The most effective networker I have ever known

I have just re-read The 29% Solution: 52 Weekly Networking Strategies, written by Ivan R. Misner with Michelle R. Donovan. [Please click here.] The title refers to the approximate percentage of people who are connected with everyone else in the world by no more than six degrees of separation, a concept introduced by Stanley Milgram many years ago. [Please click here.] I think highly of Misner’s book and as I re-read it, I reflected back on those I consider to be (far and away) the most effective networkers I have observed in action.

One is a senior executive (near retirement) in a local agency that represents one of the five largest insurance companies. (Let’s call him Dave.) He has been #1 in volume and profits for more than 20 years. He has two (and only two) networking innovations. One is a corporate business card that he modified to include “Please call me if you ever need my help.” The other is Dave’s custom of giving one of his cards to every person he encounters, no matter where. In elevators, for example.  Dave sometimes goes up and down in elevators in the tallest office buildings in downtown Dallas during the lunch hour. “Hi, my name is Dave. I’d sure be honored if you accept my card.” Also, in restrooms, restaurants, and barbershops; waiting in line to see a film; at grandchildren’s games, etc.

Dave once told me that the best salespeople are like those who, over time, create a garden filled with beautiful flowers. “It takes lots of time and lots of patience and lots of special care.”

Here are Dave’s core concepts:

1. Every person you already know and every person you meet by chance is special. Make them feel that way.

2. Offer your card to every stranger you meet, except in church and at funerals.

3. At any one time, at least some of those who have your card – or someone they know — will need your help.

4.  Learn what you need to know to become a referral source for others.

5. Help them to understand what they need to know to become a referral source for you.

6. It is a special privilege to help other people.

7. Never miss an opportunity to say “Thank you.” NEVER.

A Quote for the Day from James Surowiecki – on Customer Service

Are You Being Served? is a really good article on the abysmal state of customer service, from James Surowiecki, from The New Yorker.  Here is the closing paragraph:

The real problem may be that companies have a roving eye: they’re always more interested in the customers they don’t have. So they pour money into sales and marketing to lure new customers while giving their existing ones short shrift, in an effort to minimize costs and maximize revenue. The consultant Lior Arussy calls this the “efficient relationship paradox”: it’s only once you’ve actually become a customer that companies put efficiency ahead of attention, with the result that a company’s current customers are often the ones who experience its worst service. Economically, this makes little sense; it’s more expensive to acquire a new customer than to hold on to an old one, and, these days, annoyed customers are quick to take their business elsewhere. But, because most companies are set up to focus on the first sale rather than on all the ones that might follow, they end up devoting all their energies to courting us, promising wonderful products and excellent service. Then, once they’ve got us, their attention wanders—and Dave Carroll’s guitar gets tossed across the tarmac.

Our Future Depends on…Creativity – Insight & Challenge from Richard Florida

I am deep into The Great Reset by Richard Florida, which I am presenting this Friday at the First Friday Book Synopsis.  I am thinking, pondering, and wondering just what the future after the current Great Reset will be like.

Mr. Florida is chronicling his “predictions” on the Atlantic site.  (See the list of topics here – they are worth reading).  Here is a paragraph from one of his recent posts, Where the Creative Class Jobs Will Be:

At bottom, a jobs strategy needs to start from a fundamental principle: That each and every human being is creative and that we can only grow, develop, and prosper by harnessing the full creativity of each of us. For the first time in history, future economic development requires further human development. This means develop a strategy to nurture creativity across the board – on the farm, in the factory, and in offices, shops, non-profits, and a full gamut of service class work, as well as within the creative class. Our future depends on it.

“future economic development requires further human development.”  Reading, thinking, learning in every way possible – this may be the only path to a prosperous tomorrow.  We call the folks who gather at the First Friday Book Synopsis a community of learners – because life-long learning is now a job and life skill that is no longer optional.

Employers Using an Arsenal of Tools to Combat Workplace Stress

Here’s an article featured by Talent Management magazine in its online edition (July 2010). To check out the other resources and/or to sign up for a free subscription, please click here.

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New York — Employers understand the detrimental effects stress is having on their organizations and are responding with multiple strategies to help workers cope, a recent survey by Buck Consultants, A Xerox Company, indicates. 

The survey, ‘Stress in the Workplace,’ identifies the areas most affected by stress and the strategies employed by organizations to reduce stress for their workers. The research was conducted at the WorldatWork Total Rewards Conference in May 2010. The study analyzes responses from more than 250 conference attendees, representing more than 200 organizations of various sizes and industries. 

