Times are tough and the economic seas are rough. The future is rife with uncertainty. So, what else is new? We, who are beyond a certain age, have seen much of this before. By the way, that doesn’t make it any less tough or any more certain. Just familiar. And, to be fair, today’s global economic reality – and all its collateral effects – are more dramatic than anything I’ve seen.

However, this no time for handwringing. Nor is it a time for “wishin’ and hoping’.” There are three proven “secrets” that work well in any economy but seem to be paramount in one like we have today.

1. Stop valuing everyone equally.

(Ouch! Did that sound a little harsh or perhaps politically incorrect? Read it again. “Valuing.”) I am in full and complete agreement with the self-evident truth “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” I further believe that same Creator creates everyone with an equality of intrinsic worth as human beings. Please do not confuse intrinsic human value with talent appropriate for the job and aptitudes, innovative thinking, initiative, contribution, perseverance and other high achieving traits and characteristics.

We love all our employees. And, those who make a positive difference in business performance (thus creating more value) should be valued differently. Treat your high achievers differently. A former colleague used to say, “Feed your eagles and starve your turkeys.” (I can hear the folks over in human resources cringing even now!). Every employee deserves the right to succeed or fail. They further deserve – to the extent possible – the necessary resources to do their job. If you look closely you’ll probably find that your high achievers need more resources (hint: there’re getting more done).

Also, reward your high achievers accordingly. As an employer you want to “get what you pay for.” You should also “pay for what you get.” If your organization is fairly typical, many, if not most, of your lower achievers are very nice, affable and even loyal employees. Don’t be misled by the difference between “loyal” and “competence or contribution.” There should be a noticeable gap between the pay of your high achievers and your lower achievers. 

2. Hire slow and fire fast.

Chick-fil-A is one of those rare companies who “get it” when it comes to “hiring slow.” Andy Lorenzen, Director of Talent Strategy and Systems for Chick-fil-A says, “We take time to get to know the person, not just because we think it is the right business decision, but because it is the right thing for the person. We want the candidate to understand what it means to work at Chick-fil-A and have clear expectations as a result.  We also believe that there is ‘wisdom in a multitude of counsel,’ and because of that, many people typically speak into a selection. Doing that takes time. We believe in hiring slow because the outcome is usually better.”

The Vice President of Human Resources at another one of my client companies likes to say, “Engage early and often” when it comes to performance issues with employees. When Jack Welch was CEO of GE, he said, “When you don’t fire underperforming members of your team, you’re not only hurting the organization, you’re hurting them – because you’re giving them a false sense of what success looks like.”

Here’s how you keep this aligned: hold people accountable to the job you hired them to do. If they’re struggling, help them. Really. Don’t enable their shortcomings. Don’t just “keep book” or “paper the file” in anticipation of a termination. If they can’t live up to the minimum requirements of the job or are barely holding on to the bottom rung, you’re likely “giving them a false sense of what success looks like.”

Firing people is not about rude or heartless behavior. What is truly rude and heartless is to hold captive an employee who cannot be reasonably successful in your organization who might otherwise grow and blossom elsewhere. Set them free!

3. Understand that culture trumps strategy.

One of my intellectual heroes, Peter Drucker said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Your culture is often hard to see from the inside out. Well, you’re part of it. It’s “the way we do things around here.” It’s the collective assumptions about how we deal with external problems and internal integration. It includes artifacts and rituals (easy to see), shared values and beliefs (a little harder to see), and unspoken rules (very difficult to see), which are often underlying drivers of corporate culture. Culture is the most difficult corporate attribute to change and thereby one of the most powerful.

Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., former CEO of IBM said, “I came to see in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game – it is the game.” Is your culture helping or hurting your performance? How do decisions get made? What is the “pace” of business? How responsive is your organization? Does your organization focus more or accountability or blame? Does it value innovation or entrenched ideas? Do you have an idea-friendly environment? How open to change is your organization (adaptable or rigid)? Are your strategies and your culture in alignment?

A culture change initiative as a stand-alone project is dead on announcement.

If you decide to work on changing your culture, keep two things in mind: (1) keep your focus on the very few changes that matter most. Maybe two or three simple but important changes over the next 18 months. (2) Weave these change efforts into business improvement activities or projects.  A culture change initiative as a stand alone project is dead on announcement. Since culture is how we do things around here, make the desired changes part of how we do things now around here.

