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Love Your Data

Friday, April 29th, 2011

4478876573_f66035d307_mBy now you all know that I am a digital dinosaur, no cell phone, no iAnything, and a careful participant online.

I would rather brand my company, RampUp Solutions, and product, Option Sanity™, than brand myself.

I probably qualify for residency in the privacy nut house.

However, I read with interest an opinion piece by Richard H. Thaler, an economics professor, who makes a great point.

If a business collects data on consumers electronically, it should provide them with a version of that data that is easy to download and export to another Web site. Think of it this way: you have lent the company your data, and you’d like a copy for your own use.

He goes on to offer specific examples of ways in which people would gain significantly from having access to that data if it was in a user-friendly form.

(His comments reminded me of the legal fight by people whose genomes were added to data bases without their consent.)

Senators John Kerry and John McCain (wow, that is an odd couple) have co-authored a bill called the Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights, which is good (if it passes), but Thaler says it only addresses privacy and security issues, not useable access.

Both sound like a good idea.

The UK already has both.

US marketers claim that any kind of privacy or data control will affect the economy adversely; I even heard some say that any kind of limitations on the use of data in the US could impair the global recovery.

Pu-leeeze!

If, as Thaler demonstrates, giving useable access to collected data would allow consumers to better evaluate pricing to find the best deal the result would be less smoke and mirrors and (slightly) more authenticity.

It seems to me that would benefit the recovery—at least for those companies that aren’t playing games.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smemon/4478876573/

Question Not a Silver Bullet

Friday, April 22nd, 2011

2808468566_dc22dede4b_mJohn Warrillow, at BNET, writes that the best question for weeding out victim mentality is “Tell me about the last time you made a mistake.”

He says that if the person accepts full accountability and doesn’t try to excuse or blame anyone else he almost always hires them.

While I agree it’s a great question and that the response tells you a lot about the candidate, I disagree that taking full responsibility necessarily makes a good hire.

There is a substantial difference between making excuses and a situation that leaves the person with no choice but to make the mistake.

There are too many managers who set their people up to fail, whether unintentionally or not. (Yes, there are mangers who do it intentionally.)
There is a difference between stating why the mistake was made and describing what could/should have been done differently and playing victim.

I advise creating a different dialog.

Manager: Tell me how [whatever].

Candidate responds.

Manager: Is that how you would have done it if you were in charge?

Candidate responds yes or no.

Manager: Why?

Asking why gets you to what you really want to know, which is how the candidate thinks.

How the person thinks is the crux, whether the candidate is a senior exec, admin or somewhere in-between.

And while it’s a good question to add to your interview repertoire I don’t think it’s strong enough to stand on it’s own as a ‘make or break’.

While discovering if the person has a victim mentality is useful, what is the advantage of hiring someone willing to take responsibility for a mistake that really isn’t theirs?

You need to know more; extenuating circumstances that at first may sound like an excuse can turn out to be plain facts.

Explore why the mistake happened, if and how it was rectified and what could have been done to prevent it.

In short, take time to dig deeper into any response that brings up a red flag, but do it with an open mind.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wadem/2808468566/

The ID ten T error

Friday, March 18th, 2011

How often do you encounter ID ten T errors?

Do you think ID ten T errors are technology or human based?

How accurate is your identification of ID ten T errors?

How often is your analysis influenced by your own preexisting ideas or MAP?

How do you deal with ID ten T errors?

Do you ever produce ID ten T errors? (I do.)

How do you deal with your own ID ten T errors?

Image credit: Street Sign Generator.com

The Pragmatic Idealist

Monday, February 28th, 2011

I had brunch today with two friends.

During the conversation one told me that he couldn’t believe I was still such an idealist at my age (older than dirt:).

His wife disagreed, saying that she couldn’t believe how cynical I had gotten.

They are both right.

I am, and always have been, a pragmatic idealist.

How do you become a pragmatic idealist?

By always striving to implement the ideals in which you believe, while fully functioning within the reality in which you actually live.

Image credit: http://www.warningsigngenerator.com

Entrepreneurs: Motivation

Thursday, January 6th, 2011

watcher or doer“Entrepreneur” is the new black.

