Most Valuable Business Insights: 6-10

After having read and reviewed so many business books, I now share brief comments about what I consider to be the 25 most valuable  business insights and the books in which they are either introduced or (one man’s opinion) best explained. Here are second five:

6. Customer Evangelism: Satisfaction is determined per transaction; loyalty is determined by sustainable satisfaction; zealotry occurs only when customers say “Yes!” to this question posed by Fred Reicheld: “Would you strongly recommend us to a friend, neighbor, or colleague?”

Best Sources: Fred Reichheld’s The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth and Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force co-authored by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba.

7. EDNA: This is an acronym I devised long ago when I began to teach English at Kent School in Connecticut.

Exposition (i.e. expose, reveal, open up, reveal) explains with information.
Description makes vivid with compelling images.
Narration explains a sequence and/or tells a story
Argumentation convinces with logic and/or evidence

Effective communication relies on mastery of one or more of these four.

Best Sources: Robert B. Cialdini’s Influence: Science and Practice (5th Edition) and Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High co-authored by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler

8. Employee Engagement: Recent research indicates that, on average, less than 30% of a workforce in the U.S. is actively and positively engaged. The others are either passively engaged (i.e. mailing it in) or actively disengaged (subversive and toxic). Increase active and positive engagement by (a) convincing workers that they and what they do are appreciated, (b) making crystal clear what expectations of them are and how their performance will be measured, (c) earning and sustaining their trust and respect by setting an with what you say (both verbally and non-verbally) and with what you do.

Best Sources: Freedom, Inc.: Free Your Employees and Let Them Lead Your Business to Higher Productivity, Profits, and Growth co-authored by Brian M. Carney and Isaac Getz, Simon Sinek’s Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, Edward M. Hallowell’s Shine: Using Brain Science to Get the Best from Your People, and The Why of Work: How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations That Win co-authored by Dave Ulrich and Wendy Ulrich.

9. Innovation: In essence, innovation achieves improvement of what already exists and that could include almost anything (e.g. an idea, assumption, theory and strategy as well as a product, process, or behavior). Almost anything can be improved and almost anyone can do that by embracing that challenge and pursuing that opportunity.

Best Sources: Tom Kelley’s The Idea of Innovation and The Ten Faces of Innovation (both co-authored with Jonathan Littman) as well as Steve Johnson’s Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation and Henry Chesbrough’s Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology

10. Lean: The concept of “less is more” can be dated back at least to ancient Greece. In a business context, its core concept is elimination of whatever is wasteful such as a production process that consumes too much time and effort as well as raw materials, one that results in omissions, duplications, redundancies, and flaws. Albert Einstein probably said it best: “Make everything as simple as possible…but no simpler.”

Best Sources: James Womack’s Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, Revised and Updated and Lean Solutions: How Companies and Customers Can Create Value and Wealth Together, both co-authored with Daniel T. Jones

Note: You may also wish to check out Most Valuable Business Insights: 1-5.

How’s Your Morale? Do You Believe that Your Best Days Are Still Ahead?

But there isn’t nothin’ like the sight of an amputated spirit; there is no prosthetic for that.

Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade (Al Pacino, Scent of a Woman)

Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade (Al Pacino, Scent of a Woman)

————

You can sense it everywhere.  We are down, living in a down time.  Our morale is not very high – in fact, it is very low.  We are fragile.

We are worried.  The economy is shaky.  Our mood is sour.  The recovery is uncertain, and feels uncertain.  Jobs are not too plentiful.  People are …insecure.  We lack confidence.

In the midst of this “down time,” I have thought quite a bit about something I used to do in my old life.  I spent the first chapter of my life in full time ministry.  And for about a decade, I traveled the country speaking for a company specializing in “church growth,” trying to help churches grow in number (you know, get “bigger.”)  I look back on those days with a lot of sad/mixed/unsure feelings.

