Poverty and the Children in Dallas County

The children in Dallas County are facing trouble – at least, many of them.

I speak monthly for the Urban Engagement Book Club for Central Dallas Ministries, and my assignment for August was unusual.  I presented a synopsis of the findings of Beyond ABC:  Growing Up in Dallas County, a study conducted by the Children’s Medical Center of Dallas.

Here are just a few of the findings in the report:

• The child poverty rate increased 43 percent between 2000 and 2007, and one-quarter of our children now live in poverty.
• More than half of the children in Dallas have limited access to primary and preventive healthcare and dental care.
• Adolescent pregnancy rates are on the rise, reversing a strong decline since 1994.
• The rate of infant mortality is increasing, and 40 percent of infants are born to women who received inadequate prenatal care.
• One of every four Dallas-area high school students is overweight or obese.

In practically every measurable way, the number of children living with the effects of poverty is on the rise.  Here were my concluding observations:

• The reality of poverty, revealing great unmet human need, is on the rise – faster than the population growth overall.
• Thanks and recognition are deserved and due to the Children’s Medical Center for investing in this very serious work – and for seeking to address it as a genuinely responsible part in our community.
• This is (now, and always) everyone’s business.  Remember the old and true truth: so go the children…

So – let’s remember the children.

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You can read the entire report from the Children’s Medical Center web site here.

Stephen Denning on “Seven Basic Principles of Continuous Innovation”

In his latest book, The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management published by Jossey-Bass/A Wiley Imprint (2010), Stephen Denning offers his observations and recommendations as to how to “reinvent the workplace for the 21st century.”  For example, he suggests what he characterizes as the “Seven Basic Principles of Continuous Innovation.”

1. Focus Work on Delighting the Client.
2. Do Work Through Self-Organizing Teams.
3. Do Work in Client-Driven Iterations.
4. Deliver Value to Clients Each Iteration.
5. Be Totally Open About Impediments to Improvement.
6. Create a Context for Continuous Self-Improvement by the Team Itself.
7. Communicate Through Interactive Conversations.

Denning clearly understands that none of these principles is — in and of itself — “radical” unless combined with the other six in each customer relationship. He urges his reader to think innovatively while devising and then sustaining an environment that delights everyone involved, employees as well as customers.

What is demonstrably better is often considered “radical,” at least at first. For example, how to create a purchase experience that involves all five senses?

I recall spending an hour in a bookstore in Victoria (BC) during which I was impressed by how well lit and tastefully decorated the store was. I could smell fresh-brewed gourmet coffee and purchased some regular, its flavor enhanced by a small portion of hazelnut. It tasted delicious. Then while strolling from one aisle to the next, I touched the lovely flowers in vases placed atop tables next to upholstered chairs. The flowers were real and smelled fragrant. I always enjoy the touch and aroma of new books and examined several before purchasing three.

Throughout my time in Munro’s Books, I had a full-sensory experience. It was indeed delightful and unforgettable, certainly a radical exception to the norm.

A Quote for the Day About Your Customer (from Robert Bloom)

“Contrary to popular belief, the customer is not always right, but never let your customer feel that she is not right.” (emphasis added).
Robert Bloom, The New Experts

Customer Loyalty – Gone (Insight From Robert Bloom’s The New Experts)

Robert Bloom, marketing guru, has a new book about The New Experts.  And who are those new experts?  You are – the buyer.  The buyer is now in control.  And this is a genuine change in the way business is conducted.

The book is filled with quotes describing this no longer changing, but now-changed, environment.

Like these:

Do you know what your customers want, and are you giving it to them?…  Although most of us make a living selling something…  When we do (act as buyers), we are as unfaithful and selfish as any buyer out there, looking for the best deal and walking away from our previous relationships with former sellers of choice.  When we assume our role as a seller, however, we become obsessed with our selling task:  We forget how we, as buyers, live, work, play, think, and act. Far too often, we, as sellers, think like a seller and act like a seller.

This problem – namely, the upheaval in the fundamental buyer-seller equation – was concealed by the recent boom years during which sellers could sell anything to buyers who were eager to buy everything they could, or as it turned out – could not – afford.  The excesses of yesterday…obscured the emergence of the buyer’s newfound power and authority.

