Jay Robb reviews business books

Book review: Bill Strickland and the Manchester Bidwell story

2009-11-09T09:32:01-05:00

A TALE OF TWO CITIES with guest speaker: Bill Strickland. Nov. 30 at Hamilton Place Theatre Doors open at 6 p.m. Program begins at 7 p.m. Admission is free; tickets are limited or call 905-667-6230.

Make the Impossible Possible: One Man's Crusade to Inspire Others to Dream Bigger and Achieve the Extraordinary

By Bill Strickland

Bill Strickland's coming to town Nov. 30 with a pretty cool story that our business and civic leaders really need to hear.

Strickland is president and CEO of Manchester Bidwell, a community arts education and job training centre. Located in one of Pittsburgh's poorest neighbourhoods, the centre's cracked the poverty-to-prosperity code.

The centre's Manchester Craftsmen's Guild gives at-risk kids after-school courses taught by established artists and skilled instructors.

The private-school calibre courses ignite a creative fire that keeps kids off the streets, in school and on to college. More than 90 per cent of youth at the centre earn high school diplomas, and 85 per cent go on to postsecondary education.

"Our students stop defining themselves by what they can't do and get the first glimmer of what a meaningful life might feel like," says Strickland .

The grown-ups get state-of-the-art training for in-demand and ahead-of-the-curve jobs at the Bidwell Training Centre. Unlike other training centres, Manchester Bidwell steers clear of preparing people for work in stale industries or overcrowded fields where there's stiff competition and few real job prospects.

Instead, the centre develops cutting-edge programs in partnership with companies in need of highly skilled workers. Those partnerships pay off. Nearly 80 per cent of adults complete their vocational training, and 86 per cent get hired for meaningful work and good jobs with paycheques that lift entire families out of poverty.

Strickland calls poverty a cancer of the spirit. He says you can't cure it with an all-too-common approach of defining the poor as people in need of help or by dreaming up social programs to fix everything that's broken in their lives.

"You cure poverty by understanding that poor folk are human beings before they are 'poor' and by providing them with access to the fundamental spiritual nourishment every human heart requires: beauty, order, purpose, opportunity -- the things that give us a meaningful human existence."

That motivated Strickland to move Manchester Bidwell from a rundown warehouse to a new home back in the early 1980s. Even though meeting payroll was a challenge, Strickland met one of Pittsburgh's leading architects and shelled out $10,000 for a scale model of a $5-million dream home. Strickland then took his model on the road and started selling his dream of putting the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild and Bidwell Training Center together under one roof in a new home complete with a fountain in a courtyard and hallways filled with art.

"Everywhere I went, I met with the same dubious stares," says Strickland. "'You want to build this in Manchester?' someone would say. 'Isn't this a little elaborate for a poverty centre?' someone would ask. 'It's not a poverty centre,' I'd answer. 'It's a centre for success.'"

Strickland persisted, and enlightened corporate and civic leaders bought into his dream. The fountain and the museum-quality art on display throughout the centre was never meant to be window dressing, says Strickland. It was intended to deliver a powerful and much-needed message.

"You can't show a person how to build a better life if they feel no pleasure in the simple act of being alive. That's why I built this place and why I fill it with art, and sunlight, and quilts and flowers. We put them in a beautiful place, give them a small taste of what a decent, dignified future might feel like, and that makes all the difference.

Strickland also fills Manchester Bidwell with jazz. He built a concert hall at the centre in 1987 that brings the world's greatest jazz musicians together with sold-out audiences. The concerts, in turn, have spawned a Grammy-winning record label for the centre.

"Jazz was such an integral part of my life that I knew I had to find a way to make it a part of Manchester Bidwell -- and not just as background music piped in through the PA system. It had to be woven into the cultural fabric of the place so it could do for our students what it had done for me."

Running through the jazz concerts, the arts programs and the job training is an underlying and unifying philosophy.

"Every human being, despite the circumstances of his or her birth, is born full of potential," says Strickland. "And the way to unlock that potential is to place individuals in a nurturing environment and expose them to the kind of stimulating and empowering creative experiences that feed the human spirit."

And Strickland hasn't stopped dreaming. He's looking to build 100 centres like Manchester Bidwell across the United States and another 100 around the world, all fine-tuned to meet local needs.

There are National Centers for Arts & Technology in Cincinnati, Grand Rapids and San Francisco.

Groups in Cleveland, Columbus, Philadelphia and New Orleans have secured the $150,000 US preliminary grants needed to get new centres off the ground. Chicago, Los Angeles, Reno, New Haven and Charlotte are also working hard at getting early funding and moving to the planning stage.