The term/title is being applied to a multitude of people, from the consultant/coach making ends meet until businesses start hiring to the bleary-eyed kid in his dorm room hoping to be the next Facebook or Google; from the preteen mowing lawns to the Boomers using severance pay to follow their passions; from the person using the proceeds from the sale of one startup to launch the next to the woman using a micro loan to lift her family up from poverty.

Some are entrepreneurs by choice, some by chance; some run and leap into new opportunities with a battle cry on their lips, while others drag themselves kicking and screaming into the fray, but all are fascinating.

All face one particular challenge and the need to overcome it is great, because these days there are fewer choices, fewer options to pay the bills, fewer paths from here to there.

It’s motivation and it’s the biggest challenge faced by every working living person on the planet.

Whether you are a solopreneur, a founder/member of a startup or one in a cast of thousands you need to keep yourself and your people motivated.

While clear visions and strong passions help, motivation is in the doing—not the talking or the planning.

This is especially true for entrepreneurs, because the fewer the people the fewer the places to hide.

There’s no way around it, being an entrepreneur means full responsibility and full accountability, but it also means undiluted pride in the results.

Please join me Saturday for a look at a few of the more unusual entrepreneurs.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/csatch/4309778208/

Ducks in a Row: Sustainable Actions

Tuesday, January 4th, 2011

Do you agree with the following statement?

“The most fundamental job of a leader is to recruit, mobilize, inspire, focus, direct, and regularly refuel the energy of those they lead.”

I do with one glaring exception—the words “leader” and “lead.”

That sentence is just as valid if you substitute ‘manager’ for ‘leader’ and ‘manage’ for ‘lead’.

The quote is from a Harvard Business Review post called The CEO Is the Chief Energy Officer and although it’s a cute play on ‘CEO’ the lessons it imparts apply to every manager at every level in every company—even if that manager is the only person in the company.

If you are in a position where you manage anyone and you skip any of the actions mentioned above then you are doing a major disservice to your people and yourself.

Even more so if you are your own manager, which, in the end, we all are.

This is a great time to institute change—not with great fanfare, but through sustainable actions.

So every day get out there and “recruit, mobilize, inspire, focus, direct, and regularly refuel the energy.”

You’ll be glad you did.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zedbee/103147140/

Leadership’s Future: Accountability

Thursday, September 16th, 2010

board_roomWork hard, work smart, climb the corporate ladder, get tight with the right people and you could grab the brass ring—a director’s seat on one (or more) boards.

Money, prestige, power, respect—the hallmarks of leadership.

Responsibility—lots of it, especially if you are an outside director.

Accountability—not so much.

Consequences—rarely if at all.

Most of the outside directors serving on boards for companies such as AIG, Bear Sterns and Lehman Bros. moved almost immediately to other boards.

No muss, no fuss, no accountability, no consequences.

“In too many cases, the radioactivity of a board member of a collapsed company has a half life measured in milliseconds,” said John Gillespie, a longtime Wall Street investment banker and the co-author of “Money for Nothing” (Free Press), a recent book on corporate boards.

Rakesh Khurana, a Harvard Business School professor specializing in corporate-governance issues, says there are legitimate questions surrounding these boards. “When selecting individuals to oversee an organization, what criteria should we be using other than their previous performance on a corporate board?” he said. “If there’s no accountability here, then what is the system of accountability?”

Makes you wonder exactly what “fiduciary responsibility” means these days—let alone what it takes to breach it.

stock.xchng image credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/683292

Leadership’s Future: How Will They Lead?

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

I received the following email yesterday (edited for length and anonymity).

Miki,

With 20+ years of experience managing I thought I had seen it all, but I have a situation that I am at a loss on how to handle.

Short version, 6 months ago I hired an entry level engineer, with just a year of experience, but lots of potential I thought. Potential he is not living up to. I do not see the energy, initiative and go-get-’em attitude he projected in the interview. His peers complain that he is not pulling his weight and he acts as if showing up and performing at minimal level is enough. He has received positive input when he does something well, but I have been candid regarding the problems, offered suggestions for improving, etc., and blunt talk that if both his work and his attitude didn’t change he couldn’t stay.

So when all this came up again in his 6 month review I was taken aback when he acted like it was the first time he had heard any of this. OK, I’ve run into denial before, nothing new there.

But what totally floored me and the main reason for writing is that the day after his review I received a phone call from his parents (they were both on the line) demanding to know who the hell I thought I was not to give their son a 6 month promotion.

