Tag Archives: managing

November 22, 2013 · 9:53 am

President Kennedy

Fifty years ago today I was sitting in my third grade class when a teacher came in sobbing.

John F. Kennedy

Cover of John F. Kennedy

President Kennedy had been shot and the next few days have been burned into my brain ever since.  Strangely, all of those memories are black and white, since that was the kind of television we had at the time.  In retrospect, the day and his death ended an era of hope in this country as we moved into an era of conflict and chaos.

Smarter people than I have written about JFK’s impact but I thought it might be appropriate to translate a few of his thoughts into business thinking since that’s what we do here on the screed.  As is also our custom, I’m going to avoid the politics of what he had to say as well as what others had to say about him and his administration.  First, the most famous quote from his Inaugural Address:

Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

In business terms, this is a recurring theme here.  Flip “country” to customer and I think you’ve got a solid paradigm through which you can view almost any business decision.  Next, the quote that triggered what might be his most enduring legacy:

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.

While we can debate the merits of the space program (and I wrote about that a while back), I don’t think there’s much debate about two things.  One, that program contributed to the rapid advancement of many of the technologies you’re using at this very moment to read this.  Those same technologies are driving a lot of growth in our economy and around the world.  Two, and this is the main business point, the imperative to think big thoughts.

No business can succeed by standing still.  What’s the next frontier?  How can we be better and lead?  Kennedy viewed space as a defense project which is clear when you read the address from which the quote is taken.  Dreaming big is a great defense, because the odds are your competitors are trying to as well.  As the space program has proven, the by-products of big ideas are often more valuable than accomplishing the goal itself.

Finally, Kennedy took office as a 43-year-old, following President Eisenhower who was 71 when he left.  He was the first president born in the 20th Century and projected an image of youth and excitement.  His language was forceful and filled with imagery of destiny and long-term thinking about solving problems.  That’s a great model for anyone who presents ideas which most of us do on a regular basis in business.

What happened 50 years ago today was a tragedy.  I wonder sometimes how different this country – and the world – might be had Kennedy served two terms.  While his presidency wasn’t without controversy and crisis (if you haven’t seen the movie Thirteen Days, find it and watch it!), it’s his legacy of civil rights, social programs, NASA, and the Peace Corps that stand out in my mind.  His approach to leading is a great model despite some of the personal foibles he had, and taking his approach to business issues isn’t bad either.  You agree?

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November 15, 2013 · 9:06 am

Skills

Something a little different here on Foodie Friday.

Film poster for Napoleon Dynamite - Copyright ...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We’re going to start with a movie which leads us to food which of course leads us to business. Kind of a prix fixe, three-course menu!  The movie even has the name of a pastry in its title: Napoleon Dynamite. I love this film, and in particular I love the sequence in which Napoleon is bemoaning his lack of talent:

Napoleon Dynamite: I don’t even have any good skills.
Pedro: What do you mean?
Napoleon Dynamite: You know, like nunchuku skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills… Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.

Funny thing is, kitchens only want them as well, Napoleon, and it’s becoming rarer for those skills to make appearances as the nature of our food chain changes.  Outside of the top restaurants in any given city (and maybe not even there), many basic kitchen skills have…well…disappeared.  No, I’m not talking about the ability to chiffonade or brunoise with eye-blinding speed.  Those skills won’t ever be lost.  It’s more the ability to do things such as recognizing various species of fish, knowing how to tell they are fresh, knowing how to skin and fillet them.  Today, cooks order what they want from suppliers and they often come broken down and portioned.

The same can be said about meat.  Cooks know cryovac, not  the different cuts of meat, much less how they are butchered and how they need to be cooked.  Even home cooks can get any ingredient and there are no “seasons” per se, but professionals should understand native ingredients, their seasons and  how they are grown.  All of the above are skills – basic skills in my book – if you want to run a professional kitchen.  Dealing with fresh, unprocessed ingredients recognizing quality, understanding what works with respect to taste and flavor are the underpinnings of the kitchen. Dealing fairly and responsibly with suppliers and  running a business are the underpinning of the enterprise.

It’s not much different in the broader business world.  Any manager will tell you that recruitment and retention of skilled staff is a major challenge. The pressure to retain promising people sometimes means that they’re being promoted too quickly, which means they don’t have the experience to deal with certain critical situations.  Younger staff learn to rely on spell checks and miss contextual spelling errors.  They don’t learn the differences between online writing and formal business writing.  They have difficulty listening in a world that encourages selfies.

Skills will never go out of style, even in a world where the ingredients come pre-portioned.  Those who succeed will be the ones that know how to break down a primal cut – learning grammar and speaking skills in the office sense.  That’s my take.  Yours?

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November 13, 2013 · 10:41 am

Are You A Workplace Troll?

Anyone who runs a website or a blog is familiar with trolls.

By Åsmund Ødegård from Oslo/Ås, Norway (Hunderfossen Uploaded by Arsenikk)

You know them – the evil ones who pop up from underneath a log someplace, spew forth some usually unprintable comment or begin a flame war, and leave. You are then left to clean up the mess.  They’re not a new phenomenon:

Yet there is a certain race of men, that either imagine it their duty, or make it their amusement, to hinder the reception of every work of learning or genius, who stand as sentinels in the avenues of fame, and value themselves upon giving Ignorance and Envy the first notice of a prey

That was Dr. Samuel Johnson in 1750, long before the internet. But trolls aren’t the topic today. Instead, I want to talk about criticism itself, since in a strange way that is how trolls see themselves.  I happen to think criticism is important, and done well it can be enlightening.  Dr. Johnson believed in critics too:

You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.

That gets to the root of people like me (who read or watch films or eat out) criticizing works (books, films, restaurants) even though we can’t create those things (books, movies, dishes) on our own.  It’s possible to be educated enough in something and to have an informed, cogent opinions without actually being able to do the thing in question.  If not, why do we have sports columnists or book reviewers?

The thing about good criticism is that it’s not of the “you suck” troll variety.  It is specific and measures the work in question against other works and benchmark standards as well as against the reviewer’s own experience.  Not all criticism is negative either.  A review that says something was great is just as useless as the “it sucked” variety if it doesn’t explain the “why”.

So ask yourself this – are you a troll in the workplace when you offer criticism without the appropriate additional information?  Telling someone their work isn’t good without explaining why and helping to find a road to making it better makes you one in my book.  It’s just as bad to compliment someone’s work without explaining why it’s good.  How is the recipient of your nicety to replicate what made it great if they don’t know what that was?

Criticism is an integral part of daily life.  The thing I try to remember is to be a critic and not a troll.  Are you with me on that?

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