So while Strickland's talk on Nov. 30 at Hamilton Place is free of charge, thanks to the Jobs Prosperity Collaborative, here's hoping a local business leader steps up, parts with some hard-earned cash and makes a down payment on replicating Strickland's magic here in Steeltown.

Book review: Glimmer by Warren Berger (the power of design)

2009-10-26T09:25:47-04:00

Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your Life, Your Business, and Maybe Even the World

By Warren Berger

Random House Canada: $35

Dean Kamen goes to the mall on a rainy afternoon. On his way in, he sees a young guy trying without any luck to get his wheelchair up and over a curb. Dean lends a hand.

Kamen's walking past a store when he sees the same guy struggling to get something off a shelf. When Kamen goes to the food court, there's the guy in the wheelchair again, waiting to get served, but he's blocked from view and can't make eye contact with the cashier behind the counter.

And then Kamen sees a glimmer of possibility. "I'm looking at all this thinking, what a pathetic lack of progress. I mean, seriously -- with all the incredible things we're doing with technology, what are we doing to improve this 200-year-old wheelchair?" asks Kamen.

So Kamen spends the next few years designing a wheelchair for the 21st century, incorporating dynamic stabilization issues, solid-state gyroscopes, sensors and microprocessors. He designs the iBOT wheelchair. The iBOT climbs stairs and curbs and raises occupants up to a standing position.

Marianne Cusato goes to Biloxi, Miss., after hurricane Katrina hits. She learns that the most pressing need is an alternative to the too-small and depressing FEMA trailers, standard-issue temporary housing provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Trouble is, the trailers aren't temporary for a whole lot of families.

And like Kamen, Cusato sees that same glimmer of possibility. Cusato asks: "can you design temporary housing that is decent and dignified enough to work in the long term?" and comes up with an award-winning answer.

She builds a cottage instead of a trailer for aesthetic and practical reasons. The cottages are designed to be added to with renovations or turned into a guest house or rental unit when a permanent home gets rebuilt.

Cusato builds a 300-square-foot home with a three-metre ceiling, tall vertical windows and a large attached porch, blending the style of a 17th-century cottage with touches of Southern architecture. And she does it all for just $35,000 US.

The U.S. Senate approves $1 billion to build Katrina Cottages all along the Gulf Coast. Cusato wins the 2006 People's Design Award from the Smithsonian Institution, beating out the Apple iPod. And then builders start asking about turning Katrina Cottages into lakefront cottages. "If you have a situation where disaster housing is exactly the same as the housing that rich people choose to vacation in -- well, that's a good thing isn't it?" asks Cusato.

These are two of many solutions that highlight how thinking like a designer can solve some big challenges facing business and our communities.

"Design thinking opens up new avenues of progress, suggesting fresh answers to old and difficult questions," says author and award-winning journalist Warren Berger. "It is about infinite possibilities. And, perhaps more than anything else, it's about optimism."

Berger spells out 10 design principles grouped into four categories -- universal, business, social and personal.

Ask stupid questions, jump fences and make hope visible are the three universal design principles that anyone can apply to solve pretty much any problem. Asking stupid questions challenges and reframes assumptions in such fundamental ways that you can sound naive for asking.

Making hope visible is about picturing possibilities and drawing conclusions. You're giving shape to an idea and turning it into something real that others can get their heads on.

"Design is really a way of looking at the world with an eye toward changing it," says Berger. "To do that, a designer must be able to see not just what is, but what might be. They take that faint glimmer of possibility and make it visible and real to others."

So let's take a good, long look at our community. Get out of the car. Walk around. Talk with people. Think like a designer. Catch a glimmer of what's possible. And let's start having a conversation about how we can reboot, rebuild and redesign an even better, more resilient and vibrant city.

(This review appeared in the Oct. 26 edition of the Hamilton Spectator)

Book review: Why she buys and the power of women consumers

2009-09-28T07:35:44-04:00

Why She Buys: The New Strategy for Reaching the World's Most Powerful Consumers,

by Bridget Brennan (Crown Business, $32)

Tom came to our house the other night to sell us new doors.

Tom did a great job. Tom knows everything you'd ever want to know about doors. How and where doors get made. How doors get installed. All the features, benefits, options and warranty coverage. And all the ways in which his company's doors are superior to what the competition sells.

Yet, it's what Tom didn't do that sealed the deal. Tom didn't refer to my wife as the "little lady" or the "woman of the house." Tom didn't talk only with me and ignore my wife. Tom didn't slide his quote across the dining room table for my eyes only. Tom didn't tell us that with all the money we're saving, I could lend my credit card to the "little lady" for a Saturday afternoon of shoe shopping while I stayed home and babysat the kids.

