Ever head the old French proverb, ‘the more things change the more they stay the same’?

Ever since the advent of modern business, managers have faced the same conundrum, i.e., how do you accomplish your objectives when your resources (human or other) are continually reduced or the objectives are significantly expanded, but the staff isn’t.

Walmart is the most recent poster child for this approach and it is especially obvious in the fresh grocery section.

“Labor hours have been cut so thin, that they don’t have the people to do many activities,” said Burt P. Flickinger III, a retail consultant. “The fact that they don’t do some of these things every day, every shift, shows what a complete breakdown Walmart has in staffing and training.”

Walmart continually sends out detailed memos of work that needs to be done daily, such as discounting older meat and eggs, testing/filtering deli oil and watering plants, but adds a rider that practically guarantees managers inability to perform.

At the same time, the memo warns managers not to exceed the weekly hours assigned to their stores. It tells managers to examine whether they are assigning employees too many hours or overtime beyond what the company had budgeted.

Walmart’s employment numbers are misleading, too, since it would require an additional 200,000 workers to have kept pace with its square footage growth.

There are thousands of companies, large and small, consumer, enterprise and startup that play the same game; Walmart is just one of the most visible.

The basic point is simple and should be embedded in your cultural DNA.

When objectives change resources, human and otherwise, need to change (whether increase or decrease) with them.

Flickr image credit: USFWS Mountain-Prairie

Entrepreneurs come in all forms, but most aren’t from the golden circle—right race, right gender, right families, right schools, right friends—although that’s who the media tends to focus on.

I don’t know what the actual breakdown is, but for convenience I’ll call it 10% golden circle and 90% the rest (probably not far off).

While the 90% are just as creative and talented as the 10% they usually have a very different entrepreneurial experience.

One that is far more difficult and fraught and, as a result, more often fails and with more catastrophic repercussions.

An article in The Economist takes an unbiased look at entrepreneurship in terms of the effort and cost, not just in money, but in physical and mental health, sans the magic of the golden circle.

I’ve known entrepreneurs from both groups and although the words used to describe the experience are similar the actuality is not.

It is one thing to work 80 hour weeks in a well-resourced environment with similarly-minded people and another to spend those 80 hours alone, using a café internet connection, living on ramen and peanut butter, with no support network or cheering section rooting for you.

Yes, people from the 90% succeed and some of the 10% fail.

The importance of the article is to debunk the stupid, inaccurate romanticism with which popular culture has imbued and colored the startup world and those who dwell there.

Flickr image credit: John Martinez Pavliga

Dan McCarthy over at Great Leadership By Dan is once again hosting The July 5th Leadership Development Carnival (it will be hosted other places in the coming months) and, as Dan says, “It’ll help work the cramps out of your brain,” now that the holiday is over.

There’s a lot of excellent information available from the many outstanding participants.

Click around, read and enjoy, but with my normal caveat—leadership is for everyone, not just the person out front.

Your comments—priceless

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Image credit: Great Leadership by Dan

It’s a holiday weekend and I assume (hope) that you have better things to do than sit around reading a bunch of stuff on the Net.

So the links I’ve found for you are made to bookmark; they’re ongoing resources for you to explore as the mood and time moves you.

First is a cool site from Stanford Graduate School of Business with videos, such as the one on Jeff Raikes, head of the Gates Foundation, and a large selection of other topics.

Next is a favorite from Business Week’ Innovation and Design. It comes out weekly with great stories; for example, did you know that McDonald’s Chicago HQ is the greenest building on the planet?

Finally, also from BW is the new Business Exchange, an online community “to access the most
relevant content for you, filtered by like-minded business professionals.”

Have a terrific holiday and stay safe; I don’t know what I’d do without you.

Your comments—priceless

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Image credit: nono farahshila on flickr