Bats and witches and pumpkins, oh my,

bailouts and options and fat cats who sigh;

a Treasury Secretary deep in the fold

and stock that reeks like decades old mold.

For Halloween you want a costume that scares,

one that will help you keep up with the bears.

So get out the digits, set up for the frey,

nothing is scarier than a 401K!

When the moon rises and the witches fly

you’ll find yourself laughing with wit that is wry.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like my rhyme? Here’s another that’s prime.

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Whether you’re an executive, manager or worker, you’re constantly presenting choices to those around you that require them to agree or disagree with ideas and actions; do this or do that; support or not support an initiative.

From design reviews and marketing campaigns to ordering lunch people constantly argue for their side.

Do those arguments matter? Are they really influencing those who aren’t adamantly on one side or the other?

In a New York Times Op-Ed Sam Wang, an associate professor of neuroscience at Princeton, and Joshua Gold, an assistant professor of neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania, discuss new research of whether people who say they’re undecided, in fact, really are.

Although the discussion is focused voter claims to being “undecided” in the upcoming election, the research applies equally well to any situation.

“Neuroscientists have begun to tease out the brain systems that make decisions. Even when it takes no more than a second, decision-making is thought to involve two parts, gathering evidence and committing to a choice… brain activity in the parietal cortex rises as evidence is gathered, eventually reaching a tipping point (though it’s not yet known which brain regions drive the final choice).

Inherent to this process is a trade-off between speed and accuracy. Commit early and you can get on with your life. Take more time and you might make a wiser or more accurate decision.”

How often has someone asked you if you’re seeing a movie Friday and you respond that you haven’t decided yet? Is that true or are you just unaware that you’ve already made an internal decision, but that you’re not yet ready to share it?

In business you need a balance between speed and accuracy that isn’t always easy to achieve, so it makes sense to take advantage of your undecideds by learning enough to recognize what is holding them back in a given situation.

Then, when they’re undecided on the direction for the new multi-million dollar marketing campaign or won’t commit themselves to the architecture of a new product you’ll know both the weight to give their indecisiveness, as well as how to get past it.

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See the beginning at what we’re facing

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Previously we discussed how evolution uses two types of variation – small and large – to explore the map of survival and to climb to the peaks of excellent adaptation for the best survival.

The Power of Many Tests

First let’s consider small and large changes in your services and products.

The consumer packaged goods industry, led by Procter & Gamble, has developed small variations to a science.

If Tide sells well in the 32 oz. box, then let’s try small, large, and jumbo sized boxes of Tide. Some will cannibalize other sizes and some (most) will just plain flop. But a few will grow and flourish in the grocery aisles. Product managers have created many other extensions of Tide – low suds, color-safe, and probably even low calorie. Each one is a single, small step exploring the landscape of consumer preference– and each one is an attempt to climb to a peak of survival in the grocery aisle.

This testing of small product changes goes on in almost every other market.

• Software providers offer many performance levels – entry level, professional, and enterprise.
• Credit card providers offer a wide variety of features in their card products – low interest, cash-back, donation to your favorite organization, points, and even your picture on the card.

Large variations may be a little less obvious, but are just as common.

Building on Tide’s success with consumers, product managers developed Tide-in-a-stick, which can remove stains immediately, even without washing. Can Tide make the jump from the laundry shelf to the consumer’s purse?

Apparently so. This is a large jump to a different environment.

• Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, recently began offering loans on tax refunds.
• Cable companies are now offering telephone service and telephone companies are attempting to offer television service.

Embrace Your Ignorance—Focus on the Failures

The examples of product variations discussed above appear to be pretty obvious. But we did not mention any of the failures, only the successes. The failures are gone from the grocery shelves and never even made an impression on us. These failures represent over 90% of the trials, so in running a business, we cannot ignore them. On the contrary, we need to understand them much better.

Bluntly, you cannot skip the failures and go right to the successes. That is called predicting the future and our track record is not very good there. Looking at a random process like the stock market prices, results demonstrate that an index fund—an investment that tracks a particular index (S&P 500, DJIA, etc.)—outperforms over 85% of the active mutual funds consistently, every year. Similarly, a strategy of dollar-cost investing (the same dollar amount every month) consistently outperforms attempts to time the market with purchases and sales.