Which is a very good thing for Tom. Because if Tom had said or done any of those things, he would have lost the sale even if the doors were going to cost us a buck. And I would have received a sharp, hard kick to the shins under the table.

That's because my wife was making the decision on the new doors. She's the one who lost patience with a screen door the kids can't open, another screen door that flies off the hinges in a stiff breeze and a pair of well-worn, energy-inefficient doors completely lacking in curb appeal. My wife's the one who talked with co-workers for a referral. She's the one who, on her day off, went door shopping in showrooms and booked the sales call. And she's the one who's paying for the doors.

Not everyone gets it like Tom, even in our enlightened age.

"Women not only have money, they have veto power," says Bridget Brennan, CEO of Female Factor. "It's the most powerful one-two punch in the consumer economy."

Brennan cites studies that show women purchase or are the key influencer on about 80 per cent of all consumer product sales.

"To make a massive generalization, men are the sex that manufactures products, and women are the sex that buys them," says Brennan, who adds that men hold down 85 per cent of Fortune 500 corporate officer positions, nearly 70 per cent of chief marketing officers and 90 per cent of top creative directors at ad agencies.

"If the consumer economy had a sex, it would be female," says Brennan. "If the business world had a sex, it would be male. And therein lies the pickle."

So we end up with products dreamt up, designed, manufactured, marketed and sold by men who are too often clueless about what women want and why they buy.

Take the print campaign for the Ford Flex SUV as an example of what happens when men market to women. With seven seats and a fridge, the SUV is obviously intended for families. So how did Ford market the car? With an ad that shows the SUV driving down a deserted road in the dark, with CPR For The Dead Of Night as the headline.

"Perhaps it would be better not to use words such as CPR and dead to headline a campaign for a vehicle in which women are going to be transporting their families," suggests Brennan. "The industry is littered with ads written from a masculine point of view, even though women purchase and influence more than half the car sales."

Callaway Golf gets it. Callaway, a leader in the golf equipment industry, is run by George Fellows, a former Revlon CEO and father of two daughters. "For some reason, our society still hasn't caught up to the fact that women should participate at the exact same levels as men in a whole host of activities, but in order to do that appropriately, they've got to be equipped in the right way," says Fellows.

So instead of coming out with a line of men's clubs with pink shafts, Callaway consulted with women golfers and instructors, put women on product development teams and re-engineered the golf club. Callaway adjusted head design, head size, swing weight, shaft weight, shaft flexibility and grip size. Based on consumer feedback, Callaway rolled out a new Gems line specifically designed for women, and in 2008 rang up the second highest sales level in the company's history.

Brennan says Callaway and other smart, consumer-focused companies such as Procter & Gamble, MasterCard and Unilever are clued in to five global trends driving female consumers. The presence of more women in the workforce changes everything. Delayed marriage means more money spent on "me." Lower birth rates globally mean fewer kids, but more stuff. The divorce economy means two of everything. "The reality of divorce is that it unleashes a torrent of consumer spending, and not just on divorce lawyers."

And the presence of more older women redefines target markets. "Look at enough advertising briefs, and you might think that everyone older than 54 is dead, or at the very least broke," says Brennan. "But that couldn't be further from the truth. The opportunities are as enormous as the population itself."

Gender, says Brennan, is the most powerful determinant of how a person views the world and everything in it, more powerful than age, income, race and geography. To help us guys bridge the gender divide, Brennan offers insights and strategies on how to market products and services to women, whether in a store, on the web or around the dining-room table during a sales call for new doors.

Book review: Creating innovatoin, profits, growth & social good

2009-09-14T07:02:43-04:00

Super Corp: How Vanguard Companies Create Innovation, Profits, Growth and Social Good

By Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Crown Business, $32

You and I have only one reason to go to work this morning. And it has nothing to do with spending our day in meetings and talking amongst ourselves.

We're going to work to change the world.

To make a real difference in big and small ways.

To make someone's life better and easier.

To right a few wrongs.

Sound a little too idealistic?

Seems to work pretty well for IBM, Procter & Gamble and a host of companies that put social purpose front and centre.

"Innovation that matters, for our company and the world" is one of IBM's three overarching values.

Back in 2003, and early in his tenure as chair and CEO, Sam Palmisano invited 350,000 IBMers from 170 countries to join a conversation about what the company stood for and believed in. Through a 72-hour onlineValuesJam, staff gave Palmisano a metre's worth of feedback.

Making the world a better place was a recurring theme.