You can weather this storm. It’s as simple as 1… 2… 3…

Note: read more and about 3 culture change secrets here (PDF)

In Other Words…

“An innovation culture isn’t about problem-solving. It’s driven by power of questions – hunger moving into the unknown.” – Ashley Munday

“A manager is responsible for the application and performance of knowledge.” – Peter Drucker

“If you don’t execute your ideas, they die.” – Roger von Oech

“Doubt, the essential preliminary of all improvement and discovery, must accompany the stages of man’s onward progress. The faculty of doubting and questioning, without which those of comparison and judgment would be useless, is itself a divine prerogative of the reason.” – Albert Pike

“An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises.” – Mae West

In The Word…

“Know well the condition of your flocks, and give attention to your herds,” – Proverbs 27:23

This story is told by David Kirk Hart, former professor at Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Management. It comes to me by way of my good friend and storyteller, Jim Ericson.

“During World War II, a British war correspondent had gone into Normandy. He was particularly disgusted by the fact that the generals were living in mansion and estates, in posh digs, while the grunts were on the line. The reporter was really upset one night when he heard that the Nazis had parked two Panzer divisions near Cannes, and a Scottish division was to face the worst of the Panzers the next morning; they were to attack right into the Panzers.

“The reporter went immediately into one battalion, and asked the Sergeant Major, ‘Where’s the Lieutenant Colonel?’ only to be told that he was in the back of the lines with the General. The reporter just flipped out and said, ‘Well doesn’t it anger you to know that you attack in the morning and your Colonel is back there with the General?’ At that point, the Sergeant Major drew himself up and said: ‘Sir, when the time comes for dying, he will be with us.‘”

There was a self-image improvement nostrum going around a few years ago that stated, “What other people think of you is none of your business.” I get that. We don’t want to try to remake ourselves according to someone else’s image of what we should be. Generally, we’re very poor at being someone who we’re not. There’s a larger point here for leaders: what do your followers believe to be true about you? What can they trust in you? What can you be counted on for? Why should they follow you? It’s not quite “What do they think of you?” but it’s close. It’s deeper.

I believe it has to do with four things:

• Character – Who you are at the core. Your values. Your beliefs.
• Commitment – What do you stand for (see Character)? Where do you draw lines and set boundaries? What will you not do? For whom and for what will you go the distance?
• Competence – What do you know? What have you learned? What can you teach me? What can you do? Do you understand the “here and now?” Do you have a clear picture of the “then and there?” How will you bridge the gap between the two?
• Communication – How do you relate to others? Do you clarify your intent? Are you a good listener? What’s your story?

Think about the important areas of your life; the important roles you play? Who are the important people in your life in those roles? What would you have them say about you after you’re gone? Really. Write the answers down somewhere. Check your answers. How well do they line up with your character, your commitment, your competence, and your communication? What do you need to work on? What are you going to do differently?

When the time comes for dying, will you be with us?

In Other Words…

“Your position never gives you the right to command. It only imposes on you the duty of so living your life that others can receive your orders without being humiliated.” – Dag Hammarskjold, former Secretary General of the United Nations

“In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity.” - Abraham Lincoln, December 1, 1862 Message to Congress

“When we are debating an issue, loyalty means giving me your honest opinion, whether you think I’ll like it or not. Disagreement, at this state, stimulates me. But once a decision is made, the debate ends. From that point on, loyalty means executing the decision as if it were your own.” -  General Colin Powell

“In the Western tradition, we have focused on teaching as a skill and forgotten what Socrates knew: teaching is a gift, learning is a skill.” -  Peter Drucker

“It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.” -  J. W. Goethe

“The deepest human need is the need to be appreciated.” – William James

“The kind man feeds his cat before sitting down to dinner.” - Hebrew proverb

In The Word…

“A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.” – Proverbs 22:1

According to TIME magazine article “Lies, Lies, Lies” (Oct 5, 1992), “Lies flourish in social uncertainty, when people no longer understand, or agree on, the rules governing their behavior toward one another.” Whew! That was close; I thought I had to bear responsibility for my truthfulness, or lack thereof. TIME made it society’s fault.

