.

What are the right innovations to invest your capital on?

This really depends on your core markets and which markets you are looking to sell into.

1. Find segments that aren’t averse to change

If your core market segments have tried and true methods which are relied upon, significant leaps forward in technology are not going to get adopted quickly.

Therefore, you need to look for segments which are not so averse to change.  While you cannot ignore your core, satisfy that demand with the incremental improvements, acquire new non-traditional segments by focusing on those who do adopt new technologies, and grow them by channeling your new found domain expertise back in the product development pipeline with those early adopters defining and delivering the technical innovations strategically.

2. Understand your markets’ (or new markets’) value drivers.

We all know what a phenomenal success Apple has been, however, when one looks at their R&D spend they rank 81^st on Booz & Co’s list comparing R&D spend to revenue!!!

Apple’s innovations really come from breakthrough design, understanding the user experience and building user centric functionality into a core product then marketing it better than anyone else.  Solving a customer problem through your product offering better than the competition need not require a radical transformation of your business to spur innovation.  Concentrate on the fundamentals, make sure everyone in your organization understands a user centric definition of the value you offer and think of new ways to market those solutions.

3. Explore new business models.

• If you sell components can you go up-market and offer solutions?
• If not in your immediate markets what about in parallel or new markets?
• Can you transform part of the business into a service entity taking work your clients perform and adding value through your capabilities?

Again, there is nothing wrong with re-packaging existing technology into new offers for new segments – this is innovative thinking if it solves a customer problem profitably.

In summary the innovator’s dilemma presents opportunity for those who understand how to form complex linkages between the problems your current product offering solves and the problems faced by customers in non-traditional segments.

It’s a big jump in the life span of your Brand. Generally, a Brand will begin life “supporting” a product – by doing so, it gives meaning to the product and aids in the development and conversion of Brand carriers (assuming the experience is positive).

At some point, as a product becomes a “product range”, a decision around the Brand must be made – “are we a Brand? – or are we a manufacturer of products?”

Unfortunately, in over 85% percent of cases, this decision comes far too late in the Brand lifespan – people will try to evolve or twist their Brand to suit an established path – without considering the future damage based on past poor “forward looking”. This snap decision process will lead to confusion and lack of confidence in the consumers eye’s – eventually  revenues will diminish.

A Brand must be allowed to grow as directed by its overseer’s, forward thinking and market needs. Without a proper growth plan, the Brand will fail, as will revenues. All this can be avoided if decisions are made early on the path of the company, product and Brand.

Truly a Brand that supports itself will allow for the maximum growth with a company’s product line – don’t support the product, support the benefit. This will allow for maximum exposure and indicates superior confidence in both the product range and Brand – people who purchase a Brand rather than a product – will carry the message and become disciples.

This methodology will require an investment in time, effort and money – however future revenues will far outweigh the initial investment. The next time you’re buying a MAC – ask, are you buying a computer or a Brand?

The answer’s obvious!