And then there's P&G with a purpose to provide branded products and services of superior quality and value that improve the lives of the world's consumers, now and for generations to come.

IBM and P&G are among a select group of what author Rosabeth Moss Kanter calls vanguard companies that are ahead of the curve and the wave of the future.

"For years, lip service has been paid by many corporate leaders to achieving high performance and being a good corporate citizen," says Kanter, chair of Harvard University's Advanced Leadership Initiative and one of the 50 most powerful women in the world according to the London Times.

"What I have discovered in my research, however, is that the two issues, business performance and societal contributions, are, in fact, intimately connected. Service to society, guided by well-articulated values, is not just 'nice to do,' but an integral part of the business models for companies that I call the vanguard."

Embedding social purpose in your mission, vision and values and then walking the talk gets you engaged employees, a hotbed of innovation and exceptional customer service.

"The point is not the exact words themselves but the living process: to open a dialogue that keeps the sense of social purpose in the forefront of everyone's mind and then to use that as a guidance mechanism for business decisions," says Kanter.

A higher purpose drives higher performance.

Your best and brightest want to be part of something bigger than a paycheque. They want to be part of a winning organization that makes a real difference close to home and around the world.

Anyone who's lucky to work for an employer who puts people and purpose first, knows exactly how it feels and they're proud to play a part in a vanguard organization.

You start the week by jumping out of bed and saying thank God it's Monday.

"People more readily stretch to solve problems that have never been tackled before because they care about serving society and also because they believe in social progress," says Kanter. "The vanguard model is not only good for business and society, writ large, but is also good for individuals. The newer generation of professionals and managers want satisfying work and a paycheque certainly, but they also want to be members of an institution that contributes to the common good."

A social purpose also reminds us to quit navel-gazing and keep looking outside our organization for problems to solve and needs to be met. You won't find any inspiration for innovation in a meeting room or in a 50-slide PowerPoint.

Chances are, your most innovative and engaged colleagues are the ones who are well connected and networked to the outside world.

Kanter predicts that big societal problems will be the next frontier for innovation. Smart, sustainable and successful organizations will figure out how to shorten the loop between challenges in society and innovative solutions.

"At each phase of the innovation process -- generating ideas, selling others on those ideas and executing the projects to turn ideas into realities -- purpose-driven companies gain advantages," says Kanter.

"When you bring society inside the organization, the possibilities increase for success at every point in the innovation process."

So dig up -- and dust off -- your organization's mission, vision and values. If there's no mention of social purpose, start a conversation and keep talking. You'll make your organization better and you'll make our community stronger.

Book review: Customer service in the age of consumer generated content

2009-08-31T11:17:43-04:00

Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000

by Pete Blackshaw

(Doubleday, $25)

I'm reliving happy childhood memories yet having serious second thoughts.

Maybe it's because of heat stroke after a day at Long Point Provincial Park or the hour that's left until our daughter's soccer game.

Whatever the reason, my health-conscious wife suggests doing something we've never done in all our many years of dating and marriage. "Let's pick up a bucket of fried chicken on the way home," she says.

Smelling those secret herbs and spices sends me back to family get-togethers, crowded around the kitchen table in my grandparents' bungalow on Stevenson Avenue. Although my grandmother would spend the better part of a week cooking enough food to feed the neighbourhood, my grandfather would insist on adding a bucket of chicken to the bounty. To aid in his great escape from the house for a half-hour of solitude, my grandfather would recruit me as co-pilot on his chicken runs. "Helen, the boy wants some chicken," my grandfather would announce as we slipped out the side door and made a break for his Golf Rabbit. Once at the store, we'd pilfer a year's supply of wet naps, salt and pepper packages, and plastic utensils. And at dinner, I'd skip the mixed vegetable gelatin salad and instead make a meal out of congealed chicken skin donated by the grown-ups.

But this happy memory's fading fast, and I'm losing my appetite, thanks to the customer at the head of the line. Seems he bought a bucket a few weeks back, sat the family down for dinner and found not one but four pieces of finger-licking chicken with feathers still attached. The customer says he called the manager to complain and was promised four featherless wings.

Only the cashier isn't buying the story. She's flipping through a binder, reading page after page of handwritten notes and finding no record of the phone call. The customer asks the cashier if the manager's around. No, but the supervisor's working the deep fryer. So the supervisor comes out, hears the same story, flips through the same pages and comes to the same non-decision. The supervisor tells the customer to call back tomorrow. But no free chicken today, so sorry.