Lately, I have been thinking about one of the presentations I made over and over again.  It was “Building Morale in the Local Church.” It was adapted from work done by Dr. Charles Mylander.  The handout for that presentation has long disappeared into the world of “I wonder where that went?” But I remember a few points, like:  if people feel that their best days are behind them, then their best days are probably behind them.  And if people believe that their best days are ahead of them, then there is a good chance that better days are ahead.

I was usually “hired” to give this presentation for older churches – churches that used to be bigger, with more people, especially more young families.  Frequently, these congregations were sad; almost desperate.  They wanted me to come in and give them an infusion of hope.  It was not an easy assignment.

Consider these thoughts about church morale (I found it here):

When members are excited about the future of your church and overall morale in the congregation is high, it becomes much easier to achieve significant church growth. When people are unenthused about what is happening in your church, they are far less likely to invite their friends or to have the energy to engage in outreach efforts.

Well, this really is a transferable concept to the corporate and organizational world.

In a lot of companies, industries, regions, there is the worry that “our best days are behind us.”

I sat in Vail, Colorado with three remarkable women last Saturday.  They represent some foundations that intend to put their resources into making education better – much better.  They are starved for books and projects that provide actual solutions.  They’ve heard just about all the descriptions of the problem that they care to hear.  They know the problem — they want solutions!  They hunger for optimism.

Don’t we all?

On the flight, I read a substantial portion of the fine book Freedom, Inc:  Free Your Employees and Let Them Lead Your Business to Higher Productivity, Profits, and Growth, by Brian M. Carney and Isaac Getz.  Bob Morris gave me a copy, and told me that this was the best book he read the year it came out.  Now, Bob reads a lot of books, so if this is the best one of the year, it is worth a look.  And, it is good – really good.

Though the book is about corporate culture, building a company that really does flourish today and tomorrow, it has a lot to say about morale.

It’s simple:

Low Morale, bad.  Low morale = low energy, little hope, shrinking motivation.

High Morale, good.  High morale = high energy, great hope, seemingly endless motivation.

Here’s a quote from the book, from a man named Dave Ward, a union official:”

“The company needs to get to the root of the problem, which is low morale…”
and
“No employee can do a good job if his manager is always glowering.”  “Being in a good mood” would become one of the company’s four values. (Jean-Francois Zobrist, Favi)

The book has terrific suggestions:  ”give people real freedom; trust them, actually trust them; don’t act like a police force…”  the list is endless.

The obvious, central truth is that the people you have, and the “attitude” they have toward their work, make the difference.  The right people, with the right attitude, and the freedom to act, all lead to success.

There is a lot of talk about “employee engagement.”  I think employee engagement is the “how” — and when it is genuinely present, the outcome is high morale. If the people in your company have high morale, you have a better shot at a really great future.  If your people have low morale… probably not so great a future.

Remember the Lieutenant Colonel’s warning:
But there isn’t nothin’ like the sight of an amputated spirit; there is no prosthetic for that.

Holiday Gift Suggestions

Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University

It is that time of the year again when family members and friends ask me to suggest business books (published in 2009) that could be holiday gifts. Here’s my rule-of-thumb: Suggest only those that will (in my opinion) have enduring value in years to come. They are listed in alpha order.

Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Create Unity, and Reap Big Results
Morten T. Hansen

The Essential Bennis
Warren Bennis and 20 Guest Contributors

Freedom, Inc.: Free Your Employees and Let Them Lead Your Business to Higher Productivity, Profits, and Growth
Brian M. Carney and Isaac Getz

In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing
Matthew E. May

Maestro: A Surprising Story About Leading by Listening
Roger Nierenberg

Management Rewired: Why Feedback Doesn’t Work and Other Surprising Lessons from the Latest Brain Science
Charles S. Jacobs

The Power of Collective Wisdom: And the Trap of Collective Folly
Alan Briskin, Sheryl Erickson, John Ott, and Tom Callanan

The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World
Ronald A. Heifetz, Alexander Grashow, and Marty Linsky

Strategy for Sustainability: A Business Manifesto
Adam Werbach

Walk the Walk: The #1 Rule for Real Leaders
Alan Deutschman

Do you have any suggestions of your own to share?