 “Most employers realize that a stressed-out workforce drives up health care costs,” said Barry Hall, principal at Buck Consultants. “Employers are responding by introducing numerous methods to combat the impact of work-related stress.” 

Hall noted that workplace issues highly affected by stress are:

• Health care costs: 82 percent of respondents indicate that their health care costs are significantly or moderately impacted by worker stress.

• Absenteeism: 79 percent report significant or moderate impact.

• Workplace safety: 77 percent cite significant or moderate impact.

Stress-Busting: A High Priority

Survey results show 66 percent of employers have implemented at least four programs intended to reduce stress. Twenty-two percent have established eight or more programs, and some make more than 10 programs available to their workers. Only 7 percent of survey respondents do not have any stress-reduction strategies in place. 

The resource most commonly used to address stress is an employee assistance program (EAP), implemented by 78 percent of survey respondents. EAPs help employees deal with personal problems that may negatively affect their work performance and overall well-being.

 Flexible work schedules are the next most cited strategy, offered by 63 percent of respondents.

Rounding out the top 10 strategies are:
• Work-life balance support programs (46%)
• Leadership training on worker stress (45%)]
• Online healthy lifestyle programs (45%)
• On-site fitness centers (43%)
• Physical activity programs (38%)
• Stress awareness campaigns (35%)
• Financial management classes (30%)
• Personal health/lifestyle management coaching (29%)

“Employers increasingly realize they must address the rising tide of employee stress, and not just to improve employees’ well-being,” said Hall. “Those who ignore stress will take a hit to their bottom line, in higher costs and lower productivity.”

For more info, click here.

Topgrading: A Book Review by Bob Morris

Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching, and Keeping the Best People, Revised and Updated Edition
Bradford D. Smart
Portfolio/Penguin Group (2005)

Smart formulated what he calls the Chronological In-Depth Structured (CIDS) interview approach. After studying 4,000 managers in relation to (on average) ten different jobs per manager, he arrived at a number of conclusions. They serve as the core material of this book in which he explains how both companies and individuals can gain and then hold a competitive advantage which Peter Drucker identifies as follows: “The ability to make good decisions regarding people represents one of the last reliable sources of competitive advantage, since very few organizations are very good at it.” As Smart carefully explains, topgrading is the practice of packing any team with A players and clearing out the C players. “A player is defined as the top 10 percent of talent available at all salary levels — best of class. With this radical definition, you are not a topgrader until your team consists of all A players. Period.” Those who read this book and then apply the principles, strategies, and tactics which Smart recommends will be well-prepared to (a) hire only A players or those almost certain to become one and (b) those who are or wish to become A players and need expert guidance to achieve that objective.

For me, the most stunning revelations in the book are found on page 50, in Figure 3.2, “Cost of Miss-Hire Study Results.” According to the results of Smart’s research study of more than 50 corporations, the sum of costs of a mis-hire (on average) are as follows:

Base salary Less than $100,000: 14 times salary
Base Salary $100,000-250,000: 28 times salary
All Salaries: 24 times salary

Now go back and re-read those statistics while keeping in mind that, for various reasons that Smart briefly explains, “the numbers are probably conservative.” Even if, in fact, Smart is wrong and you cut the multiples in half, the total costs are still substantial…and genuine cause for concern and especially, for caution.

Organizing his material within two Parts (one for companies, another for individuals), Smart offers a cohesive and comprehensive narrative within which he includes all manner of graphic illustrations as well as a number of exercises and questionnaires which enable both those who hire and those who are candidates to understand what topgrading is, what the CIDS interview approach is and how to derive the greatest benefits from it.Organizing his material within two Parts (one for companies, another for individuals), Smart offers a cohesive and comprehensive narrative within which he includes all manner of graphic illustrations as well as a number of exercises and questionnaires which enable both those who hire and those who are candidates to understand what topgrading is, what the CIDS interview approach is and how to derive the greatest benefits from it.

Most important of all), Smart explains how to achieve what Jim Collins describes so well in his most recently published book: the good to companies “…first got the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats — and then they figured out where to drive it. The old adage ‘People are the most important asset’ turned out to be wrong. People are not [italics] your most important asset. The right [italics] people are.” Presumably Smart would agree that the right people share the same values and, together, sustain their organization’s commitment to those values. If involved in their organization’s recruiting and interviewing process, as they should be, they will help to ensure that the right people will be hired (i.e. allowed on the “bus”). Obviously it is important to get talent and task in proper alignment. It is equally important to keep an organization’s values in proper alignment with its objective(s). Although Collins does not use the term, the good to great companies he discusses are all topgraders.