Now, if a customer has a lousy experience yet still comes back for more, wouldn't you be grateful? Wouldn't you gladly throw in four pieces of chicken that must cost all of 50 cents? And if that customer is telling and retelling the gory details in a store full of customers, wouldn't you shut down the story as fast as you possibly could by serving up a free order of chicken with jumbo orders of green coleslaw and macaroni salad? And if you were the manager and took that call, wouldn't you get in your car, drive over and personally deliver a bucket yourself?

The store caught a lucky break. The customer could've posted a picture online of his feathered chicken. He could've taped his call with the manager, videotaped the cashier and supervisor delivering spectacularly lousy customer service and posted it on YouTube.

Welcome to the age of consumer-generated media, says author, Planet Feedback founder and Nielsen Online senior executive Pete Blackshaw. The days of lousy service and shortchanging customers is over. Thanks to social media such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter, customers are finding each other online, swapping horror stories and causing some serious grief.

"Throughout the history of commerce, consumers have been at the mercy of business," says Blackshaw. "Consumers have traditionally had limited access to one another and few outlets for feedback and communication. But the Internet has changed that."

Consumers are the new centre of the universe. Some web-savvy customers have more influence and power than ever before -- and more power than what your advertising and marketing budget can buy. And you need to listen obsessively to customers if you have any hope of protecting your organization's most valuable asset.

"Credibility may not be on your balance sheet, but it's the best asset you've got," says Blackshaw. "Credibility is the only valid currency in this vast and noisy marketplace." Credibility is the product of six key drivers - trust, authenticity, transparency, listening, responsiveness and affirmation. Ignore or fail to live up to any of these six drivers and customers will make you pay a steep, brand-damaging price.

Thanks to the Internet, consumers now own your brand. They own your messages. And they own the conversations about how, where and if they'll invite your brands into their lives.

I won't be inviting a bucket of fried chicken back into my life. I checked obsessively for feathers. Didn't eat the skin. And I decided this was one happy childhood memory I wasn't passing on to my kids.

Book review: Leadership skills for an uncertain future

2009-08-17T08:08:12-04:00

Leaders Make the Future- Ten New Leadership Skills for an Uncertain World

By Bob Johansen

(Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., $26.95)

So here's a cheery thought.

What if, in 2019, we look back on today and reminisce about the good old days? Days that, in retrospect, were kinder, gentler and simpler. Days when job losses and bailouts were our biggest worries and we still had some idea as to which end was up.

Author Bob Johansen thinks that's what could happen. Johansen is a distinguished fellow, past president and board member of the Institute for the Future. The institute, formed in 1968 by engineers and mathematicians from RAND and the Stanford Research Institute, issues 10-year forecasts and works with clients such as Procter & Gamble, Disney, Kraft Foods and Hallmark.

Brace yourself for stormy weather. "We are entering a threshold decade: our natural, business, organizational and social systems will reach tipping points of extreme challenge and some of those systems are likely to break," says Johansen.

We'll all be living in a VUCA world, marked by unprecedented volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Climate change and a host of other factors will create unprecedented displacements, making this the Age of Diasporas. The gap between rich and poor will widen further, and food security will prove to be the flashpoint for redistribution and retribution. Expect to be confronted with local to global dilemmas to which there are no solutions and no way to duck and cover. As former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger once said, dilemmas can't be solved. They can only be survived.

The need for strong leaders to make hard choices in tough times will never be greater. But don't lose faith. Johansen says smart leaders can also create a better future.

"Leaders need not be overwhelmed and pummelled by the world of VUCA. The future will also be loaded with opportunities. Leaders must have the skills to take advantage of those opportunities, as well as the agility to sidestep the dangers."

Here are the 10 new leadership skills Johansen recommends we develop now to make the most of what's coming our way.

1. A maker instinct with the inner drive to build, grow and make things better with a do-it-ourselves approach to leadership.

2. Clarity to cut through the confusion and contradictions of a VUCA world and chart plans and paths that are precise and prescient.

3. Dilemma flipping to reframe unsolvable challenges as opportunities.

4. Hands-on, first-person, real-world immersive learning.

5. Bio-empathy and seeing the world from nature's point of view where everything's connected

6. Constructive depolarization to calm tense situations, bridge differences and find common ground in an uncertain world.

7. Quiet transparency, with the ability to be open and authentic about what matters to you without advertising yourself.

8. Innovating through rapid prototyping with a focus on failing early, often and cheaply.

9. Connecting with business and social-change networks through the wonders of smart mob organizing. "Leaders are what they can organize. They make connections and draw links."

10. Focusing on commons creating to foster collaboration and achieve mutual success.

Apply these leadership skills in a VUCA world, and Johansen says volatility will yield to vision, uncertainty to understanding, complexity to clarity and ambiguity to agility.

