Tag Archives: managing

September 14, 2016 · 10:42 am

Politics And Your Product

Labor Day once marked the beginning of the Presidential race here in the US. That’s not true any longer as it seems we’re in a state of permanent campaigning. It does, however, mark the start of the final push for the candidates as much of the electorate is really just beginning to focus on the issues that will help them decide the results of this job interview process. Early voting begins in many states quite soon and the airwaves are filled with ads and with pundits trying to sway voters.

As you know, we don’t do politics here on the screed but we sometimes will point out a business lesson we can learn from that world. As I was watching a few of the news channels over the last few days, one issue came up over and over again with respect to the two candidates: transparency. Mr. Trump accuses Secretary Clinton of hiding information about her health, her emails, her foundation, and other things. Secretary Clinton accuses Mr. Trump about hiding his taxes, his business deals, his health, and other things as well. As an aside, I’m not quite sure how any of those issues, help do the most good for the most people, but let’s not digress. The campaign is starting to sound like the old game show: Who Do You Trust?

Both candidates haven’t been transparent and I think that’s led to a “hold your nose and vote” mentality on both sides, at least from what I can tell in speaking to my friends of all political beliefs. Neither side seems particularly enthusiastic about their candidate even if they’re supportive, and even among the ones who are excited there seems to be a recognition that their candidate has some trust issues. I think any observer would say that a lack of transparency is one of them on either side.

There is an expectation that brands – and candidates are brands – will be transparent. This is borne out by research, the latest of which was specific to the food world but I think carries over into any category. Coming from the Label Insight folks it found that:

  • Nearly all consumers (94%) are likely to be loyal to a brand that offers complete transparency.
  • Almost three in four consumers (73%) say they would be willing to pay more for a product that offers complete transparency in all attributes.
  • 81% of consumers say they would consider a brand’s entire portfolio of products if they switched to that brand as a result of increased transparency
  • 56% report that additional product information about how food is produced, handled or sourced would make them trust that brand more

Maybe in the candidates’ minds there is a thought that it’s better to ask for forgiveness than for permission but I don’t think that brands have that luxury. When we know that we’re far better served by transparency than by hiding information that’s critical to consumer decision making, why wouldn’t we choose to open up?

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September 9, 2016 · 2:01 pm

A Dyspeptic Foodie Friday

The end of the week has brought us to another Foodie Friday. Unfortunately, it’s not really a fun Friday this time. I spent the night with a nasty case of excess acidity inflaming my esophagus. That’s unusual for me since I’ve always fancied myself to have a bit of an iron gut. Still, the burning was real and uncomfortable but it did get me thinking.

diagram of a human digestive system

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Stomach acid is a normal, critical part of our digestive systems. For many folks, certain foods trigger excess stomach acid which finds its way back up. Tomato sauce is one of those foods and although I’ve never had an issue before it was part of my dinner last evening so maybe that was it. Whatever it was that triggered it, something that was normal and necessary had gone to an extreme and was now a detriment. Which is, of course, the business thought today.

Think of someone you know in business who is really smart. My guess is that they are also kind of impatient. They grasp things faster than many people and it seems to take them a concentrated effort to be patient while the rest of the team catches on. Take a boss who tries to be supportive of his folks but lets them cross over into being slackers. Those two examples are of good qualities – intelligence and supportiveness – which have gone to an extreme and turned into something detrimental – impatience and sloppiness. Like my digestive system last night, they require immediate action to rein them back to normal before real damage is done.

It’s great to be forceful but bad to cross the line into badgering. It’s fine to emphasize strategy but when you overdo it and upset the balance with the real world of execution and operation, you’re hurting the system. I’ll be a bit more careful with my normally wonderful digestion going forward. It’s probably not a bad idea to pay attention to all the good things in your business that might be heading to an extreme before the business requires  an antacid. Deal?

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August 2, 2016 · 11:23 am

When Is “After Hours”?

I’m going to sound a lot like the cranky old guy I am today. This fit of pique has been brought on by a new study called “Exhausted But Unable to Disconnect”. It was authored by Liuba Belkin of Lehigh University, William Becker of Virginia Tech and Samantha A. Conroy of Colorado State University, and it shows it’s not just the amount of time spent on work emails, but the anticipatory stress and expectation of answering after-hours emails that are draining employees. 

When I got into the business world, neither email nor cell phones existed. When you walked out the door to go home, you really did leave the office behind unless you chose to take some work home with you. There was little fear that the boss would summon you to do something since to get you the message to do so would involve either a telephone call to your home landline or sending a search party to find you. If you were out you were pretty much unreachable. Disruptions to your downtime were rare.

Obviously, that’s not the case today. I’m sure you’ve had the experience of not responding to an email and receiving a phone call from someone not very long after the mail was received. It’s bad enough when that’s a client or vendor or friend. When it’s a boss, it’s worse since there’s very little ability to ignore it for a bit. This study bears that out:

The study is not the first research to find after-hours emails hazardous to workers. It breaks new ground in focusing not primarily on mail volume and the extra time it adds to the workday but on a little-explored aspect of the problem: the mere expectation that workers will respond to email in their off hours. Such a job norm, the professors write, “creates anticipatory stress” and “influences employee’s ability to detach from work regardless of the time required for email.”

All of us need time to recharge. The study shows that just the expectation that a nastygram from the boss could be coming is just as bad as the actual demands. As managers, we need to make it clear that disrupting our team’s downtime is not going to be the norm. Our organizational cultures need to demonstrate respect for the need to disengage. There needs to be time that truly is “after hours” or the odds are that there will be a breakdown of some sort during business hours. None of us want that, do we?

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