Axiom of Evolution: The future is unpredictable.

Corollary: Central planning never works.

Evolution does not attempt to predict the future. It does not know, and does not care. To dramatically illustrate the point, evolution has no central planning committee. In a tangible sense, evolution does not even exist. How’s that for a lack of central planning.

For us as business leaders, the first step is admitting we have a problem. Repeat after me, “I cannot predict the future.”

Already I can hear the protesting thoughts in your mind. “I know my business. “I know my market.” “I know my customers.” And yet, the customers and markets continue to surprise us all.

Central planning never works—at the level of governments, businesses, and even individuals. The future simply holds too many surprises for each of us, both personally and professionally. The only events we can depend upon reliably are the failures. Successes are much too rare, and much too random.

So, let’s take a minute to study our reliable friends – the failures – and the patterns they create. Our problems with managing failures are twofold, both related to our desire to pick winners according to our view of the future.

We kill off experiments too soon.

• We do not allow enough peculiar experiments to blossom. Early in the process, we identify some experiments as losers and shut them down before they can yield any useful information.

We allow our favorite experiments to continue too long.Governments suffer this phenomenon in particular. Once started, government programs are almost impossible to shut down.

• One good example is the temporary tax placed on telephone service to fund a war in the Philippines, back in 1898. This tax was finally eliminated only a few years ago, in 2005.
• Bridge and road tolls are another example. Originally these tolls were put in place to pay for the construction of the bridge or road. But, once in place, these revenue generators almost never get removed.
• On the spending side, any number of New Deal era programs are still in operation today.

In addition, when these programs are finally addressed, they are not terminated, but only cut back, or redirected. Like vampires, they keep coming back to suck the life out of the organization.

Evolution tolerates an extremely high failure rate for its mutations—well over 99% of its experiments do not succeed. To keep the experiments from overwhelming the rare successes, evolution is very disciplined about its five basic rules for failures:

1. Fail often.
2. Fail fast.
3. Fail small.
4. Fail cheap.
5. Fail uphill.

Fail often. Evolution is a master at frequent failures. In every single generation, every single organism is a new test. Of these, well over 90% fail the basic test – survival to reproduce the second generation.

Fail fast. Evolution tests each of its experiments immediately, in the next generation. It does not allow any experiment to live a sheltered life in a protected hothouse while the engineers perfect the technology, or the marketers search for the right market.

Fail small. Evolution has designed each test as a single organism, so each individual test is small. Limiting the size and scope of an experiment in a business takes a little more creativity. Speed can help. Forcing each experiment into tests soon and often will help to keep the failures small.

Fail cheap. Fail cheap. For evolution, cheap and small are synonymous. A test of one single organism is not only small, it is cheap, at least for the species, if not for the organism. For a business, if a failure is small and fast, then it is also likely to be cheap.

Fail uphill. This may be one of the most peculiar characteristics of evolutionary variation. In a completely random manner, evolution manages to fail uphill. By spraying out a large number of variations in all directions, evolution tests the “slope” of better survivability on the hill. Only a few variations actually move up the hill. The very next generation incorporates those few successes into the next experiments. Thus, while most experiments fail, the net direction is up the hill of better adaptability and survivability.

Frequent Failure Checkup

• How many experiments does your organization run each year?
• How do you encourage and nurture experiments?
• How do you test each experiment? How soon? How often?
• What are the consequences of each test?
• How many experiments does your organization shut down each year?
• How many vampires (failed experiments) are still sucking resources?
• What signs identify your vampires?
• How do you finally kill your vampires?

Next week we will dig a little deeper into the two primary mistakes mentioned earlier—killing most experiments too soon and not killing off the vampires soon enough. Both of these mistakes are extremely difficult to overcome, because they stem from our internal belief systems. Evolution has some suggestions here, as you may have already guessed. See you then…

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I’ve written (ranted?) several times on the evils of multitasking and every time I turn around there’s more proof that it doesn’t raise productivity, improve results or cure your time crunch.

Proof, that is, in terms of scientific research as opposed to subjective evaluations.

The most recent was in Sunday’s NY Times that brought out the fact that you don’t really do things simultaneously; rather you switch your focus back and forth between them.