"Leaders will make the future, but they won't make it all at once, and they can't make it alone. This will be a make-it-ourselves future," says Johansen. "The space between judging too soon (the classic mistake of problem-solvers) and deciding too late (the classic mistake of academics) is a space leaders of the future must love -- without staying there too long."

So if you care about the world our kids and grandchildren will inherit from us and the dilemmas they'll be forced to confront, it's time to get up, stand up and start making the future.

Book review: Strategy for Sustainability

2009-08-04T08:00:11-04:00

Strategy for Sustainability: A Business Manifesto

By Adam Werbach

Harvard Business Press ($25)

Contrary to what consultants love to tell us, you don't actually have to lose sight of the shore to discover new lands.

Just book yourself a Sunday afternoon cruise on the Hamilton Harbour Queen. The captain and crew do a great job in welcoming you aboard and offer a running commentary on Hamilton Harbour's past, present and future.

About halfway into your cruise, you'll hear the perfect pickup line for an image-conscious city that's forever searching for a better way to sell itself to strangers. You'll learn that Hamilton is home to North America's largest inland harbour. Now, there's something to actually brag about and build a brand around.

And it gets better. If we do our homework and stay focused on the big picture, our city's best asset could also be Hamilton's sustainability showcase to the world. All the key components of sustainability -- economic, environmental, social and cultural -- are already in play all along 45 kilometres of shoreline.

There's a pretty cool mash-up of residential and recreational, industrial and commercial uses happening at the harbour. And from the upper deck of the Harbour Queen it's easy to imagine what's possible. An outdoor amphitheatre, bandshell and skating rink. A field of cricket pitches. Bicycle, canoe and kayak rentals. An outdoor farmers' market. Mixed housing, a cluster of cafes and restaurants and a hotbed of small businesses with an entrepreneurial flair. And underpinning it all would be sustainable, job-creating industries contributing to and benefiting from the economic, environmental and social health of the harbour.

So if we get it right, everyone driving over the Skyway will look over and see a harbour and a community that's internationally recognized and celebrated as a leader in sustainability.

The timing couldn't be better. Smart businesses, organizations and communities are realizing sustainability is the only sure bet for thriving in perpetuity in a fast-changing world, says author Adam Werbach, Global CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi S (CCT) and a former president with the Sierra Club.

"Sustainability is bigger than a public relations stunt, bigger than a green product line, bigger even than a heartfelt but part-time nod to ongoing efforts to save the planet," says Werback. "Imagined and implemented fully, sustainability drives a bottom-line strategy to save costs, a top-line strategy to reach a new consumer base, and a talent strategy to get, keep and develop employees, customers and your community."

Werbach's come up with a framework to help organizations develop and implement sustainability strategies. It starts with STaR mapping, a quick and dirty analysis of societal, technological and resource trends and changes that could help or hurt your organization. Do you know what's going on in the world outside your walls, what's on the horizon and whether you're ready, willing and able to seize the opportunities?

Drawing on your analysis, you then set what Werbach calls a North Star goal. Make your goal big, bold and overarching. Play to your organization's strengths and link directly back to your core mission and reason for being. Set an ambitious, inspirational and achievable goal that everyone in your organization will believe in, contribute to and help make happen within the next five to 15 years.

With your analysis done and your North Star goal set, it's now time to get your organization's TEN cycle firing on all cylinders. For a sustainability strategy to succeed, Werbach says you'll need to commit to complete transparency of information and communications, earn the full engagement of staff and management and build a stronger and ever-growing network of internal champions and external partners.

"Sustainability provides a fresh conversation for soliciting employee input, unleashing employee creativity, surfacing and recognizing leadership talent and driving innovation -- all of which further engage employees."

Werbach highlights the work Wal-Mart is doing around sustainability. The company's set North Star goals of producing zero waste and running on 100 per cent renewable energy.

To make sustainability real and relevant to its two million associates, Wal-Mart introduced the personal sustainability project.

The voluntary project encourages associates to adopt repeatable, enjoyable, small-scale nano-practices that support and advance a culture of sustainability. Day-long workshops for associates and managers from every store offered primers on sustainability, grassroots enrolment techniques and a whole lot of inspiration. Within six months, the personal sustainability project spread to more than 4,500 stores across the United States, with more than 500,000 staff adopting and following through personal sustainability practices at work and at home.

"Small steps matter," says Werbach. "Instead of focusing solely on the game-changing win, the small steps prepare your organization for the turbulence facing our world. When a situation seems too complicated to grasp, grasping it isn't always entirely necessary or even possible -- so do what you can, when you can. Act now."