The philosopher, Emanuel Kant had a different view of lying: lying is always morally wrong. Lying has a corrupting nature to it. For the one doing the lying, it corrupts the ability to make free rational choices. Each and every lie contradicts and tears at the moral worth of the individual. Additionally, lies corrupt others in their freedom to make rational choices (the lie leads others to make choices other than they would make if they knew the truth). Ouch!

In a previous post (Lies and damn lies), I talked about some of the reasons people lie (the why of the lie). For now, our issues are more practical than philosophical – ­­­­Is the person on the other side of the negotiating table telling the truth? Is the employee in the performance review fabricating facts to enhance or cover certain aspects of their performance? Is the applicant stretching the truth beyond the breaking point during the job interview? How can you tell the difference? As an owner/executive/leader/manager your job is to solve real problems with and for real people in the real world. You need the truth of reality and the reality of truth.

On any given day we’re lied to from 10 to 200 times, and the clues to detect those lies can be subtle and counter-intuitive. Pamela Meyer, author of Liespotting, shows the manners and “hotspots” used by those trained to recognize deception. Did you know that lying is a cooperative act?

Would I lie to you?

Pamela Meyer on Liespotting

In Other Words…

“You know where you are with a complete liar, but when a chap mixes some truth with his yarns, you can’t trust a word he says.” – Joyce Cary, The Horse’s Mouth (1944)

“The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray us
In deepest consequence.” – William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act I, scene 3, line 124

On est aisément dupé par ce qu’on aims. ”One is easily fooled by that which one loves.” – Molière, Le Tartuffe, IV. 3.

“I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won’t.” – Mark Twain

“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.” – Frederick Neitzsche

“A lie is an abomination unto the Lord; a very present help in time of need.” – attributed to Adlai Stevenson

In The Word…

“If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.” – 1 John 1:6

Note: Pinocchio image is property of The Walt Disney Company. All rights reserved.

Have you seen this email? It has been making the rounds for a while:

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule. A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk. A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist.  Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the top musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written,with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars. Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station  was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context? 

According to developmental molecular biologist, Dr. John Medina, author of Brain Rules, our brains can only focus on one thing at a time. Sometimes we’re not focused – lost in the blur of work and life. At other times our focus defaults to what it has always seen, to look where it habitually looks. As Medina says, “Our previous experience predicts where we should pay attention.”

Our brains are not capable of multitasking. Sure we can walk and talk at the same time, but when it comes to higher level processing, we just can’t do it. Medina emphasized the point, “Driving while talking on a cell phone is like driving drunk. The brain is a sequential processor and large fractions of a second are consumed every time the brain switches tasks. Cell phone talkers are a half-second slower to hit the brakes and get involved in more wrecks.”

Interestingly, today’s workplace encourages this type of multitasking. Email. Phone. Text. Internet search. LinkedIN. Facebook. Twitter. All at the same time! Yet the research on multitasking shows that your error rate goes up 50% and it takes you twice as long to do things.  Think about it, when you’re always online, you’re always distracted. So is the always online organization the always unproductive organization? What are we missing?

When we look, what do we see?

In Other Words…

“For any man with half an eye,
What stands before him may espy;
But optics sharp it needs I ween,
To see what is not to be seen.” - John Trumbull, McFingal (1775-1782), Canto I, line 67.

“Men who love wisdom should acquaint themselves with a great many particulars.” – Heraclitus

“To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.” – Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil, (1845), Book I, Chapter V.

“Wise men hear and see as little children do.” – Lao Tzu

“A moments insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

“As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it.” - Albert Einstein as quoted in Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way to Design and Refine User Interfaces (2003) by Carolyn Snyder

“All things I thought I knew; but now confess
The more I know, I know, I know the less.” - John Owen (1616–1683), The Works of John Owen, Bk. VI, p. 39

“A word to the wise is infuriating.” – Hunter S. Thompson

In The Word…

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” – 2 Corinthians 4:18

In Linked Words…

Joshua Bell at D.C. Metro stop during rush hour

It’s that time of year, that time when we see the “top X of Y” lists from the previous year, closely followed by prognostications that are supposed to unlock the coming 12 months. In response, I’ve spent some time reviewing current trends, studying forecasts, examining history and believe I can now make some safe commentary on 2012.

