I typically don’t comment on a WW post, but I’m making an exception today. I hope that you’ll take a moment and tell me what special subjects you’d like to see discussed and debated here in 2009. What would you like to learn? Is there anything special that you would like Richard to address? And anything else that’s on your mind. Beyond that, I’d like to wish you a happy, healthy 2009, filled with peace and economic turn around. Be sure to stop by tomorrow for a special edition of mY Space and I’ll see you all on January 2, 2009!

Click to see an irreverent look at 2008

A special thanks to Eddie Lee at Square Two Design for this wonderful image.

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This is the final post in the Evolution of Business series and I hope you’ve enjoyed it.

Evolution offers a wealth of ideas for companies looking to survive in the marketplace; but these four simple guidelines will provide a solid starting point for innovation and growth.

Deliver complete results. Every single organism must compete in every generation. Incomplete organisms, or prototype products, simply will not survive. Drive your teams to deliver complete tests, even when the tests are very limited. Push every test to complete something. The best tests connect directly with the customers. In evolutionary terms, every organism must survive in the environment. Make sure your experiments survive in your market environment.

Measure Everything. Change without a direction is simply chaos, but you cannot guess effective directions for change. As much as you may want to lead or direct the change, it won’t work. Give up, let go, and simply measure everything. The results will point the way to effective change.

Cycle swiftly. Run short, fast tests. Some software development teams compile the entire product every day. This discipline forces the development teams to deliver complete results on a daily basis.

Connect with your customers. They are the ultimate arbiters of your products/services and the source of your survival. Go out of your office to meet with them and live with them. Bring them in-house to live with your teams. Closer, deeper connections with your customers will drive faster, better development.

Best wishes and great success in your evolution and growth in 2009!

See you next year.

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Great post by Steve Roesler over at All Things Workplace on How Age Impacts Your View of Life. It focuses on satisfaction and expectations at various stages of life. Click over, it’s well worth reading.

But what I wanted to discuss here today appeared near the end of the post.

Steve said, “During the past few years we’ve seen the headlines for Talent Wars, Saving Institutional Knowledge and Learning, and Diversity. My experience so far with recent layoffs has been that workers nearing retirement are being offered packages to accelerate their decisions…I wonder if the decision-making maturity and collective knowledge of these newly “retired” workers will be irreplaceable and actually prompt a lengthening of the recovery process.”

Steve’s got a point about the recovery, but what if this mess hadn’t happened?

What if a normal down cycle had occurred? One that didn’t go global with the same vengeance; one that required only spotty realignment as opposed to wholesale layoffs.

Worker demographics have been a global concern for over a decade, but the MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) and the corresponding skills needed to manage a multigenerational workforce haven’t improved nearly as much as was hoped.

Why? Is there a root to the problem (challenge, if you prefer) that should be addressed, but isn’t?

I have an idea about the root, tell me what you think.

I believe that one large piece of this problem stems from the relationship of parents and children and the difficulty of letting go and changing the paradigms.

Notice that ‘paradigm’ is plural, since there are several going on simultaneously; the major ones are

• older (parent), younger (child);
• peer (siblings/relatives) to peer;
• older (sibling/relative), younger (sibling/relative) and vice versa,

but there are multiple other minor configurations.

What I’ve found is that although there is no family involved, for many people the interaction styles are habitual, unconscious and happen across all ages with no discernable pattern.

If, in fact, this is a root problem how do we fix it? Other than a one-at-a-time approach I have no idea.

What are your thoughts regarding the validity of my hypothesis? What ideas do you have to address it?

Image credit: flickr

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Just two links for your pleasure, today, but each hold more than two goodies.

First we have The Best of BNET 2008. It includes links to their best stories, as well as videos and podcasts. Dig around; I think you’ll enjoy it.

Next, for my tech-oriented readers, are The Hottest Tech Developments of 2009 from Business Week. Yes, I’m sure there are more detailed lists, but you don’t need a tech education to enjoy this quick look at OS software.

That’s it for Odd Bits this year. Don’t forget to share any interesting odd bit links you have in comments or send them to me and I’ll use them to the next Odd Bits post. (You’ll find contact information in the right column.)

Image credit: flickr

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Phil Gerbyshak over at Slacker Manager has a great post yesterday; talking about how your presence is the best present you can give your team and three ways to do it.

I agree with everything Phil said, but I think presence should be taken a step farther and woven into the fabric of your corporate culture.

Your undivided presence when interacting with your people is an absolute necessity when managing today’s workforce if you have any interest in improving productivity and increasing retention.

But what about your team’s interactions with each other and with other parts of the company?

If presence is about paying attention, paying attention is about respect.

Respect is what people should have for each other.

Respect doesn’t just travel down, it travels in all directions.

Respect has nothing to do with position, title, degrees, seniority, salary or other business trappings.

Multitasking when you are interacting is about disrespect.

Which does your culture endorse?

Image credit: sxc.hu

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What else NOT to do

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An excerpt at HBS Working Knowledge from the newly published Ownership Quotient: Putting the Service Profit Chain to Work for Unbeatable Competitive Advantage by James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser, and Joe Wheeler gives good food for thought this holiday.

As stated, a strong culture outlasts any charisma offered up by the so-called leaders; in fact, it’s the foundation of any company’s success.

Here is the short version of ten reasons why it’s worth the effort to build a great culture.

1. Leadership is critical in codifying and maintaining an organizational purpose, values, and vision. Leaders must set the example by living the elements of culture…
2. Like anything worthwhile, culture is something in which you invest.
3. Employees at all levels in an organization notice and validate the elements of culture.
4. Organizations with clearly codified cultures enjoy labor cost advantages for the following reasons…
5. Organizations with clearly codified and enforced cultures enjoy great employee and customer loyalty…
6. An operating strategy based on a strong, effective culture is selective of prospective customers.
7. The result of all this is “the best serving the best…”
8. This self-reinforcing source of operating leverage must be managed carefully to make sure that it does not result in the development of dogmatic cults with little capacity for change.
9. Organizations with strong and adaptive cultures foster effective succession in the leadership ranks.
   
10. Cultures can sour.

Read the article; consider the book.

Culture matters and it’s worth your time!

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Why bother with better products, efficient manufacturing and good business process when you can have a bribe budget instead? It’s simpler and almost guarantees that your company wins the bidding.

Ask Siemens, who just paid a $1.6 billion fine, with more to come.

The bribe budget for Siemens’ telecom unit ran $40-50 million a year and was professionally managed by Reinhard Siekaczek, the accountant who ran the slush fund from 2002-2006, although it neither started nor ended with him.

Bribery is nothing new, companies and individuals have been doing it for centuries, so why does this one bother me so much?

It’s not that Simens’ ex-presidnet landed on his feet—don’t they almost always?

“Klaus Kleinfeld, the company’s C.E.O., resigned in April 2007. He has denied wrongdoing and is now head of Alcoa, the aluminum giant.”

But the following really makes my blood boil…

“Although court documents are salted throughout with the word “bribes,” the Justice Department allowed Siemens to plead to accounting violations because it cooperated with the investigation and because pleading to bribery violations would have barred Siemens from bidding on government contracts in the United States. Siemens doesn’t dispute the government’s account of its actions.”

Got that? Siemens admits what it gave bribes, but our government doesn’t want to prevent a corporation that cheated dozens of American companies out of hundreds of millions of dollars of possible business from being able to bid on US government contracts.

How’s that for a warm and fuzzy feeling at Christmas?

Image credit: flickr

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