You can act now and take the first step by reading Werbach's book and spending a Sunday afternoon cruising around Hamilton Harbour.

Book review: Managing Generation Y

2009-07-20T07:32:05-04:00

Not Everyone Gets a Trophy: How to Manage Generation Y

By Bruce Tulgan

(Jossey-Bass, $29.95)

I had a flashback during a meeting the other day.

Back to the early days of my career when I was told to dial down the enthusiasm at work. To avoid starting every sentence with "what if" and "how about."

To be respectful, deferential and heed the wisdom of elders. To stop swinging for a home run with every trip to the plate. To think before speaking and soften the edges. To not bend, break or rewrite every rule. To colour between the lines. To sit quietly, listen attentively and take notes. And to realize that when senior execs wrap up meetings by asking if anyone has anything to add, it's a rhetorical question, a cue to bring the party to a quick close and not an open invitation to serve up yet another big idea.

With experience and a few scars at the midpoint of a pretty cool career, I've finally learned when to turn down and crank up the dial. When to go along to get along. When to swing for the fences and when to settle for a base hit. When to listen, when to pretend to listen and when to speak out and step up.

So back to the meeting. There were a bunch of baby boomers, a couple Gen Xers and a few 20-somethings around the table. And when the meeting wound down and the rhetorical question got asked, up went the hand from the Generation Y poster child and out came the questions and big ideas. And while some of us in the room silently cursed the breaking of the unwritten rule and thought the rookie had overstepped, I had my flashback, thought the kids are all right and knew that our future's in good hands.

Author Bruce Tulgan advises employers on how to work with Generation Y, a generation with the potential to be the most high-performing workforce in history. Born between 1978 and 2000, this generation of workers is eager to hit the ground running, tackle and solve big problems and add real value. They're collaborative, confident and self-possessed, even when the rest of us have no clue what's going.

Yet as many managers and employers will tell you, this high-performing cohort may also prove to be the most high-maintenance workforce we've ever seen. Tween and teen precociousness is continuing well into adulthood and carrying into the workplace. With Gen Y, Tulgan says 30 is the new 20 and we have overinvolved, helicopter parents to thank.

"Every step of the way, Gen Yers' parents have guided, directed, supported, coached and protected them. Gen Yers have been respected, nurtured, scheduled, measured, discussed, diagnosed, medicated, programmed, accommodated, included, awarded and rewarded as long as they can remember."

If you think managing Gen Yers and putting up with the attitude and precociousness isn't worth the effort, take a good look around the office and shop floor. The recession may have created a buyer's market for talent, but it hasn't stopped time. With each passing day and hour, all those baby boomers move ever closer to retirement (many already are). There aren't enough of us Gen Xers to go around, so be prepared for a massive influx of Generation Y.

To lock in the best and brightest of this generation, smart employers are revisiting, reviewing and revising how they hire and train new employees. Contrary to popular belief, Gen Yers aren't disloyal and unwilling to make real commitments to their employees.

"They can be very loyal," says Tulgan. "But they don't exhibit the kind of loyalty you find in a kingdom: blind loyalty to hierarchy, tight observance of rites of passage, patience for recognition and rewards."

Instead, Generation Y offers free-market, just-in-time transactional loyalty, the same kind of loyalty you have with customers and clients.

The ideal job for Gen Yers is what Tulgan calls a self-building job. This is a generation that's looking to make an impact while building themselves up with the experiences and resources that you can offer. They want to learn, grow and collect proof along the way that their ability adds value. Once you've met the threshold of competitive salaries and wages, Gen Yers care about flexible schedules, relationships, task choice, learning opportunities and location.

Tulgan tells employers that the most important day for 20-somethings is their first day on the job. Treat Day 1 like you're planning your kid's birthday. No, you don't need balloons, cake and a clown. Just greet your new hires and get them engaged. Don't park them in a cubicle and bury them with busy work so they'll stay out of the way and let you get your work done. And shipping new hires off for two long days of induction by PowerPoint guarantees disengagement.

"If it takes you months or years to get Gen Yers up to speed and into meaningful roles on your team, then you'll have serious problems keeping high-potential Gen Yers engaged and growing," says Tulgan. "Don't tell me you are struggling to manage and retain the best Gen Yers and then tell me it's going to take months or years before they can do important work."

Tulgan also recommends practicing what he coins "in loco parentis" management. "You can't fight the overparenting phenomenon, so run with it. Your Gen Y employees want it. They need it. Without strong management, there is a void where their parents have always been." So show your 20-somethings that you care. Give them boundaries and structure.