2012 is promising…

I don’t want to be too clever here, but 2012 is promising:

• to be a mix of victories and failures,
• to have plenty of opportunity for hard work,
• to serve up plenty of chances to learn new lessons,
• to remind us afresh of the lessons we should have already learned,
• to cause us to laugh and cry, and
• to give us plenty of rope…

In summary, I believe 2012 will challenge and test our character (who we are at the core; our hearts), our competence (what we know and have learned; our heads), and our communication (how we interact with others and how we get things done; our hands). 2012 wants to know what we’re made of and what we’re actually going to do. In that context, it will be much like 2011. If you weren’t happy with 2011, what will you do differently this year?

Whatever the case, if you strive to “make sense, make progress, make a difference,” it will be a worthy year. I promise.

In Other Words…

“The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.” – William Gibson

“When God wanted sponges and oysters, He made them and put one on a rock and the other in the mud. When He made man, He did not make him to be a sponge or an oyster; He made him with feet and hands, and head and heart, and vital blood, and a place to use them, and He said to him, Go Work.” – Henry Ward Beecher, Royal Truths (1862), p. 21

“Whatever comes from the brain carries the hue of the place it came from, and whatever comes from the heart carries the heat and color of its birthplace.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859), Chapter VI.

“Leadership means that a group, large or small, is willing to entrust authority to a person who has shown judgement, wisdom, personal appeal, and proven competence.” – Walt Disney

“Work — other people’s work — is an intolerable idea to a cat. Can you picture cats herding sheep or agreeing to pull a cart? They will not inconvenience themselves to the slightest degree.” – Louis J. Camuti, as quoted in On the Art of Business (2004)

“If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow and which will not;
Speak then to me.”  - William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act I, Sc. 3, L. 58

In The Word…

“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.  It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.” – Genesis 3:17b, 18

The first time I saw people shooting pool (playing pocket billiards) I was hooked. Perhaps is was having seen The Hustler with Jackie Gleason as “Minnesota Fats” or maybe it was a manifestation of male adolescence. What a simple and elegant game! The cue ball strikes another ball and it goes into a pocket on the big green table, sometimes.

My friends and I gave it a try. We quickly discovered that only a small percentage of people are good at pool. It’s not a game of physical prowess and it’s not so much about hand/eye coordination as it is a game about momentum and vectors.

Momentum is literally “mass in motion.” It has to do with power, or energy, residing in a moving object and vectoring off other objects. It’s how we made the billiard balls do what we expected, sometimes.

I later discovered that my meager successes with pocket billiards were grounded in my unconscious application of Newton’s Three Laws of Motion.

1. An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion, with the same speed and direction, unless acted upon by an unbalanced net force.
2. The rate of change of motion of a body is proportional to the applied force and takes place in the direction in which the force acts.
3. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

People and organizations don’t fit neatly into Newton’s Three Laws, but there are strong similarities. We’ve all seen people – and organizations – work harder and faster in a world that has changed or is changing, to no avail. Example: the manufacturing company who complained of “low-to-no margin sales” because they wanted to keep on selling to several “big name” customers. There are plenty of other, much more profitable (for them), not-big-name, customers in their marketplace where they have a sterling reputation. These big name customers are well known for squeezing vendors hard, very hard, on pricing and terms; squeezing to the point of strangulation. This manufacturer’s solution? Increased emphasis on sales to the big name customers. An object in motion tends to stay in motion, with the same speed and direction, unless acted upon by an unbalanced net force.

Similarly, there are those who seem incapable in the face of change and wonder what happened. Example: the professional services firm which has had great business growth over the past fifteen or so years because of their location in one of the fastest growing areas of the country. “Our growth strategy was simply to open the office every morning.” The growth has stopped: for that area of the country and for the firm. Their decision? Freeze – a lack of momentum; an object at rest tends to continue to stay at rest.

Consider the senior executive who was very direct (read: brusque) with his peers and subordinates. He was intelligent (a quick study and fast processor) and ever impatient (he had a laser-beam focus on whatever captured his attention and was often thought of as “looking angry” when he was “just thinking”), no matter what the topic or situation. He was prone to explosive anger that was short-lived, but the effects lingered much longer. Everyone in the business sought to avoid his wrath (virtually impossible). One day his behavior was rewarded by his three most valued and senior people walking into this office and announcing their resignation, “We’re tired of your crap. Goodbye.” For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

This was a wake up call. After some soul-searching analysis, some honest feedback and some help about how to “do it better,” he started listening more, smiling more, relaxing (a bit) more, and giving others permission to be human, including himself. The rate of change of motion of a body is proportional to the applied force and takes place in the direction in which the force acts. 