Today, buyers are in control.

This reversal of supremacy has placed every business around the globe in a perilous situation.

In this era, all of the “we can count on” factors are gone.

Customer loyalty – gone.

Familiarity – gone.

Even relationships – gone.

Recently, we bought a gift for our son’s girlfriend.  It was exactly the same gift I had bought for my wife a while back (she had seen my wife’s, and liked it).  What did I do?  I googled the item, found the best price, and ordered it. It took 5 minutes – tops!  I had no interest in going back to the same seller as before, and in fact, chose a different seller.  Based totally on price.  (The item was exactly the same – why would I care who sold it to me?)

This particular company delivered on time, and I was quite pleased.  I suspect that I will never buy the same item again, but even if I do, I will not return to the same company – even with their excellent customer service.  I will google the item again – and get the best price, again.

I am the new expert – the new buyer.  Just like you are.  And this is a tough selling environment.

Mr. Bloom has some really good ideas to survive in this environment in his book.  But even with his good ideas, the truth is pretty clear, and pretty scary.  It is going to be tough sledding out there for a long time to come.

Joanne Cleaver to women: “Don’t get left out of pay-for-performance plans”

Here is an article by Joanne Cleaver featured by BNET, The CBS Interactive Business Network. To obtain a free subscription to one or more of the BNET newsletters, please click here.

Are you paid what you’re worth? Not as a person: as an employee who helps her company achieve its business goals. A new survey by temp behemoth Kelly Services indicates that more men than women are included in pay-for-performance compensation plans. Overall, the latest Kelly Global Workforce Index [click here] found that 30% of men and 23% of women are getting paid bonuses and similar incentives for delivering business results. That gap widens on the way to the top, with 47% of senior executive men and 33% of senior executive women covered by incentive-pay plans.

It’s possible that women put such a high value on non-monetary benefits like flextime and child care that they underestimate the importance of pay-for-performance compensation, says Carol Curtis, Kelly’s vice president of Global Compensation, Benefits and Human Resources Information Management. It’s also possible that women aren’t sure what’s involved in pay-for-performance plans, especially since the parameters can shift mid-career. For example, once you reach the mid-management level, your pay may suddenly include direct rewards for results. At big companies, that transition is part of a standard conversation, says Curtis. But in these tumultuous times, your boss may have forgotten to fill you in. Here are five things Curtis suggests you find out in order to frame up a conversation with him or her:

1. What are the norms for your industry and for your company? What exactly constitutes success, and how is it measured? Get conversant with those terms and dynamics, because this is the language of money.

2. Exactly what is measured for your position? Is it customer retention? Top-line revenue growth for your business unit? Profits for your project?

3. What are key terms for your company’s incentive compensation plans? Curtis says two to know are “threshold,” the minimum level of performance required to capture the bonus, and “cap, ” the maximum bonus under the formula.

4. What are the factors that go into your incentive calculation? Are any weighted? How will the formula evolve to reflect changing business conditions and factors?

5. What are your results? Quantify your most recent results and calculate a bonus accordingly. Work through your rationale with your supervisor or a human resources compensation staffer to be sure you’re linking the correct factors and incentives.

And don’t forget: “total compensation” benefits like telecommuting, flexwork, and dependent-care benefits are supposed to be available to everyone. You shouldn’t have to give up your money to keep your life.

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Since 1981, Joanne Cleaver has been reporting on all aspects of business for national and regional newspapers, magazines and websites. Numerous magazine and industry “best employers for women” lists use the equity index she developed to rank companies according to the presence (or not) of women in their executive ranks. She also leads the research firm Wilson-Taylor Associates, Inc., where her team measures and supports the advancement of women in accounting, cable, finance and other industries. Yes, she has an opinion: that when women fully engage in all business operations, companies will make more money in more ways.