I said I was in a meeting and would get back to them; any suggestions besides the obvious none of your damn business.

I called him and after a bit more discussion he agreed that it would be best to turn this mess over to the company HR department. Fortunately, they were already aware of the problem and he had plenty of documentation to back up both the performance problems and the ongoing conversations about them.

The parental call was the final nail and the young man will be terminated for cause.

hoveringWe all read articles about helicopter parents, in fact, I just read one on how great a problem hovering is for colleges.

Some undergraduate officials see in parents’ separation anxieties evidence of the excesses of modern child-rearing. “A good deal of it has to do with the evolution of overinvolvement in our students’ lives,” said Mr. Dougharty of Grinnell. “These are the baby-on-board parents, highly invested in their students’ success. They do a lot of living vicariously, and this is one manifestation of that.”

What really angered me was the way the episode affected the manager. He found himself questioning his own skills, as if he could have done anything that would offset 23 years (and counting) of parental protection.

What chance do any of these coddled kids have at maturing into leaders, not only positional ones, but de facto leaders? Will their parents help articulate a vision and then chastise those who don’t follow?

What do you think?

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wilsonb/2897692632/

Leadership’s Future: Raising Our Future

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

entitled

Teams aren’t allowed to win by a large margin, everyone likes everyone, no one plays favorites; wouldn’t you love to live/work in a place where that was the norm?

Last Thursday I wrote about a school where teams lost the game if they scored too much and said, “Great lesson to teach our future leaders—don’t excel, don’t try too hard, don’t strive too much, don’t field a winning team and, whatever you do, don’t follow in the footsteps of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Magic Johnson, Dr. Jonas Salk or any of those who surpassed their peers by a wide margin.”

Now, in line with teachers and administrators varied efforts to “level the playing field” for kids in school, which is an oxymoron (accent on the moron) if I ever heard one, comes the push to eliminate “best friends.”

Indeed, much of the effort to encourage children to be friends with everyone is meant to head off bullying and other extreme consequences of social exclusion.

But the professionals see it differently.

If children’s friendships are choreographed and sanitized by adults, the argument goes, how is a child to prepare emotionally for both the affection and rejection likely to come later in life?

There was a time when the first 18-22 years of life was focused on growing up, not just getting older.

Kids made mistakes, fell on their butts, picked themselves up and kept going; they learned about cause and effect—if they did X, Y would happen; they learned about accountability and consequences—if they did not do X, Y blew up.

All this was considered normal.

What’s happening to your kids in their first 18-22 years? Are they wrapped in cotton wool; life’s kinks smoothed out; fights fought for them, their wants satisfied immediately; protected, encouraged—entitled?

Now here’s the 64 dollar question.

Which do you want to hire? Which do you want on your team?

Image credit: http://atom.smasher.org

Heroes and Memorial Day

Monday, May 31st, 2010

My father turned down a parental deferral and desk job during World War II, instead choosing to fight and served as an intelligence officer in the Pacific. He returned safely.

When he returned he clandestinely took up another cause, helping the Haganah in the fight to establish the State of Israel. He died in his sleep during a gun buying road trip along with two others when the driver also fell asleep.

Both were causes about which he felt strongly; both he was willing to fight for, but in one case he lived and the other he died.

To some he was a hero, to others a villain and to still others a fool, who risked his life when he didn’t have to.

We need more fools.

heroes

Heroes

Some Heroes obvious, some unsung,
their lives and health, tempting fate.
Vulnerable in tasks for our civilization,
few glories for their life’s profession.

The Service men in our Armed Forces,
the cause be sure for freedom’s sake.
For their family, strangers, citizens all,
few medals show their life’s duress.

The policeman whose life is in peril,
by high-speed chase, gunfight ensued.
The simple traffic stop may kill,
few medals show the dangers faced.

The man who is trained as a fireman,
to save our lives, our homes from fire.
The first on scene when aid in need,
few medals show each hazardous deed.

The utilities that keep our comfort whole,
power and phone, the men on poles.
Sewage, garbage disposed for health,
no recognition for the civilian fight.

The many others whose work obscure,
performing tasks with risks not yours.
Construction, or the viral flu to cure,
no medals glory for the civilian plight.

Flickr photo credit to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/donabelandewen/470780785/

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