Another law

If we can, just for a moment, think of each of these three examples as “systems”, we can apply some basic logic that can be powerfully helpful. It’s a fundamental law of nature that if no external force acts on a closed system of objects, the momentum of the closed system remains constant. Yes, each example is functioning as a “closed system.” It has shut itself off from meaningful interaction with its external environment (unwilling or unable to accept the reality at hand). It develops entropy, which, in simple terms, is the measure of disorder in a closed but changing system, a system in which energy (momentum) can only be transferred in one direction – from ordered to disordered state. The greater the entropy, the greater the disorder and – don’t miss this – the lower the availability of the system’s energy to do useful work.

Without Newton’s Second Law, we are very likely to follow the path (vectors) governed by his First and Third Laws. Our inertia needs an intervention.

Our lives and businesses are not as simple as a game of 8-ball or snooker. However, like the balls vectoring around the pool table, our momentum is taking us somewhere. We should take notice.

In Other Words…

“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always had.” – Zig Ziglar

“Don’t confuse the edge of your rut with the horizon.” – Gary Hamel

“The ultimate judge of your swing is the flight of the ball.” – Ben Hogan

“Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.”  - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“You know, I got a hunch, fat man. I got a hunch it’s me from here on in. One ball, corner pocket. I mean, that ever happen to you? You know, all of a sudden you feel like you can’t miss? ‘Cause I dreamed about this game, fat man. I dreamed about this game every night on the road. Five ball. You know, this is my table, man. I own it. ” – “Fast Eddie” Felson to “Minnesota Fats” in The Hustler

In The Word…

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” – Romans 12:2

In Linked Words…

Your momentum is recorded on your calendar. Notice.

The business owners and senior managers I know who are really good leaders are frequently tired. It’s a good tired, but tired nonetheless. It’s a lot like the tired you get from a spirited game of tennis, a fairly serious jog or, in my case, a long bike ride. It’s not a “lay down on the couch” tired, rather an invigorating, satisfying kind of tired.

The late singer and songwriter, Harry Chapin shared some thoughts from his grandfather on this:
“My grandfather was a painter. He died at age 88. He illustrated Robert Frost’s first two books of poetry. He was looking at me one day and he said, `Harry, there’s two kinds of tired. There’s good tired and there’s bad-tired. Ironically enough, bad-tired can be a day in which you won, but you won other people’s battles, you lived other people’s days, other people’s agendas and dreams, and when it’s all over, there’s very little you in there, and when you hit the hay at night, you toss and turn, you don’t settle easy.
Good tired, ironically enough, can be a day in which you lost, but you knew you fought your battles, you chased your dreams, you lived your days. And when you hit the hay at night, you settle easy, you sleep the sleep of the just, and you can say, “Take me away.”
Harry, all my life I wanted to be a painter. So I painted. God, I would have loved to have been more successful. But I painted and painted. And I am good tired, and they can take me away.”

Interestingly, those who are working for something larger than themselves, investing time and effort into good leadership and practical and useful management are, more often that not, “all in.” They are going to be tired. The question is will they be satisfied or exhausted? The graphic below, from Luc Galoppin, says it all:

As Luc would say, “The question is not how tired you are, but rather how you are tired: satisfied or exhausted?”

In Other Words…

“A conclusion is the place where you got tired thinking.” – Martin Henry Fischer

“Oh, there’s no such thing as my favorite performance. I can’t sit here today and look back, and say, Top Hat was better than Easter Parade or any of the others. I just don’t look back, period. When I finish with a project, I say ‘all right, that’s that. What’s next?” – Fred Astaire, 1978

“Trust men, and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, On Prudence

“Nothing we do is more important than hiring & developing people. At the end of the day you bet on people, not on strategies.” Larry Bossidy

“What creates trust, in the end, is the leader’s manifest respect for the followers.” – Jim O’Toole, Leading Change

“Life is not a journey to the grave with intentions of arriving safely in a pretty well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming … WOW! What a ride!” – Anon

“Immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control affairs.”  - Andrew Carnegie

In The Word…

“He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”    - Isaiah 40:29-31 (NIV)

Note: Mickey Mouse image is property of The Walt Disney Company. All rights reserved.