The reader will especially appreciate having the information provided by Smart in (count `em) seven appendices: CIDS Interview Guide, Career History Form, In-Depth Reference-Check Guide, Interview Feedback Form, Sample Competencies — Management, and Sample Competencies — Wm. M. Mercer. Here in a single volume is about all anyone needs to know and have inorder to understand what topgrading is, how it works, and why it will probably be essential to those who hire as well as to those whom they consider.

Lest there be any misunderstanding by anyone reading this review, I want to point out that any organization (regardless of size or nature) can be a topgrader and that is even more important to smaller organizations with limited resources. Why? Because the cost of a miss-hire could be catastrophic, not only in terms of total compensation but also in terms of mistakes, failures, alienated customers, lost business, wasted opportunities, and disruption of the workplace. Some may respond, “I cannot afford to hire all A players even if I could find them!” On Smart’s behalf, I presume to reply that no organization can afford NOT to hire only A players or high-potentials who, with proper development and supervision, can become A players.

Jeffrey Pfeffer on how to build your power base from small beginnings

Jeffrey Pfeffer

Here is an excerpt from an article written by Jeffrey Pfeffer for the Harvard Business Review blog. To read the complete article, check out other articles and resources, and/or sign up for a free subscription to Harvard Business Review’s Daily Alerts, please click here.

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People who wish they had more power in their organizations — power to bring their ideas to fruition, power to change policies that make no sense — often try to find the one “big move” that will land them in a position of authority. That’s a long shot, and, in any event, it misses the reality that most power bases start out small. Which means it’s possible for almost anyone, in any position, to begin building one, acquiring growing influence through unspectacular moves.

What’s mostly required is showing some initiative and taking on projects that a) bring you into contact with a wide range of people within and outside of your organization; b) situate you in the midst of information flows; and c) aren’t coveted because they seem mundane or trivial — but not to you.

Take the example of Matt, who joined the office of a large, prestigious management consulting firm that had been talking about doing more public sector work. Matt volunteered to organize a speaker series in which various public sector people would come to the firm’s office — thereby linking the company and its professionals with a sector in which they needed more insight and stronger relationships. Matt got a budget, organized the series, and got plaudits from his consulting colleagues for linking them to an important market opportunity. He also enjoyed the gratitude of the (paid) speakers he brought in to do the talks.

Mike, another relatively powerless person, took on the task of organizing analyst recruiting at a hedge fund. Everyone agreed the fund needed strong analysts, but no one could get very excited about recruiting talent that would just leave in a few years anyway and go back to business school. Mike took on this routine, not very sexy task — and found that it brought him into contact with everyone in the firm as he arranged schedules and recruiting events. He also made connections with a whole network of analysts who would continue to remember him as their primary point of contact with the firm, and someone who had taken them seriously in an early stage of their career.

Melinda started building her power base after she joined a large internet marketing firm, having come from a financial services company. She noticed that the firm’s divisions didn’t have much contact with each other or any organized way of learning about the evolution of the markets in which they were participating. So Melinda organized a series of seminars that brought internet and other subject matter experts into the firm to do briefings. As she recruited participation by people from throughout the relatively stove-piped organization, and built bridges between the firm and possible customers and partners, Melinda became highly visible — and much appreciated.

These tales — and while we’re at them, let’s add Robert Caro’s masterful description of how Lyndon Johnson leveraged a “nothing job”  that of minority whip, to the point of becoming the youngest-ever Senate Majority leader — all share some common themes. [Click here.] The first is the importance of filling a brokerage role. If you’re in a position to bring together unrelated groups of individuals who benefit from being in contact with each other, that’s a form of power. Ron Burt calls this “filling structural holes.”

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So be on the lookout for assignments your colleagues don’t want to bother with, but that have these valuable features. Others have built power bases from such small beginnings — and so can you.

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Jeffrey Pfeffer is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, where he has taught since 1979. His forthcoming book from HarperBusiness is Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t.

The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave: A Book Review by Bob Morris

The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave: How to Recognize the Subtle Signs and Act Before It’s Too Late
Leigh Branham
AMACOM (2005)

In Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching and Keeping the Best People, Bradford D. Smart explains why the average cost of a mis-hire is 24 times the annual salary. (That’s right: 24 times the annual salary.) Even if you cut that multiple in half, the average cost would still be substantial…and serious cause for concern and especially, for caution. Whatever the average cost of losing a highly-valued employee would be, it must certainly be substantial.

