I’ve mentioned from time to time that there are the two basic principles that you need to believe in if you want to implement the kind of culture that I and most other pundits describe.

Here’s the first one.

People are intelligent, motivated, and they genuinely want to support their company in achieving its objectives.

Sadly, many managers don’t believe this. They may say they do, but deep down their thoughts run more along the lines of ‘people are stupid, lazy and don’t really give a damn’.

I’ve know managers who would actually say this out loud, while in others it’s buried so deeply they may not even realize it themselves—but they all manage accordingly.

The second principle is even more open to distortion.

People are most productive when they receive all the information needed all at once to do their job efficiently.

Based on the games so many managers play perhaps we should rewrite it—

People are most productive when they receive all the information needed all at once to do their job efficiently.

Not dribbled out over the course of the project, given grudgingly or only when asked and then only the narrowest parameter forcing the employee to return over and over.

You would think that managers would do everything in their power to create an environment that enabled the highest levels of creativity and productivity.

But for better or worse, what they produce in fact is a reflection of their MAP.

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I’ve focused a lot over the last six months on the problems in education and attitudes of the workforce-to-be and it’s been a pretty dismal picture. Obviously, there are plenty of exceptions, but that, too, is problematic.

It’s not just that entrepreneurship attracts the best and brightest, is also attracts a significant percentage of high-initiative students and it’s those with initiative who drive innovation wherever they’re at.

And there lies the problem.

Not because these kids want to solve problems, start businesses and attack the world’s social ills—that’s great. But the MAP that drives these kids is the same MAP that is so desperately needed by today’s corporations.

“”They’re [the Net generation] great collaborators, with friends, online, at work,” Mr. [Don] Tapscott wrote. “They thrive on speed. They love to innovate.” … A report issued last year by the Kauffman Foundation, which finances programs to promote innovation on campuses, noted that more than 5,000 entrepreneurship programs are offered on two- and four-year campuses — up from just 250 courses in 1985…Since 2003, the Kauffman Foundation has given nearly $50 million to 19 colleges and universities to build campus programs.”

We live in a world of impatience; Boomers, contrary to some perceptions, were and are impatient; Gen X is still more impatient and it’s increased by an order of magnitude in Gen Y—and it will continue to increase the faster the world moves and changes.

And, to paraphrase, the world, it is a changin’.

The youngest generation is the most impatient, and that impatience is traveling up.

Yet, it is those with initiative, not just impatience; those with a desire to accomplish, not a sense of entitlement, that companies need to attract if they want to compete and thrive in the new world.

These are the people who can fuel innovation and corporate America’s ability to succeed.

These are the people you have to hire and manage.

Are you ready?

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The best cultures satisfiy the intangibles that people crave.

A Hollister poll of 1000 people, employed and unemployed, in Massachusetts last summer asked them what factors contributed the most to their job satisfaction; the majority of responses in order were

• Company Culture;
• Opportunities for Growth;
• Employee Appreciation;
• Work/Life Balance; and a
• good Benefits Package.

Dead last was competitive salary/pay. As I’ve always said, “The person who joins for money will leave for more money.”

The interesting thing about this is that numbers two through four are all parts of number one, good culture. Even benefits are a function of the culture, since they reflect the company’s attitude towards its people.

Still more interesting is that the top three are totally free—they cost the company no money—rather, they are a reflection of the corporate and/or manager’s MAP. Even number four is more about management attitude than dollars and any dollars that are spent typically offer substantial ROI.

There are tons of words that you’ll hear are important in creating a good culture, but I believe that it’s a function of two basics, one a belief and the other an action resulting from it.

Belief: People are intelligent, motivated, and they genuinely want to support their company in achieving its objectives. When people know more about their job, company, industry, and how they interact, they perform their own duties better and more productively because they understand the objectives and care about the results.

Action: People are most productive when they have all the information needed to do their job efficiently. This means that all managers, from CEO down, have both the ability and willingness to produce appropriately 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 and then disburse it accurately and completely so people can do their work in a timely manner.

If you believe that

• a key ingredient for success is a culture that recognizes employees as its most valuable (and least replaceable) asset and
• that people are required to act with initiative and their performance is directly impacted by the quality and quantity of the information they receive
• then you’ll understand that people seriously resent communication failures that cause them to perform unnecessary, incorrect or wasted work.