Today, Walter Issacson’s authorized biography of Steve Jobs will be released to the general public. Many interesting “leaks” from pre-lease copies have been published over the past few days.

Steve Jobs excelled in thinking differently. Apple iPods changed how we listen to music, iTunes disrupted the music business, iPhones put the mobile telecommunications business into a new trajectory, and iPads created a new segment in the information technology industry. His innovative leadership produced elegant products and software; simple to setup, simple to use, and beautiful to behold. He proved that less could be more.

Brilliant. Visionary. Demanding. Tireless. Perfectionistic. Beneficiary of many accolades. Darling of the strategic thinking set. Excellent pitchman/promoter/presenter.

So, wherein is the sadness?

I wanted my kids to know me

According to ABC News, “in Isaacson’s last conversation with Jobs he asked the one question that has puzzled him for so long – why did the very private Jobs want to reveal so much in a book?

‘I wanted my kids to know me,’ Jobs told Isaacson.  ’I wasn’t always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did.’

I once heard Stephen Covey say, “On their deathbed, no one says they should have spent more time at the office.” Over the past two and a half decades, there has been a substantial increase in work which seems to be due, in no small part, to information technology and by an intense, competitive work environment. Unfortunately, Steve Jobs is not unique in getting the work life balance skewed.

Try This

Check you own work life balance. On a sheet of paper, draw 3 circles (one for each: yourself, your family — spouse, parents, siblings, children, extended family — and your work). Let the relative size of each represent the amount of time in a typical week that you invest in each.  Let the circles overlap to the extent that they actually overlap. What does is tell you? Do you need to make some adjustments?

The world will miss Steve Jobs. Unfortunately, it seems his children already have.

In Other Words…

“One must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind him to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and a mystery.” – H.G. Wells

“If you could choose just one of the four, would you want your children to grow up to be happy, smart, successful, or good?” – Dennis Prager

“The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.” – Jean Paul Sartre

“Don Corleone: You spend time with your family?
Johnny Fontane: Sure I do.
Don Corleone: Good. ‘Cause a man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man.”
-  The Godfather, 1972

“Having a family is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain.” – Alan Bleasdale

In the Word…

“Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.” – Psalm 127:3 (NLT)

“What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?” – Luke 9:25 (NIV)

Or not. At least one organization (the Economic Cycle Research Institute, ECRI) with an exceptionally good track record says another recession may already be here. Over the last 15 years, it has gotten all of its recession calls right, while issuing no false alarms. Whatever the case – weak economy, recession, improving economy – your business probably needs to be better prepared. For the past several years, American businesses have acclimated themselves to a languishing economy. What if things are about to get better; are you ready for the rigors of up-tempo business? What if ECRI is right? Their forecast is frightening: as bad as the economy has been, it’s about to get worse.

Since the beginning of 2008 most businesses I’m familiar with have, necessarily, done a very good job on the expense side of their balance sheet. These business leaders have become what strategist Gary Hamel called “denominator managers.” They have been able to “downsize, declutter, delayer, and divest” exceptionally well. It’s a great  shortcut to asset productivity. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not against improved productivity. However, it’s virtually impossible to “cut” your way to the revenue growth necessary to get you to the future first.

Perhaps the much needed growth in your business can be found in your industry’s best practices. Following the same path as everyone else in your industry – benchmarking yourself against your competitors – will only ensure that you’re doing pretty much what they’re doing.

Six steps to a better future

1. Look for major shifts in the basis of competition in your industry.
2. Evaluate and transform your business model (basis for competition, value creation, and value capture) accordingly.
3. Start with your customers and their wants and needs as you redevelop, tweak, or completely rebuild your business model.
4. Re-consider your primary business clarity issues (What business are we in? Who do we serve? Why do they do business with us? How does profit happen here? What are we – management and employees – willing to hold one another accountable for? What is our strategic intent? Why do we do what we do?) and how well everyone in the firm understands those issues and what it all means to them perennially.
5. Be prepared to cannibalize your present in order to reach your future. As speaker and author Zig Ziglar said, “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always had.”
6. Don’t overlook strategic alliances (technology helpers, velocity enhancers, market expanders, etc.) to help you gain traction, speed, and distance relative to your competitors.

