2010: Sticky Ideas, Innovation and Cash

As we approach 2010, what’s in place in your space that’s going to create a remarkably welcome and fresh 12 months? We’re not talking about “rah-rah, feel good” stuff. We’re talking about the work environment that erupts when sustained positive cash flow returns, where people like coming to work, where new ideas inject bright vibrancy, where your clients and customers like doing business with you.

How can you achieve a culture over the next few months that delivers on business goals? People and companies with well-thought-through “sticky ideas” are going to win in 2010. “Sticky ideas’ are the type that people naturally embrace, find their own role in developing and executing, and go about getting it done. Those ideas are simple, clear and surprising. They can be understood by everyone from the shop floor to the executive suite.

“Sticky ideas” motivate. They foster buy-in. They’re not abstract. The key is to make them constructive.

Take for example, the statement “We’re going to maximize profit in 2010.” What’s that mean? Could that imply the cold, de-motivating thought that more layoffs await? Investors might like it, but what about the talent pool that’s going to make that happen? Instead, what about, “We’re going to re-focus our company on doing what’s truly best for our customers, whether in sales, production or delivery.”

If you’re like just about everyone else I know, you and your company executives have spent a considerable – even inordinate – amount of time working on next year’s budget and quasi-strategic plan. Many executives have told me that they’re not presently planning in terms of years – they’re planning in terms of real-time weeks and months. That’s not a bad thing, as the legacy they’re carrying with them from the last 18 months is this: focus on performance. Of course, they have a standard annual budget and goals and objectives, but they’re focused on anticipating and getting ahead of market changes. And as any light reading of the business news will tell you, our markets –whether global or local – are not done changing.

A few days ago I saw a friend on dress-down Friday whose company went through more than a few hard knocks over the last six months. He was wearing a T-shirt that said “The beatings will continue until morale improves.” It drew a chuckle, but it wasn’t entirely untrue. His company consistently waited until the last minute to announce bad news. The executives didn’t lie, but they weren’t transparent either. Now, as things were starting to improve, the corporate trust bank was overdrawn. The unfortunate “sticky idea” here was that any working day might be that person’s last.

Another management friend relayed to me how his company executives had developed a culture of partnership. “We can win through innovation – innovation in customer service, innovation in delivery of services, innovation in doing the right thing” was the dominating thought. The corporate ship might take an economic torpedo in the forward hull, but the damage control party would do everything in their power so the ship wouldn’t sink on their watch. That particular sticky idea went viral in a big way.

Ironically, the executives at both companies held the interests of their employees high on the food chain. The difference? One group clamped vital information close to their vest, thinking that if they didn’t say anything, employees would have little to worry about. The other openly communicated the challenges they faced and invited comment and input. The result? Zero trust at one company, maximum trust and highly motivated employees at the other.

I recently attended a sales management seminar by Bill Caskey where I found a most surprising element. About a third of the group was made up of CEOs of medium-sized businesses. Impressed, the facilitator asked one what was the most important aspect of his business right now. I thought they would say something like “the quality and commitment of our employees” or the like.

The answer in chorus? Cash.

Intrigued, I soon heard surprising comments about how cash comes from outstanding service, with sales professionals and product managers focusing on what the best solution and outcome is for their customers. That was a “sticky idea” for me. Why? Because of the concept of doing the right thing for your customer appears in some companies to have been replaced by “Are you making your sales goals? Are you closing any deals?”

Whether or not the jobless recovery comes to pass, the “sticky idea” that will generate innovation, trust, stability and yes, even cash, is doing the right thing consistently. Doing the right thing means high performance in providing the best for your customer, your employees, your community. What’s your “sticky idea” for 2010?

Goldman Sach's Mea Culpa on Global Fiscal Horror: "We apologize"

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein ponied up a formal apology today for the cheap credit role that Goldman Sachs played in the global fiscal carnage we've all grown to love over the past 18 months, according to the Wall Street Journal MarketWatch: "We participated in things that were clearly wrong and have reason to regret," Blankfein reportedly said, adding "we apologize."
Goldman received, and paid back, more than $10 billion in taxpayer funding as part of the federal Troubled Assets Recovery Program (TARP).
Goldman also announced that it is creating a $500+ million support program for small businesses, including tapping an advisory panel that features economic all-stars like Warren Buffet.
Critics charge that the support program is nothing more than flimsy smoke to blunt an expected announcement that Goldman Sachs will shortly be paying out up to $23 billion in executive bonuses before the end of the year.
Strategic reputation management and trust building? Or more of the same that brought us all here in the first place?

530% Increase in WiFi, U.S. Leads, China a Surprising Second

As the FCC contemplates new rules on Internet contact and network management, WiFi accessibility is soaring, according to The Economist. Perhaps not surprisingly, the U.S. leads the deployment, with about 222 WiFi hotspots per million population. However, China has secured a strong second showing, says JiWire, a mobile audience media company. As China also officially practices Internet censorship (ala the Google arrangement) that may be a bit surprising.

Economic Development's Surprising Secret Weapon - Applied Religion?

As the "jobless recovery" continues and businesses struggle to regain pre-2008 profitability levels, could economic development professionals and government workforce development agencies be overlooking a critical advantage?
Two Harvard researchers think so.
After reviewing and analyzing 40 years of data from 59 countries, Harvard economist Robert Barro and his wife and research partner Rachel McCleary (a researcher at Harvard's Taubman Center) found a strong correlation between economic growth and certain shifts in religious beliefs.
As Michael Fitzgerald points out in the Nov. 15 Boston Globe, "In recent years, Italian economists have presented findings that religion can boost GDP by increasing trust within a society; researchers in the United States showed that religion reduces corruption and increases respect for law in ways that boost overall economic growth. A number of researchers have documented how merchants used religious backgrounds to establish one another’s reliability."
Fitzgerald cites the early 20th century work of Max Weber, a German sociologist who coined the phrase "the Protestant work ethic" after uncovering direct ties between a culture or country's level of prosperity and economic growth.
As economic and workforce development professionals, social engineers and management consultants toil to find ways to motivate people to higher levels of productivity and performance, perhaps they're missing the most effective means of all: applied religion, where people actually do what they believe.
Fitzgerald notes that many governments have spent considerable intellectual and financial capital trying to re-create areas like the successful Silicon Valley, but fail, basically because the necessary culture never gets developed. Why? "While education and rule of law might seem straightforward secular policies, the cultural forces that carry them into a society, including religion, have a lot to do with whether people respect them," he says.
Interestingly, far from a passive approach toward the workplace, both the Hebrew scriptures and the Christian New Testament are quite firm about performance expectations of their followers. "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might," directs the author of Ecclesiastes a number of centuries before Christ. Writing to 1st century Christians in what is today western Turkey, the Apostle Paul reaffirms the ancient Hebrew maxim: "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men." Further in another place, this same Paul sternly warned the Greek followers of Jesus in Thessalonica: "When we were with you, we gave you this rule: If a man will not work, he shall not eat." Paul might not have approved of certain unemployment and welfare programs nearly 2,000 years later.
Accordingly, if a region wants to boost productivity, perhaps the economic professionals could suggest a bit of applied religion, where people actually back up their beliefs with action. Americans looking for performance enhancement may thus quote James, the brother of Jesus and head of the first Jerusalem church, where he wrote: "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith, but has no deeds? ...faith without deeds is dead."
In a recession-torn world, perhaps some food for thought.