Technically, communications is an IBB (infrastructure building block) and we’ll be talking more about them later.

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Sean Kelly of Franchise Pick, one of the best bloggers I know, sent an email to his Bizzia colleagues suggesting that we might find it interesting to weigh in from our own perspective regarding the couple who just won Sean’s Franchisee From Hell Award. (Don’t miss the Biz Levity and Small Business Boomers take on it.)

In short, Lacey, Washington Pizza Time franchise owner Luke Benjamin kept the thermostat set at 55 degrees with a policy to turn the furnace off at night, but the employees forgot one night. Benjamin’s solution was to shut off the heat completely (in an area where outside temperatures may sink to 19 degrees) and post the following notice:

“If you don’t want to work here quit, otherwise shut up and do your job. The next person I hear complaining is off for two weeks. We don’t have heat!! You guys screwed up, not us. You want to blame someone, look in the mirror.”

Since Benjamin confirmed the story to King 5 News, including the fact that 1) his wife has a space heater in her accounting office at the facility and 2) that she is the actual boss, Sean (the big softy) is now wondering if they can be saved from themselves.

Specifically, Sean said, “Miki, do they display the leadership qualities of Attila the Hun, had Attila made pizza?”

The answer is no, in spite of them forcing their people to work with no heat.

Attila never screwed his workers, unlike the Benjamins, they may have been pushed hard, but they had a charismatic leader who was no fool and not only allowed, but encouraged, them to rape and pillage to their hearts content. (Note: Leaders have been using rape and pillage to offset hardship for eons. Think earmarks.)

So what about the Benjamins?

Do I think they will change? Not a chance in hell (from whence came their award), since that would involve a change in their MAP, which ain’t gonna happen as long as they think they’re right.

About the only thing I can see making a difference is a swift kick where it hurts the most—their pocketbook—to be administered by their pizza customers and boss-wife-with-heat Benjamin’s Accurate Accounting customers; as one commenter pointed out, it is tax time, AKA accounting profit time.

But the boycott would have to be substantial and last a significant amount of time to have the desired effect. Sadly, and I’m sure the Benjamins are counting on this, ire diffuses quickly when up against convenience and I wonder if the good intentions of those who are incensed now will last when the item is off the current news radar.

Would you remember? Would you do business with them?

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I had a recent conversation on the final post from a series last summer regarding supposed differences between ‘leaders’ and managers.

The reader said she was confused and asked whether managers needed to be ‘leaders’, too.

I think that my responses will be of use to others, so I’ve rounded them out below to increase access to the information.

It would be lovely if there was a nice, clear-cut answer to the ‘leader’/manager thing, but like a lot of these types of questions it depends on whom you ask.

There are two distinct schools of thought. One believes that leaders and managers are different and see ‘leaders’ as on a higher plane.

Others, like me, believe that to manage well requires having and using so-called leadership skills.

To further confuse the issue, there’s a growing movement that thinks leadership skills can and should be found at any/all levels of the organization (think organizational leadership) and become active as the need arises.

In other words, real leadership is what you believe and how you think and act, AKA, MAP, as opposed to your position.

Further, real leadership isn’t about style or even ‘vision’.

Style may change as you adopt a presentation appropriate to the people with whom you are interacting, but that stylistic change doesn’t change who you are and what you believe.

Vision presentation also changes based on your audience. Changes in the actual vision is a different subject

To summarize,

• While management is what you do, leadership is the way you think.

• Great management is composed of equal parts leadership and accountability.

• True leaders are proclaimed as such by those around them, not by themselves.

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These days (especially these days) managers spend time, energy and money (their company’s and their own) in an effort to move from manager to ‘leader’. They study examples and best practices, read books, attend seminars and classes, take advanced degrees, check out software, turn to the spiritual (if so inclined)—you name it, someone’s tried it.

Everywhere you turn you hear/read about how you need to be a ‘leader’ to get ahead, otherwise you’ll end up a <gasp> follower.

You probably won’t believe me if I say that the basic premise is bunk.

The dream is to find a silver bullet—all you need to do is say/do THIS—but it ain’t gonna happen.

But here’s the well kept secret—you already possess the closest thing to a silver bullet that exists and it’s all in your mind.

That’s right, it’s your MAP and, like a snowflake, it’s totally unique—yours, and yours alone.