Today’s reality of tight credit, increasing government regulations, excessive debt, and economic uncertainty makes things difficult [understatement!]. Our business environment is worse than anything I’ve seen in my lifetime. Doing the same old things, harder and faster, doesn’t seem to make sense. These six steps involve thinking differently – and clearly – about the foundations of business growth, in any economy.

In Other Words…

“Simply pushing harder within the old boundaries will not do.” – Karl Weick

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.“ – Mark Twain

“The ultimate judge of your swing is the flight of the ball.” – Ben Hogan

“There’s nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.” – Jim Hightower

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” – Stephen Hawking

“A moments insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

In The Word…

“The wise store up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool invites ruin.” Proverbs 10:14

In Linked Words…

Why is Economics Relevant? Saul Levmore, University of Chicago

The Housing Bubble Example, Saul Levmore

A little over three years ago we decided to add a dog to our family. My wife is a city girl and I’m a country boy. I’d like a barnyard full of pets and she’d prefer… not. We compromise. We decided on a “small, sweet, loving, rescue dog.”  So we set out to find one who met those specifications.

We found one! A black and white spaniel mix. This little dog had a story, but we only knew part of it. Animal Services picked her up on the streets. She was about a year old. The Small Dog Rescue Group was to pick up another dog at the shelter. And then the representative from Small Dog Rescue saw this little black and white bundle of love with the giant heart and bubbling personality! He called in, “We’ve got to take a second dog. She’s precious! They’re going to destroy her within the hour.” The answer was, “No. We don’t have room.” The reply, “Never mind. I’ll take her home with me until you have room. ” Room was found in a day to two and we were called, “We have just the dog you are looking for.” They were right.

We picked her up on the Saturday before Easter three years ago. Once we heard her story we named her “Hallelujah” and called her “Hallie” for short. When Hallie wagged her tail, her whole body “wagged.”

Hallie’s big heart and winsome personality won over the city girl. “I’ve never loved an animal like I love this little dog.” Even the cats accepted her as a member of the family. And so it has been: family.

Fast forward to the present: we had a bad weekend. Hallie sustained a spinal cord injury that left the back half of her body paralyzed. We had to “let her go” Sunday afternoon. Oh, how we miss her! My wife asked me this morning, “What will you miss most?” Well, everything, of course. However, Hallie had, as many dogs do, a special gift. No matter how long you were gone, ten minutes or ten days, she was glad (excited) to see you. She was joyful. She loved unconditionally.  That unconditional love was irresistible.

What does this have to do with leadership? Leadership is about building willing followership for a cause, an idea or a course of action. If you don’t love ‘em, you can’t lead ‘em!

Leadership consultants James Kouzes and Barry Posner believe leadership is an affair of the heart. “The connectedness of people is a fact of life. No leader ever got anything done alone in isolation. Exemplary achievement always involves a team of people working together in an atmosphere of trust and collaboration. To the extent that a little bit more personal suffering and a little bit more interpersonal communication, sharing and support – a little bit more of loving each other – can enhance our ethical character and abilities to achieve greatness, we ought to give it a try.

Love is what sustains us along the arduous journey to the summit. Love is the source of the leader’s courage and the leader’s magnetic north. Leaders are in love: In love with leading, in love with their organization’s products and service, and in love with people. In the end, ethical leadership is not simply an affair of the head, it is an affair of the heart.” (from Ethical Leaders: An Essay About Being in Love, © 1992 Kluwer Academic Publishers)

I believe Hallie would agree.

In Other Words…

“I have the secret to success in life. The secret is to stay in love. Staying in love gives you the fire to really ignite other people, to see inside other people, to have a greater desire to get things done than other people. A person who is not in love doesn’t really feel the kind of excitement that helps them to get ahead and lead others and to achieve. I don’t know any other fire, any other thing in life that is more exhilarating and is more positive a feeling than love is.” – Major General John H. Stanford, 1986

“Care and responsibility are constituent elements of love, but without respect for and knowledge of the beloved person, love deteriorates into domination and possessiveness.” – Erich Fromm, in Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics (1947)

“If you would be loved, love and be lovable.” - Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard (1755)

“Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good.” – Petrarch

“In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror.” - John Steinbeck in East of Eden

In The Word…

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. – 1 Corinthians (NIV)