The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning: A Book Review by Bob Morris

The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning: How to Turn Training and Development into Business Results
Calhoun W. Wick, Roy V. H. Pollock, Andy Jefferson, and Richard Flanagan
Pfeiffer/A Wiley Imprint (2003)

An organization’s chief learning officer or equivalent must be prepared to answer questions such as these:

What is the ROI of our learning and development programs?
How do you determine that?
If the ROI is unacceptable, what is being done to increase it?

My guess (only a guess) is that similar questions are also asked of those who lead innovation initiatives. The fact remains that in most organizations, board members and CEOs not only expect but indeed demand that every hour and every dollar be committed to helping achieve and then sustain profitable growth and that is especially true of training programs and innovation initiatives. There seems to be little (if any patience) with any costs that cannot be justified in business terms. In this context, I am reminded of a brainstorming session at Southwest Airlines years ago during which someone suggested that a chicken salad treat be given (not sold) to passengers as an expression of appreciation. Then CEO Herb Kelleher is reported to have responded, “Does it help us to continue to be the low-cost airline? If not, then chicken salad is chicken shit.” End of discussion.

What Calhoun Wick, Roy Pollock, Andrew Jefferson, and Richard Flanagan (hereinafter referred to as co-authors) offer in this volume is a rigorous and eloquent analysis of what they characterize as “the six disciplines of breakthrough learning.” They devote a separate chapter to each discipline, concluding each chapter with one checklist of reminders and action points for learning leaders and another for line leaders. In this context, it may be of interest to at least some of those who read this review to know that two other authors also recommend comparable disciplines. In Think BIG Act Small, Jason Jennings suggests that all high-performing companies are led by people who are down to earth, keep their hands dirty, make short-term goals with long-term horizons, let go (“when it’s DOA, bury it”), have everyone think and act like an owner, invent new businesses, create win-win situations for everyone involved, choose their competitors, build communities, and grow future leaders. In Six Disciplines for Excellence, Gary Harpst recommends these: Decide What’s Important, Set Goals That Lead, Align Systems, Work the Plan, Innovate Purposefully, and Align Systems.

Because learning and development programs are investments by a company in its workforce, the authors acknowledge that management “has a fiduciary and ethical responsibility to ensure that those investments produce a return: results that increase enterprise value.” None of what the co-authors call “the 6Ds(tm)” is a head-snapping revelation, nor do they make any such claim. However, in my opinion, they should guide and inform all performance at all levels and in all areas of the given enterprise and rigorous measurement and review of performance should be based on them. Exhibit 1.1, the “6Ds(tm) Learning Transfer and Applications Scorecard,” provides a diagnostic that enables the reader to evaluate the readiness of a learning program to deliver results. There are other diagnostic exercises inserted throughout the book’s narrative.

I appreciate the fact that the authors also include a number of mini-case studies based on real-world initiatives by prominent organizations that include Sony Electronics, British Broadcasting Company, Home Depot, and Pfizer. And I also appreciate the series of brief but insightful statements by a CLO or equivalent, called “From the Top,” that provide an eyewitness account of specific learning initiatives. The exemplar organizations include the Center for Creative Leadership, General Mills, University of Notre Dame, Honeywell, and AstraZaneca.

Knowing what not to do is often at least as important as knowing what to do. Kevin Wilde offers a case in point in the Foreword: “A talented and hard-working team designed an air-tight course: activities planned to the minute, world-class external faculty and cutting-edge simulations…all grounded in specific learning objectives. But the team fell short by failing to first clearly identify how the company would benefit from having leaders attend the program. I’ve been there – so caught up in crafting the excellence of the learning event that we failed to ground everything in the real business case. When that happens, the results leave you heartbroken, far short of the learning breakthrough intended.”

The authors are exemplars of pragmatism, of “nailing the fundamentals,” when formulating and then launching learning initiatives. They also have bold and compelling visions of breakthroughs in training and development while agreeing with Thomas Edison’s observation, “Vision without execution is hallucination.” The advice with which Marshall Goldsmith concludes the book will also conclude my review of it:

“The designs for learning and development programs should be considered incomplete if they do not include plans to encourage participants to follow through, practice what they have learned, and reach out to colleagues for feed forward ideas and coaching. When those elements are in place to support well-designed and well-delivered learning, then we have all the ingredients for a true transformation. Life is good.”