That may sound OK, but the problem is in the lag time, since the human brain doesn’t do the switch instantaneously.

Sure, some multitasking is just rude, think talking on the phone and doing email, while some is downright stupid, like texting and driving.

“…17 drivers, age 17 to 24, to use a driving simulator to see how texting affected driving.

The reaction time was around 35 percent slower when writing a text message — slower than driving drunk or stoned.”

But what about the multitasking that you’re forced to do at work? Jumping back and forth on projects, checking/responding to email, answering questions, etc.?

“A 2005 study, “No Task Left Behind? Examining the Nature of Fragmented Work,” found that people were interrupted and moved from one project to another about every 11 minutes. And each time, it took about 25 minutes to circle back to that same project.”

Have things changed or are the older studies holding true?

According to Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at the University of California at Irvine and a co-author of that study and a new one published last April titled “The Cost of Interrupted Work: More Speed and Stress” showed that “people actually worked faster in conditions where they were interrupted, but they produced less… Ten and a half minutes on one project is not enough time to think in-depth about anything.”

Impressive. One action that single-handedly kills productivity and innovation, while increasing stress.

Multitasking seems to be a great tool for those who manage by intimidation and abuse, but for the rest of us it would be better to focus and spend some time on innovative approaches that minimize multitasking for yourself and your people.

And before you add a silent ‘but me’ think about which side of ‘but me’ your choice plays to.

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See all mY generation posts here.

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Even before the economic meltdown you heard constantly about all the reasons you needed to do things differently; all the problems inherent in hiring managing a four-generational workforce; all the new technology you needed in order to succeed.

In short, all the changes coming up, down and around the pike.

And as everyone know, change isn’t easy.

A few months ago IBM produced and excellent research study called The Enterprise of the Future (requires free registration), which was the basis of a series I wrote at Leadership Turn.

There’a new module out called Making Change Work and it offers up some interesting stats.

“Over a two-year period, the percentage of CEOs expecting substantial change climbed from 65 percent in 2006 to 83 percent in 2008 but those reporting they had successfully managed change in the past rose just 4 percentage points, up from 57 percent in 2006 to 61 percent in 2008… The major obstacles to implementing change in an enterprise are centered on people and corporate culture. Nearly 60 percent of the executives and project managers surveyed say changing mind sets and attitudes is the biggest challenge to implementing change in an enterprise, followed by corporate culture at 49 percent. These challenges were flagged as more important than shortage of resources, highlighting that these problems are seen as inherently more difficult to solve even if given sufficient resources. “

Lots of advice on inaugurating change and how to make it happen smoothly, but I think that this study is a great place to start. It has four sections

• Real Insights, Real Actions
• Solid Methods, Solid Benefits
• Better Skills, Better Change
• Right Investment, Right Impact

packed with solid information and useful information on what global bosses are doing.

The information is useful whether your company is global or local, because you’re both dealing with the same problems—people and the need to change corporate culture in order to survive and thrive.

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Yesterday I said that creating a happy, i.e., productive, innovative, caring, workforce, was 80% MAP and 20% money-based employee support initiatives.

Everyone who writes or talks about management, or is interviewed as a role model, says the same thing in a variety of ways.

It boils down to what people want

• respect;
• honesty;
  
• shared commitment;
  
• clear communications as to where the company is going, how it’s going to get there, what’s expected of them and how it all fits together;
  
• an ethical culture; and
  
• authenticity throughout.

No details, they’re available in dozens of places, including this blog, along with plenty of how-to’s (two of my favorites are Slacker Manager and All Things Workplace).

Now, let’s say that you’ve done your best to implement what you’ve learned (at whatever level you are), but you’re not getting the expected results. Productivity is still elusive, your people seem apathetic and you have more turnover than is healthy.

What’s wrong? What are you missing?

The answer is most likely deep within your MAP.

As you’ve read over and over, the key to all this is authenticity—translated that means you believe what you’re saying.

But having worked through this with hundreds of managers over the years I can say that frequently one or more of the “required” attitudes weren’t synergistic with their MAP.

