Passion, People and Principles
post # 289 — January 22, 2007 — a General post
It is my pleasure to host this week’s edition of Carnival of the Capitalists as promised (or threatened) — a collection of blog articles about business and economics submitted for review.
I would like to issue a special welcome to readers visiting my blog for the first time courtesy of the carnival. All my research conclusions, consulting advice and speeches come down to passion, people and principles, and this blog is about the importance of passion, people and principles for success in managing, strategy, client relations and career development. While you are here, I encourage you to take a look around the site, explore my podcasts and articles, and consider subscribing to the blog by email or by RSS.
The policy of this Carnival is to be inclusive, i.e., to include ALL submissions unless there is a reason not to. So, my main task is not to review, edit or endorse, but to try and provide a small degree of organization to guide through the many submissions.
There were a wide span of topics covered, from personal advice to macroeconomic analysis. Having no other basis on which to organize things, I have chose to go from the personal to the cosmic, from the micro to the macro. This is not an evaluation, so you may want to skip to the types of topics that interest you most. (I couldn’t resist starting with those that I found most interesting.)
The rest of this week’s edition of the Carnival of the Capitalists will be organized in the following categories:
- Section 1: The Articles I Enjoyed the Most (A Highly Personal Selection)
- Section 2: Articles Giving Personal Advice
- Section 3: Articles about Personal Finance
- Section 4: Articles About Marketing
- Section 5: Bogs about Public Policy and Macroeconomics
- Section 6: Other Topics
Section One: Articles I Enjoyed The Most
- Shawn Callahan is well-known to regular readers of this blog. His firm (in Australia) provides advice on how to use stories and anecdotes to make things happen, and he walks us through (in a 1300-word piece) the role stories play compared to other ways of “knowing†(the scientific method, religion, and intuition).
- A blog called Software Project Management has an in-depth post (from December) about creating logos. Very informative, with good graphical illustrations. (Obviously?)
- Getting Green has a really interesting description of attending a meeting organized by a multi-level marketer (Quixtar) with lots of insight into how these things are actually run.
- There’s a fascinating discussion of various aspects of the talent gap (what our economy needs vs what our educational system is producing) at Talentism. It wanders in and out of some other subjects, but is worth looking at and thinking about.
- Bob Brown Consultant Intelligence Briefings describes a situation where it looks like both client and consultants were at fault in working together.
- Jennifer, at Penguin uneartherd, discusses the different approaches taken in different countries to major catastrophe insurance. Did you know, for example, that everyone in New Zealand is entitled to seek help from a government body if they are injured in an accident — it doesn’t matter how old you are, if you are in the work force or not, or if you are at fault. In return, there is no right in NZ to sue anyone for personal injury. Great stuff!
- Econbrowser review the topic of why some countrieas are rich and some are poor, and reviews a recent paper analyzing the colonization of oceanic islands according to the prevailing winds. I’m not sure what it all proves, but it’s fascinating stuff.
- Krishna De says that Google alerts are probably the best free research tool in the world. She shows you how and why.
- The Antisysiphus Effect has an intriguing essay about managing and some religious concepts. This one’s worth a read.
- Charles Green gives good advice about how to deal with purchasing agents if you are attempting to sell professional services.
- Ready Fire Aim has a blog on what makes a successful entrepreneur. This is one of a three-part series (with references).
- Stirling Newberry at The Agonist has a detailed (2300-word) analysis of the economy (where we are in the boom and bust cycle) and what it means for investments by business. You’ll need to think and pay close attention, but it will reward the effort.
- Re:The Auditors has an intriguing exploration of the state of the accounting profession and KPMG’s woes.
- Phil For Humanity analyses the tension between China’s economic policy and its international policies.
- There’s an interesting brief discussion of MBA writing skills at Photon Courier.
- Wally Block sensibly points out that team-building exercises teaching leaders to cook are probably an irrelevant activity.
Section Two: Articles Giving Personal Advice
- Execupundit has a quick list of 25 ways to screw up.
- Slow Leadership offers some steps to finding out what you really want to do with your life, unaffected by what others say.
- Eric Brown writes about the problem with linear thinking. His example is about tending to hire the kind of people we have always hired, but he provides some good links to other aspects of the “fixed mindset†problem.
- Gautam Ghosh has a post about the CEO as politician. His advice to build at least one necessary political skill is to go to an undergrad student class and explain your business model in non-technical terms. He says you never know what you might learn about your own business if you simplify it to communicate.
- Smart Cool Rich offers some advice based on high-stakes poker: bluff by not bluffing. The key takeaway is that while bluffing may be great theater, it seldom leads to an ultimate victory.
- Breaking the Shackles quotes Tony Robbins to the effect that only action reflects a decision made.
Section Three: Articles About Personal Finance
- Build Your Life to Order explains how EVERYONE can get rich.
- Five Cent Nickel says “Don’t Miss These Tax Deductions.â€
- HedgeFund Domain reveiews his investment portfolio’s performance.
- Wisebread offers some tips on learning to save and living on a budget.
- Searchlight Crusade has a discussion of California’s Home Equity Sales Contract Act.
- The Boring Made Dull thinks tax refund loans are a bad idea.
- The Digerati Life recently stumbled across Jim Cramer’s Mad Money TV show and gives us a review.