Jim Champy and Harry Greenspun provide a checklist for implementing new technologies

Jim Champy

In their recently published book, Reengineering Health Care, Jim Champy and Harry Greenspun, M.D. provide “a manifesto for radically thinking health care delivery.” They offer four implementation checklists that have profound significance to improving the quality of health care delivery. Here’s the first, one that suggests how to implement new technologies. They explain the significance of each question within the book’s narrative.

Have you developed the capabilities and acquired the capacity to implement the new technology?

Have you established a set of principles to guide you through the change journey?

Have you engaged the right people in the work redesign effort?

Have you identified the leaders who will shepherd the change?

Have you established a governance process to answer questions of policy and oversee effort?

Have you established a project management structure and methodology?

Are your project plans sufficiently detailed to allow you to manage all of the parts effectively?

Have you established training programs and practice facilities to enable people to become familiar with both the new technology and the new work processes?

Harry Greenspun, M.D.

“Technology isn’t the universal solution for reengineering health care, but it’s safe to say that technology will be a critical enabler of many reengineering initiatives. That, however, is just the beginning of reengineering, since a technological innovation will inevitably lead to changes in most or all of the processes in place at hospitals, medical groups, and individual physicians’ offices.”

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Champy and Greenspun offer excellent advice to those who need assistance with formulating and then implementaing an action plan. I also highly recommend Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, published by Metropolitan Books (2009). Other worthy sources include James Kilts’s Doing What Matters: How to Get Results That Make a Difference – The Revolutionary Old-School Approach co-authored with John F. Manfredi and Robert Lorber, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done co-authored by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, and Guy Kawasaki’s Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition.

Anthony Tjan on “The Power of Ignorance”

Anthony Tjan

Here is an excerpt from an article written by Anthony Tjan 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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If desperation is the mother of innovation, then ignorance might be its father. In the early stages of a company, being protected from external influences can be a powerful stimulant for creativity and innovation. Why? For the same reason that we often see some of the most creative and entrepreneurial insights coming from younger people. Wisdom and experience help to grow and sustain a company, but generating novel ideas requires a certain amount of naïveté. In the context of entrepreneurship and idea generation, ignorance equals open-mindedness. An empty mind is an open one — it is empty of bias, empty of past experience, and empty of external critique.

Being unencumbered by external opinions allows two critical entrepreneurial traits to thrive: creativity and conviction. The former is most important during the early think-big stages of a company, and the latter is vital to mobilizing the team to execute with excellence.

Better idea generation: There are two types of successful entrepreneurs — those who are aware of limitations and embrace constraints, becoming more creative as a result, and those who are unaware of their constraints and external realities, and therefore generate ideas freely. Those in the latter camp are especially capable of developing a fanatical passion for their ideas. If you can you free your mind from constraints and external opinions, new ideas will flow faster and you become more bold in your actions. Leading idea generation with unbridled optimism is what provides the chance for new thinking. For more of my thoughts on this, see one of my prior blogs on leading with optimism [click here].

Better execution through conviction : A large part of successful execution is rational prioritization and careful planning. But the spirit of excellence in execution gets its energy from conviction. Rallying people behind the idea requires a resolute belief in one’s vision. This conviction is obviously easier when you don’t know the thousands of ways an idea could crash and burn. You don’t lose sleep over something of which you are unaware. Ignorance promotes a fearless conviction that inspires and motivates the team members who are driving execution. Entrepreneurs know that they go into situations with the statistical odds stacked against them, but rationality is overwhelmed by conviction in the possibility of succeeding. Conviction is highly infectious, and people who catch it can and will execute with a greater intensity and sense of purpose in their roles.

Embracing one’s ignorance does not suggest that one should remain ignorant forever. The key is recognizing the critical moments in a company’s trajectory when the “clean-sheet approach” is a net positive. At the conceptualization phase and certain growth inflection points, the right kind of ignorance is beneficial.

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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.

Anthony Tjan is CEO, Managing Partner and Founder of the venture capital firm Cue Ball. An entrepreneur, investor, and senior advisor, Tjan has become a recognized business builder.