They used the right words, even thought the right thoughts, but deep down they didn’t really believe—and their people knew it. Not ‘knew it’ as conscious thought, but knew it as a gut feeling; knew it because every time their manager said one particular thing they found themselves mentally squirming and didn’t know why.

What they did know was that it made them uncomfortable and worried them. The discomfort sat in the back of their mind nibbling away and their productivity went down, which made them still more uncomfortable and created fertile ground for any opportunity that came along.

The solution to this is simple, but very uncomfortable since it requires you to turn you eye inwards to find the offending MAP and then do what it takes to change it.

Now to the 20% that requires money.

Employee support usually falls in four categories.

Technology

When budgets are tight, new technology may be unavailable, but that’s just one piece of supporting your people and you can often work around at lest part of it. Brainstorm with your people and find solutions within the parameters with which you have to work.

Training

Training can be done if you get everybody involved. Here are four things to do within your organization that cost little to nothing.

• Build a useful library, both hard copy and online, that includes classic and current information and runs the gamut from traditional to controversial to off-the-wall. Encourage your people to read up on subjects that interest them, whether or not it directly applies to their expertise.
• Choose “topics of the month” based on both need and interest, and then encourage free-wheeling discussions on a regular basis.
• Adapt scheduling so people can start to use, and become proficient in, the new skills about which they are reading and talking.
• Support brown-bag classes (better yet, buy lunch if you can) in which they can teach their skills to others. Add cross-working assignments whenever possible to ensure cross-training.

Career opportunities

Providing career opportunities is easier than you think—and also more difficult. It requires you to do everything in your power to help your people acquire the skills necessary for them to take the next step in their chosen career path—that’s the easy part.

The difficult part is doing it even though you know that the person will leave, whether your group or the company, in order to take that step.

Rewards

The tighter the economy the more difficult it becomes to provide financial rewards—or so it seems. Overcoming this challenge goes back to authenticity and honesty.

You start by explaining clearly exactly what your financial constraints are, both yours as a manager and the company’s. Your people aren’t stupid, they’ll know if what you say is true. In the thousands of people I’ve talked with over my 25 years as a recruiter I never found one that didn’t have a pretty good idea of what was going on in their company.

Once that’s done, get creative. Ask your people for ideas and involve them in finding creative ways to provide incentives with what you do have to spend—just don’t do anything that isn’t synergistic with your MAP.

Doing all this is the best gift you can give your people—and yourself.

If you’d like to talk more about it feel free to call me at 866.265.7267—no charge, no joke.

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Do you want your company/department/team to be successful? Highly productive? Envied and copied?

Then make your people happy.

You may be as tired hearing that as I and others are of writing it, but it’s true and here’s still more proof,

“But growth companies also tend to have high-performance, high-reward cultures that expect a lot from the people that work there…How do they get that kind of effort without a lot of grousing and grumbling among the troops?…They support their people with tools to get the job done: money, training, the latest technology if that’s applicable. “I never saw a business grow by cost-cutting,” said Sam Simon, founder and CEO of Taylor-based Atlas Oil Co…

If everyone in the organization knows why things are being done, feels like his or her input is respected and sees a shared sense of commitment and sacrifice, the odds of surviving, prospering — even ending up on a list of Top Workplaces — are pretty good…

Also no surprise were the traits that stood out among companies with the happiest workers in surveys of 23,372 employees conducted for the Free Press by WorkplaceDynamics of Exton, Pa. Strong values and ethics, plus confidence in the company’s leader and direction, came out on top.”

And the key to all that, along with personal happiness, is very close. In fact, accomplishing all this is roughly 80% MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) and 20% money-based actions.

But if it’s both cheap and easy why isn’t it done more?

Whoa! I didn’t say it was easy, I said it was 80% in your MAP, which means in your control.

You say you work for a jerk who isn’t interested in these intangibles?

OK, but where does it say that you have to act the same way?

You say that there’s no money available to provide the support, i.e. technology and training?

That can be gotten around when it’s really true.

But if the execs are flying first class, receiving bonuses, let alone hefty ones, and have a history of feeding cake to the masses while they dine on caviar and filet, then you may want to think through exactly why you’re there.

Come back tomorrow for specific way to accomplish both the MAP and the money-based initiatives.

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And answer the question of what to do with them at Leadership Turn.

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