Monthly Archives: April 2014

April 22, 2014 · 9:56 am

Nothing But Flowers

I had intended to write on a totally different song (and topic) this morning but sometimes what you write finds you instead of the other way ’round, I guess.

Horseshoe tavern, Toronto, May 13, 1978

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

My original thought – which might just show up in this space next TunesDay – had to do with hiring and the future. As I was searching for an appropriate song about the future with which to make my point, a number of choices filled my head.  Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Queen, and others have all written about the topic but I think The Talking Heads describe it – and make my point – the best of all:

 

 

I love that video!  It also makes a couple of great business points which, of course, are our topic today.  The song is about a post-apocalyptic world in which everything has fallen apart.  No more malls, 7-11’s, or Pizza Huts.  It’s a bright, upbeat, dance tune which is in direct contrast to the dark vision the lyrics paint and the singer’s statement that “if this is paradise/I wish I had a lawnmower.”  That’s the first business point.

Too often we don’t listen to what people are saying and get way too focused on how they’re saying it.  A simple example is the person in a negotiation who comes to you with an issue and expresses himself in an inappropriately angry manner.  It could be the young person who weeps while talking about their salary.   In any case, one needs to listen to the words and ignore their “music” lest we receive a different message.

The other point this song makes is the we need to be careful about the long-term implications for what we’re doing.  “And as things fell apart/Nobody paid much attention”.   Not only do we need to pay attention, we need to take action.  In this case, the singer once wanted the world in which he find himself.  Be careful what you wish for, and take the time to think about the longer term.

You got it, you got it!

 

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April 21, 2014 · 8:15 am

Benjamin And Your Business

You’re probably familiar with Benjamin Franklin.

Jean-Baptiste Greuze portrait of Benjamin Fran...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I wonder sometimes if all of the folks who say “it’s all about the benjamins” know why old Ben is on the hundred-dollar bill. They’d do well to pay attention to one of the things he had to say that ought to be a guiding principle of our business lives.

Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear.

In know it’s not Tuesday (TunesDay here on the screed) but The Boss paraphrased this in his song, “Magic.” The lyric is “Trust none of what you hear / And less of what you’ll see”. He explained it this way:

The song ‘Magic’ is about living in a time when anything that is true can be made to seem like a lie, and anything that is a lie can be made to seem true. There are people who have taken that as their credo.

Bruce went on to make a political statement which we’ll ignore for the moment in favor of how that thinking can help us in business.  Way too many managers rely on what they hear rather than what they see.  They’re often behind closed doors, reading reports that others have spent many hours compiling.  That’s kind of hearsay evidence in my mind.   It’s someones interpretation of what the numbers say which may or may bot be accurate.  As Bruce implies, people have their own agendas and they can twist numbers or facts to tell you their story, not THE story.  However, our jobs as managers are way too demanding on our time for us to do everything, of course, so how do we manage that dilemma?

We do a couple of things.  The first is that in the case of critical decisions we must gather information ourselves, and then trust only half of what we see as Ben advises.  The second is that we must train others to be our eyes, not our ears.  Then we need to remind them that they must “see” so you can.  That means teaching them to dig for information which presents itself first-hand.

Get out from behind your desks.  Wander around.  Don’t rely on a quarterly report that’s passed through several sets of hands of people who may or may not be relaying the information in an unfiltered manner.  If your reports tell you that you’re selling a lot and yet when you look in the warehouse it’s overflowing, ask questions.  Trust what you see, half of it anyway.  You’ll be seeing a lot more of Mr. Franklin that way – he’s the guy on the hundred.  Won’t that be fun?

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April 18, 2014 · 8:13 am

Thought And Preparation

This is the time of year when many families host some sort of holiday gathering.

Grupp från Bonniers bokförlag vid middagsbord ...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It might be a Passover seder or it could be an Easter Sunday gathering.  Our Foodie Friday Fun this week was spurred by that sort of activity.  I’m sure you’ve been to gatherings of this sort where the host had it all together.  The food came to the table all at the same time and at the appropriate serving temperature.  There were no shrieks of “we forgot the rolls” midway through the meal (you rarely hear that at a seder, by the way).  The snacks and drinks are out when guests arrive and the entire experience is executed with efficiency.

I’ve been to meals of a very different sort.  The food comes out one dish at a time and sits on the table until everything is ready, getting cold in the process.  The menu is not quite complete, usually because it wasn’t thought through carefully.  That’s really the point this week – the need for thought and preparation in the kitchen.  Turns out it’s critical in business too.

The two things need to go together for the cook – or businessperson – to be successful.  The hosts who don’t have it all together did think about what to serve.  There was thought.  The problem is that they didn’t translate that thought into preparation.  They didn’t have a real plan.  The opposite is also true.  You can prepare all you want – make various dishes – but without careful thought beforehand, the odds are that you’ll have a meal that just doesn’t work since no one wants all proteins or to have to make a last minute run to the store for the ingredients you didn’t write on your shopping list.

It’s the same in business.  Not taking the time to think a project or situation through before organizing those thoughts into the various types of preparation the enterprise needs to do is futile.  That preparation will have to be redone when something that wasn’t thought through comes to light.  It’s nice when someone volunteers to “dive in” to a project but it’s even better when they make that dive after thinking through the depth of the pool.

I hope if you end up at a gathering of family or friends this weekend you’ll take a step back and appreciate the thought and preparation that went into the day.  If it’s been done well you probably wouldn’t notice it otherwise.  It’s when there isn’t thought and preparation – done together – that you do notice because things go horribly wrong.  Make sense?

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