Tag Archives: business thinking

August 7, 2013 · 10:14 am

If You See Something…

I don’t know about where you live, but those of us in the New York area are hit on a regular basis with a message that “if you see something, say something.”

say something

(Photo credit: istolethetv)

It’s in the subway, on trains, on bus stops, and on mass media. If you believe the reports, and I do, those sorts of actions have prevented some nasty incidents over the last decade.

I got to thinking about that the other day from a bit of a different perspective which of course then led into some business thinking. We all know a person who displays symptoms of things not being right in their lives. Those symptoms could come in the form of substance abuse or a big weight gain. Maybe their personality has changed – gone from light to dark. If you care about that person, you probably think about a way to say something that asks about what’s going on. It’s hard – people have feelings, after all and they are probably just as aware as you are of what they’re doing. Probably more so.  The ensuing discussion can be hard for both of you.  Sometimes it can derail a friendship.  More often, it begins a healing process, but only if you care enough to say something.

The same is true in a business.  The symptoms are different, obviously.  Unhappy team members, a faltering bottom line, processes that are inefficient.  Those things won’t fix themselves until someone cares enough to say something.  Oddly, the people who are best equipped to do that are often the youngest or newest members of the team.  They approach the business with few preconceptions and “new eyes.”  The problem is that they tend to hold their tongues believing that it’s their newness or lack of knowledge that makes them see the flaws rather than the familiarity of the day-to-day that’s blinding everyone else.

I always demanded that new hires speak up.  I reminded them of their special status – everything is new – and that they should ask about anything that didn’t make sense to them.  If they saw something, they were to say something.  If their supervisor or I didn’t have a good reason for the way things were, we needed to do the hard work of introspection.

Hopefully you’d never let a friend in pain stay there alone once you see the symptoms.  You can’t let a business remain there either.  Say something – everyone will be better off.  Agreed?

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July 30, 2013 · 8:46 am

Goosebumps

Today for our TunesDay song, let’s consider an entire genre of them.  The unfortunate thing is that no two people would agree as to which songs qualify for this classification so I’m going to talk about one which does for me.  You can take it from there with a song of your own choosing.

I was driving back from a meeting yesterday afternoon when Tom Waits‘ Jersey Girl came on.  Of course, it was the live version by The Boss which I’ve loved from the moment I saw it live in 1981 as Bruce opened the new arena in the Meadowlands.   Danny Federici‘s organ sounds like the calliope on the boardwalk – the carnival referred to in the lyrics – and the  backing vocals sound like a great doo-wop group singing on some corner as their sound drifts up into the night air.  The song gives me goosebumps every single time I hear it – every hair on my arm stands up.  It’s a strange and wonderful physical reaction brought on by the power of the music.  Which is, of course, the business point.

We should all be trying to achieve that reaction in what we do.  In many ways, goosebumps – piloerection for you scientific types – is a reflex left over from our animal pasts.  It’s something that happens in response to strong emotions such as those music inspires that touch us deeply.   It’s an obvious goal for any of the arts – film, culinary, or otherwise – but why not, say, industrial design?  I imagine some people had that response the first time they handed the first iPhone or saw a high-def plasma TV for the first time.

Maybe shoes move you.  Maybe it’s a brilliantly written analysis of last month’s sales.  Whatever we produce, I think I’m putting the goosebump standard up there with the Dylan standard I use when discussing musical acts (will my grandchildren listen to and discuss this artist and if not, are they really worth the time?).  Sure it’s a lofty goal – but why not set the bar high?

Touching people’s emotions in ways of which they’re maybe not even conscious is a guarantee to success in business and life.  How are you going to do that today?

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July 29, 2013 · 10:18 am

Being Fearless

I played (badly) in a golf tournament over the weekend and on the heels of that I saw an article that triggered some business thinking.

Tigers fight

(Photo credit: @Doug88888)

The piece was from last week and was on ABC News’ site.  It is about a paper written, as it turns out, in 2010 by a professor at the Kellogg School of Management and concerns what the author called the “Tiger Woods Effect” (you knew it would relate to golf, didn’t you?).  The author – Jennifer Brown – explained it this way to the Wall Street Journal:

Ms. Brown argues that the superstar effect is not just relevant on the golf course. Instead, she suggests that the presence of superstars can be “de-motivating” in a wide variety of competitions, from the sales office to the law firm. “Most people assume that competing against an elite performer makes everyone else step up their game and perform better,” Ms. Brown says. “But the Tiger Woods data demonstrate that the opposite can also occur. It doesn’t matter if the superstar is an athlete or a corporate vice president. After all, why should we invest a lot of energy in a tournament that we’re probably going to lose?”

Do we set ourselves up for failure by surveying the competitive landscape and recognizing the presence of some superstars in our competitive area or is that motivation to beat them?  I always make the distinction between losing and being beaten.  The latter is easier to swallow in my book – you did your best and someone was better that day.  Losing, however, stings – we know we were capable of so much more and didn’t perform.

It’s an easy out to discount your chances due to the presence of a superstar brand or firm or individual.  Mike Tyson used to win a lot of his fights without throwing a punch because his opponents would see him across the ring and a look of fear would cross their faces.  Pre-game trash talking is, in my mind, as much about bringing the opponent down to your level as it is false bravado.

We need to be fearless.    Even superstars have a bad day.  Once Tiger’s veil of invulnerability was lifted due to him being beaten on the course and his troubles off of it, the rest of the field recognized that they could win no matter what he did.  That was the case all along, by the way – they just stopped beating themselves.

What will it be?  The choice is yours.

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