"Yes, Generation Y will be more difficult to recruit, retain, motivate and manage than any other new generation to enter the workforce," says Tulgan.

"But this will also be the most high-performing workforce in history for those who know how to manage them properly."

Book review: Social networking and the Whuffie Factor

2009-07-06T16:18:23-04:00

The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business

By Tara Hunt

Crown Business

$28.95

The other week I met with four folks who are doing cool work on the environmental front with support from the Hamilton Community Foundation. We got together in a meeting room at Trivaris and spent the morning talking about social media.

Now, I'm anything but a resident expert on social media. And I'm pretty sure I was brought in by the foundation to prove a point. If this guy can use social media then anyone can do it and probably do it better.

I took the group on a behind-the-scenes tour of the blogs I use at work and for recycling book reviews. Next, we swung over to Slideshare where one of my PowerPoints has been looked at 2,370 times. We made a stop at Wikipedia and then wound up at Twitter, where hundreds of people are following my postings for reasons that still remain a mystery.

It took a while for folks to warm up to all things social media. Already working long hours on shoestring budgets, they asked smart questions. Was blogging, Twittering, writing on Facebook and posting videos on YouTube really worth the time, effort and money? What was the return on investment? Social media seemed to be all noise and no signal, a time-waster that 20-somethings indulged in when they didn't feel like working.

So I tried to hammer home three key points to the folks in the room. Your organizations all have great stories to tell and sell and a built-in audience wanting and waiting to connect with you and support your cause. Social media either costs nothing or next to nothing to use and can actually save you time and money (no more printing and stuffing newsletters in envelopes!). And you can take a leadership role by playing the part of party host and cruise director, starting and joining conversations and connecting smart people, big ideas and best practices both here at home and around the world.

And then I plugged The Whuffie Factor by author and community marketing guru Tara Hunt of Saskatoon. "Catching the social networking wave of Web 2.0 is neither easy nor as straightforward as it might seem at first blush," says Hunt. "Simply spending money and trying to buy your way into online communities works about as well as a dude in a Brooks Brother suit trying to fit in at the skateboard park. To succeed in this Web 2.0 world, you have to turn conventional wisdom on its head and become a social capitalist."

So what exactly is Whuffie, a concept Hunt borrowed from science-fiction author Cory Doctorow. Hunt calls Whuffie "the residual outcome -- the currency -- of your reputation. You lose or gain it based on positive or negative actions, your contributions to the community and what people think of you."

You build Whuffie by being nice, networked and notable. Social media gives you easy-to-use tools to accomplish all three. And the social capital you build buys you real-world market capital. It raises your profile. Enhances your reputation. Earns you long-term loyalty. Wins you friends and fans who sing your praises, do business with you.

"Market capital and social capital are converging more than many recognize," says Hunt. "There may even come a day that social capital is seen as viable currency in the market economy."

To build Whuffie, turn the bullhorn around. Stop talking and start listening. Become part of the community you serve and then get out of the office and into that community. Create amazing experiences that people love. Embrace the chaos and find your higher purpose. Give back to the community you serve and do it often.

Social media turbocharges your community marketing efforts in a world where we're inundated with sales pitches, burned by false promises broken in the past and overwhelmed with choices. We don't care what people have to say, sell or give away. We're too busy listening to our friends. The people we trust and care about.

"The fact of the matter is that people are talking more and more, and they are becoming more and more conscious of where they are spending their dollars," says Hunt.

"When a person has a choice between two similar products and one has only been executing on a traditional branding strategy of advertising and product placement whereas the other one has really connected personally with the shopper, which do you think they will buy? No matter what industry you are in, no matter how established or early-stage your business is, this shift is going to affect you ... if it hasn't already."

So if you're not connecting with your community and building social capital, Hunt will show you how to go and raise serious Whuffie.

2nd annual Media Relations Summer Camp for nonprofits

2009-06-22T14:03:09-04:00

Mohawk College and the Hamilton Spectator are hosting the 2nd Annual Media Relations Summer Camp.

The camp's free for nonprofits, community groups and social entrepreneurs who have a great story to pitch to the press and share with the world. The 2-day camp includes a media relations primer, hands-on mentoring by PR pros, a media relations handbook and contact list, meet and greets with Spectator editors and reporters,a newsroom tour and the chance to polish, practice and pitch a story to the press.

The camp takes place Tuesday, July 21 at Mohawk and Thursday, July 23 at the Spectator. Space is limited so campers get some undivided attention. To register or for more information, drop me a line.

The media relations primer from the 1st summer camp is posted here on Slideshare.net.