And the magic that turns the bullet from lead to silver is your ability to consciously choose to change your MAP through your own awareness.

How cool is that? The very thing that frees you to soar and it’s not only yours, but also within your control.

Who could ask for anything more?

So never forget!

You are the silver bullet!

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It’s Halloween and things are scary—

the economy is really hairy;

your savings trashed, your mortgage iffy

and it can’t be fixed in a NY jiffy.

Today is the start of the holiday season,

but to celebrate you need a reason—or do you?

You have a choice to engage your MAP

in doom and gloom or ignore that crap.

What goes up must come down

and the other way around

The pain is real, but it will pass

much faster if you kick gloom’s ass!

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

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Today’s Business Channel buzz is about the power of networking. Networking isn’t new, although the term is recent. It’s something I’m good at doing—I harbor unbridled people curiosity—but usually hate having it done to me. Why?

Well, it’s not a lot of fun to have dozens of people at an event come up and essentially ask, “What can you do for me,” while their eyes are scanning the room looking for more likely prey and they seem to have little real interest in those who talk to them, unless they perceive value to themselves.

Obviously, not everyone is like this, but too many are!

Rather than write up yet another list of ‘how to network’ or waxing on about how valuable it is, I thought I’d mention three salient points and then offer up a link to what I consider one of the best networking resources sources available.

First, salient = basic. That’s right, and once you grasp the basics the rest are luxuries—nice to know, but not really necessary.

Second, these apply as much to on-line networking as to that done in the real world.

1. Go networking with an eye to listening, learning and helping, not talking, selling and using.
2. Pay attention to the person talking, instead of mentally cruising the room.
3. Be open to input other than what you expected or wanted.

That’s it. Practice them until they are deeply embedded in your MAP and you do them without thinking. You’ll be amazed at the difference in your results.

Finally, download or buy the best book around for doing business in a networked world—The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online! by Scott Allen and David Teten.

What are your pros and cons regarding networking?

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Post from Leadership Turn

Today is theme day around the channel, all about graduating and new beginnings in a downturn. For a full list of participants check with Darlene over at Interview Chatter.

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Their reputation precedes them.

Hiring Millennials is an iffy business when your focus is a desire for long term employees.

On top of their sense of entitlement, many have no idea how to be led.

As CandidProf says, “Teaching is also an exercise in leadership, particularly in college. You do not simply download knowledge into student brains… Students need to be properly prepared in order to be led to learning.”

That goes double (at least) in the work arena. Too many Millennials see more value in peer information and advice than in listening and learning from anyone who has been there/done that. Their actions, more than their words, display an ‘I am the sun” attitude; they already know how to do it better and faster—cheaper rarely enters the equation—and see no use in learning other approaches, since theirs is better.

I’m not saying that every 18-35 year-old thinks this way, but plenty do—although the severity of “Millennial Fever” varies by individual.

The problem for you is that turnover is costly and you need to minimize it.

How? By latching on to the number one piece of hiring intelligence that is espoused by the smartest companies—attitude trumps skills.

And if you don’t agree, ask yourself whether you would rather teach someone to program in a new language or convince them to change something in their MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™)

It’s really a no-brainer when you think about it and it applies not just to Millennials, but to all people at all levels—from entry-level to executive.

What do you think? Does attitude trump skills?

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Here’s an equation that doesn’t change: who you are (your MAP) = what you do = what you’re called.

If you’re at the top of a company you’re called CEO.

But what does CEO really mean? Because when it comes to business titles people are creative and the variations are numerous and telling.

Here’s a tiny sample of what I’ve heard over the years from staffers when asked to define CEO based on their’s.

On one hand you have

• Conceited Egomaniacal Overlord;
• Caddish Elitist Obstructionist;
• Controlling Embarrassing Obsessor;

and on the other you have

• Concerned Energetic Overachiever
• Caring Enabling Oddity
• Charismatic Enterprising Optimizer

and inbetween you have a thousands of variations.

If you don’t like your own ‘nicktitle’ then it’s time to change your actions, which means changing your MAP.

And whether you consider that good or bad news, the main point never changes—it’s your choice.

For the sake of your staff and investors, (not to mention family and friends) I hope you choose wisely and well!

Where does your ‘nicktitle’ fit?

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