This book is based on a wealth of research conducted by or in collaboration with the Saratoga Institute. The observations and conclusions which Branham shares are wholly consistent with what has been revealed by countless other research studies. According to Branham, there are four fundamental human needs. If one or more are not being met, an employee becomes dissatisfied, less productive, perhaps disruptive, and usually leaves. These needs are for trust and hope as well as for feeling a sense of worth and of having competence. No news there.

This book’s value is derived from what Branham has to say about seven less obvious (if not “hidden”) needs. He focuses on several “subtle signs” by which to identify them and then suggests how to take appropriate action before it is too late. For example, Reason #1: the job or workplace was not as expected. Whose fault is that? Could be those involved in the interview/hiring process who over-sold the job; could be the person hired. Perhaps blame must be shared by everyone directly involved. In any event, Branham explains HOW to recognize the warning signs of unmet expectations, identifies obstacles to meeting mutual expectations, and suggests eight specific “engagement practices” for matching mutual expectations. Branham also devotes an entire chapter to each of the other six reasons, followed by two appendices, each of which all by itself is well worth the cost of this book. Appendix A offers a “Summary Checklist of Employer-of-Choice Engagement Practices”; Appendix B offers “Guidelines and Considerations for Exit Interviewing/Surveying and Turnover Analysis.”

Experts on employee relations agree with experts on customer relations that feeling appreciated is ranked among the three most important attributes, with compensation and cost ranked anywhere from 9th to 12th. If the research studies are reliable (and I believe they are), what they indicate is that the best employees and the best customers “leave” for the same “hidden reasons” which Branham examines in this book. If your organization is experiencing such losses, this is a book that should be read and then re-read ASAP. However, Branham’s book is essentially worthless if appropriate actions are not then taken immediately. Perhaps policies and procedures need to be revised. Perhaps feedback surveys need to be conducted. Perhaps there are communication problems to be solved. Branham can help each reader to measure the nature and extent of what must be done. Marshall Goldsmith asserts, “What got you here won’t get you there.” I take it a step further: “Those who got you here may not be available to get you there.”

Seven Realities that threaten business survival

In Information Revolution: Using the Information Evolution Model to Grow Your Business (published by Wiley in 2006), Jim Davis, Gloria J. Miller, and Allan Russell identify and discuss “seven realities that jeopardize business survival.”

•  Business cycles are shrinking.
•  You can only squeeze so much juice out of an orange.
•  The rules have changed; there is no more “business as usual.”
•  The only constant is permanent volatility
•  Globalization both helps and hurts.
•  The penalties of not knowing are harder than ever.
•  Information is not a by-product of business; it is the lifeblood of business.

The co-authors are senior-level executives with SAS and propose what they are convinced is the most appropriate business model to accommodate the seven realities:  The Information Evolution Model.

SAS first introduced the Information Evolution Model (IEM) in 2003, and since then, the volume of information available to organizations has grown to mammoth proportions. Management of information has become more important as intelligent, forward-thinking executives realize they need  “a mental software upgrade — a better way of looking at, understanding, and then acting in and on the information-rich world in which we now operate,” says Thornton May in the book’s foreword.

The IEM identifies five levels of information management maturity:

1. Operational: Individual data “ownership” and control is applied to tackle day-to-day functional issues.

2. Consolidation: Individual-level perspective is replaced by departmental or functional-level standards, metrics, and perspective on all dimensions.

3. Integration: Expands Level 2 consolidation into an enterprisewide view.

4. Optimization: The organization understands its markets and adapts constantly to stay optimally aligned with them.

5. Innovation: A significant percentage of revenue is gained from projects and ideas less than three years old; growth is fueled by ongoing creativity and renewal.

Nearly 70 percent of today’s companies will discover that they operate at Level 1 or 2. But once an assessment is completed, the model helps managers construct a map to determine where the company needs to be and the fastest, most reliable route to that destination. Enlightening case studies demonstrating how real companies have used IEM to slash costs, boost productivity, and stay well ahead of the innovation curve complete the book.

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For those who wish to know more about The Information Evolution Model, I urge them to read the book and/or click here.

Thomas Friedman on the rate of change in the global marketplace

Thomas Friedman

In The World Is Flat (2005), Thomas Friedman suggests that the rate of change in the global marketplace is “happening at warp speed and directly or indirectly touching a lot more people on the planet at once. The faster and broader this transition to a new era, the more likely is the potential of disruption. To put it another way, the experiences of high-tech companies in the last few decades who failed to navigate the rapid changes brought about in their marketplace by these types of forces may be a warning to all the businesses, institutions, and nation states that are now facing these inevitable, even predictable, changes but lack the leadership, flexibility, and imagination to adapt – not because they are not smart or aware, but because the speed of change is simply overwhelming them.”

