Category Archives: Thinking Aloud

July 31, 2015 · 9:01 am

Scrambled Eggs

For our Foodie Friday Fun this week, let us consider scrambled eggs. They can tell us a few interesting things about business, as it turns out, and I’d like to spend a moment reviewing those things today. As an aside, you might not know that the original title of the classic song “Yesterday” was “Scrambled Eggs” and the verse began “Scrambled Eggs/Oh, my baby how I love your legs” (sing it; it will make more sense).

Scrambled eggs in the microwave

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In any event, back to our topic. You might think of scrambled eggs as one of those incredibly simple dishes that’s not worthy of investigation. I mean, has anyone ever asked you for a recipe or instructions on how to make them? Probably not. But everything is not as simple as it seems.

Some choices: do we season the eggs with salt before they go in the pan, immediately thereafter, or once they’ve firmed up? Do we add liquid? Is that liquid water, milk, cream, or something else? Is our intended texture runny, soft, fluffy or firm? Those decisions influence the heat we use for cooking, the adding of butter, and starting with a hot or cold pan. Finally, are we adding things to our eggs because some things (mushrooms, for example) need to be cooked first so the liquid they release doesn’t affect the intended egg result.

In case someone asks you for advice on how to cook scrambled eggs, those are but a few things you need to consider. It’s much the same when discussing business. There are layers of questions and no one right answer. It all depends on the results you’re after.  That’s why I don’t often tell clients what to do.  I ask them about their intended results and lay out the options.  Part of my job is to help them see what the recipe they’re using will produce, hopefully before they have wasted a lot of resources making something that they will find unsatisfying.  Even if you’re not a consultant, that’s sort of your job too as part of your team, isn’t it?

There are not a lot of times in business that there is only one way to reach your goals, just as there are many different ways to cook a delicious dish of scrambled eggs.  It’s important to take the time before you crack open the first egg or spend the first dollar to think about the end result.  That’s what drives the recipe!

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July 29, 2015 · 11:48 am

What Motivates You?

A friend and I were talking about a few things the other day. He’s considering a new position and we were going over the pros and cons of the opportunity when he asked me a pretty basic question that really doesn’t have a simple answer. Let’s see what you think.

English: Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Resized,...

Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The question was “what motivates you?” What he meant was why would I, or anyone, get out of bed in the morning and go to work. He wasn’t looking for a rehash of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs since I think everyone understands that we have to earn money somehow in order to live (unless you’re already wealthy). He was more interested in what would have to appeal to me in a position for me to want to spend as many hours as we all spend working doing that job.

I’ve found over the years that there is no one answer.  Some of the folks with whom I’ve worked are motivated by the need to prove themselves, either to a parent, a significant other, or maybe to a teacher or coach who told them they couldn’t do something.  It’s really an external motivation.  Others are self-motivated – they feel a deep desire to achieve.  Other people just fear failure, while still others are after material rewards.  It probably doesn’t matter since every one of those root causes can produce an excellent worker who feels fulfilled by their job.

I thought about my answer.  It really has changed over the years.  At first it was just the self-motivation to do a good job and to learn as much as I could.  Over time, not wanting to let down my team became really important.  I suppose that some of the other motivations mentioned above were part of the mix as well.  Thinking about it now, I’m at the point where it’s about the challenge itself.  How will it push me?  What will I learn?  How will I grow?  That sound strangely like the self-actualization that Maslow mentions.  Who knew?

So what motivates you?  If someone were to approach you about a new job, as they did my friend, what would be the first question you’d ask and why?

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July 17, 2015 · 12:24 pm

Responsibly Irresponsible

This Foodie Friday, I want to rant a bit on responsibility.  What’s prompting this is a report from the Center For Science in the Public Interest on their annual awards for the 9 most unhealthy chain restaurant meals.  I’ll admit that almost everything on the list sounded pretty good to me.  After all, who doesn’t enjoy 7 cheeseburgers piled high on a bun?  But my rant isn’t about chain restaurants offering dishes that are really unhealthy.  We allow people to sell cigarettes and lots of other products that can potentially kill the consumer (cars, for example).  Is it inherently irresponsible for businesses to create products that end up causing societal problems?  You tell me.  Diabetes is an epidemic but nearly every supermarket product has some form of added sugar and we’re just getting around to banning trans fats which bring about heart disease.  I’d rather than any business person think about minimizing the damage before they offer something to the public but that’s probably wishful thinking.

Here is the thing: you’d have to be pretty stupid not to understand that you’re consuming a lot of calories and fat when you chow down with that 7 cheeseburger menu item.  You probably don’t understand, however, that the 1,330 calories in the burger are accompanied with 47 grams of saturated fat and 4,570 mg of sodium.  Let me quote the report on another dish which comes from The Cheesecake Factory:

The Louisiana Chicken Pasta, which weighs an impressive 1½ pounds, comes topped with four slices of heavily breaded chicken (in case you didn’t get enough white flour in the mound of pasta). Add the New Orleans sauce (butter and heavy cream), and your plate is up to 2,370 calories (more than a day’s worth), plus 80 grams of saturated fat (a four-day supply) and 2,370 milligrams of sodium (1½ days’ worth). For those numbers, you could have had two Fettuccine Alfredos plus two breadsticks at Olive Garden.

When you jump out of an airplane, you know it’s risky.  When you get on a roller coaster, there are always signs explaining the risks.  When you order many of the extremely unhealthy products available in restaurants, you’re generally flying blind. Even when the nutritional information is posted, it’s often inconspicuously posted on a wall someplace and it’s rarely on the menu near the copy that is pushing the product.

So back to responsibility.  We all need to pay more attention to what we’re eating and we need to learn to ask questions about just how bad a dish is.  At least that way we can attempt to minimize the damage by eating a bit better over the next couple of days.  Marketers need to provide enough information to allow us to make intelligent choices.  Killing your customers is almost always a bad idea, and encouraging them to kill themselves (slowly) without speaking up about the risks is, I think, irresponsible.  At least someplace like the Heart Attack Grill is pretty upfront about the risks.  You might not like it, but it’s responsible.

Thoughts?

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