That was true five years ago and remains true today. In fact, there is an even greater need for essential information so that business leaders can cope with the various “flatteners” that Friedman discusses in his book, including the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the shift from the PC-based platform to the Internet-based platform, advances in workflow software in combination with data description languages such as XML and SLAP, open sourcing, outsourcing, off-shoring, supply-chaining, insourcing, in-forming, and what he characterizes as “the steroids”: computing power, breakthroughs in instant messaging, breakthroughs in making phone calls over the Internet, videoconferencing, advances in computer graphics, and wireless technologies and devices. The title of Friendman’s sequel, Hot, Flat, and Crowded (2009), correctly suggests the nature and extent of their impact: “As a result of these steroids, engines can now talk to computers, people can talk to people, computers can talk to computers, and people can talk to computers father, faster, more cheaply, and more easily that ever before. And as that has happened, more people from more places have started asking one another the same two questions: ‘CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?’ and ‘CAN WE WORK TOGETHER NOW?’”

Here are three of the greatest challenges that business leaders now face:

1. On which technologies does success depend?

2. How to use them effectively to remain competitive (i.e. to keep up)?

3. Meanwhile, how to avoid organizational as well as individual burn-out?

For those in need of advice as to hoe to respond to these challenges, I highly recommend both of Friedman’s books as well as Henry Chesbrough’s Open Innovation and Open Business Models, and Information Revolution: Using the Information Evolution Model to Grow Your Business co-authored by Jim Davis, Gloria J. Miller, and Allan Russell as well as (and especially) Enterprise Architecture As Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution co-authored by Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill, and David Robertson

Dealing with Darwin: A Book Review by Bob Morris

Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution
Geoffrey A. Moore
Portfolio/Penguin Group (2005)

Those who have read one or more of Moore’s previous books (notably Inside the Tornado, Crossing the Chasm, and Living on the Fault Line) already know what a clear thinker and eloquent writer he is on the subject of high-tech markets, especially in terms of formulating appropriate strategies and tactics at a time when ever-accelerating change is the only constant within those dynamic markets. In Dealing with Darwin, he develops in much greater depth his response to this question: “How do great companies innovate at every phase of their evolution?” He is convinced (as am I) that there is a process of natural selection that determines why some companies prosper and most others do not.

Moore cites the concept of value disciplines which Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema first introduced in their brilliant book, The Discipline of Market Leaders: Choose Your Customers, Narrow Your Focus, Dominate Your Market. He then identifies four clusters of innovation zones: Product Leadership, Customer Intimacy, Operational Excellence, and Category Renewal. The challenge for decision-makers in any organization (regardless of its size or nature) is to select innovation zone in which to establish and sustain “break away” separation from its competitive set. Moore suggests that this decision be made in terms of three factors:

• Core competence: different organizations have different assets to exploit

• Competitive analysis: different sets of competitors leave different openings to exploit

• Category maturity: Different stages of the category-maturity life cycle reward different forms of innovation

Moore acknowledges an “odd pairing” of innovation leadership at the top with innovation “bubbling up from the bottom.” Initiatives from both must be in proper alignment. Obviously, it is not easy to establish such an alignment and even more difficult to sustain it. Of course, Moore is well aware of that. “Managing innovation requires executives to foster a bottoms-up stream of innovation opportunities…Managing innovation also implies maintaining a portfolio of strategies because different categories will respond to different types of innovation. This creates a level of complexity that can create confusion in the broader organization, with teams being asked to pursue one form of innovation here and another there. “Of special interest to me is what Moore has to say about managing inertia in Part Three (Chapters Nine, Ten, and Eleven).

In my opinion, Dealing with Darwin has much wider relevance and greater value than Moore’s earlier works because it addresses issues by no means limited to the dynamics of high technology. Hence the importance of Chapter Eleven. In it, Moore recommends what he characterizes as “essential steps” to setting an agenda:

1. Conduct a core/context analysis of your current business.
2. Conduct a resource-allocation analysis to complement your core/context analysis.
3. Set a more ambitious (i.e. more “aggressive”) agenda.
4. Plan out your moves as a team.
5. Focus on time to market.
6. Get the gears moving.
7. Keep the gears moving.

Moore also provides with these seven steps practical suggestions as well as a few appropriate caveats. Darwin’s influence remains evident in his concluding remarks. “That’s what evolution is all about, a continual raising of the bar. It’s how countries raise their standard of living. It’s why new companies get formed every year. It’s why each of us must learn new skills throughout our careers. We may get tired, but we are not likely to get bored. Mostly we just have to perform. Welcome to the race.”