- Extreme Perspective takes us through the lessons of leverage and compounding in personal finance.
- Free Money Finance gives a basic example of what saving $10,000 a year would translate into in savings if you kept it up.
- OhCash.com warns about get rich quick schemes.
- Debt C0nsolidation Lowdown says that you should live within your means.
Section Four: Articles About Marketing
- Small Business Buzz bemoans the lack of client service we receive.
- James S. Logan reports on some research done by James D. Brausch as to whether it helps or hurts to hide your price until the end of the purchase process. (It hurts.)
- Businesspundit explains that “marketing is math.†He debunks some of the ‘get rich quick†marketing ideas that are flying around out there.
- Modern Marketing explores how “brands†can or cannot create “communities.†It concludes with a paradox: that businesses that want to create communities cannot achieve it by TRYING. They have to give up control and let the users do it.
- Queercents asks whether we should (or do) buy from people or companies of whom we morally disapprove.
- Robbin at Brains on Fire observes that the same things that make a person remarkable also make a company remarkable. She lists the characteristics.
- David Daniels at Business Technology Reinvention describes the difficulties firms have in hiring Sales Managers.
- Entrepreneur’s Life offers 5 critical questions for effective small business advertising.
Section Five: Articles About Public Policy and Macroeconomics
- Brian Gongol has a thoughtful discussion of global warming and energy taxes.
- Leadership Now comments on the firing of Home Depot chief Bob Nardelli.
- Bio Health Investor talks about Project Bioshield, and the incentives to protect against biological attacks.
- The New Business World reports on a study that apparently shows that more diverse companies make more money.
- One-Man Band urges you to contact your congressperson and vote against net neutrality.
- Insureblog comments on Las Vegas magnate Steve Wynn’s attempt to claim on the insurance for putting his elbow through one of his Picassos.
- The Benin Epilogue has a brief discussion on why Uganda may be ready for business.
Section Six: Other Topics
- Tattvamasi talks about the failed promise of the three-letter acronym (TLA) and uses it to reflect on some software products.
- Dilanchian Lawyers provides a link to a story about YouTube’s Licensing arrangements.
- BigPictureSmallOffice points out an example of bureaucracy gone crazy in categorizing problems as minor, major and major-plus.
- EGO reports on AOL’s bid for Tradedoubler AB.
That concludes this edition. Thank you to everyone who submitted articles to this week’s carnival.
The next edition of Carnival of the Capitalists will be hosted by Long or Short Capital on January 29. You can submit your blog articles to future carnival editions using the Carnival of the Capitalists submission form. If you are interested in hosting an edition of the carnival on your blog, contact Jay Solo, the Carnival of the Capitalists co-founder and administrator.
post # 288 — January 19, 2007 — a Careers post
A few years ago, I asked some people what they wished they had learned earlier in their careers. One of the common topics was about how to manage your boss (or superior).
Here’s one such comment I receieved:
The main thing that I want young professionals to know is the importance of “managing upâ€. It is often a negelected skill and you need to learn it early. It means making sure your manager is aware of the big issues that are plaguing the team and possible topics that may be discussed at a management meeting he/she attends. It also involves filtering the less important details from the important so that your manager does not feel overwhelmed with information. The ability to recognize the important from the insignificant will help a young professional in his/her plight to becoming a successful professional.
I wrote about “managing up” in an earlier post when I gave some advice about the questions you need to ask when receiving an assignment.
But there are many other aspects. How do you get your boss to treat you well, or at least reasonably? How do you deal with over-demanding bosses?
OK, gang. Time for you all to play the game. Let’s make a thorough list here by completing the following sentence:
“To manage upwards effectively you should………”
Anybody want to play?
post # 287 — January 18, 2007 — a Managing post
What do you do if you’re the boss of a group, and someone within it has done well, but you can’t give them a raise? What other “non-financial currencies†are particularly effective?
Commonly listed non-financial currencies would be these:
- Approval (Well Done)
- Gratitude (Thank you)
- Autonomy (Extra degrees of freedom to operate that others in the group do not have)
- Recognition (in front of others)
- Visibility (to others inside and outside the office)
- Contacts (to key people)
- Access to Information (Becoming more of an Insider)
- Access to additional resources
- Rapid response (by manager, even faster than to rest of the team)
- Task support (more resources)
- Titles (Official and Unofficial)
- Special roles or assignments
- Extra Challenges
- Access to Participation / Involvement in hi-status tasks
- Personal Interest / Support
Is it possible to say which of these are the best to use? Are some of them dangerous? What categories do you see?
post # 286 — January 17, 2007 — a Careers post
I went to a dinner party the other night, and my host, who is a partner with a Big-4 accounting firm, was discussing his planned retirement in a few years’ time.
(His firm has a mandatory retirement policy, which we both agreed was a dumb idea. But that’s a topic for another time.)
Anyway, my friend observed that, looking at others who had already retired from his firm, the happiest among them tended to be those who did more than one thing: they started a small business, they did Board work, they consulted, they did some pro bono work, they got involved in their community, or they did some teaching.
The key, apparently, was not doing just one of these. Each activity had its own attractions and pressures. The real answer, it seemed, was having a mixture of things to do, so that you could stay busy without becoming “caught up†in the pressures of obligations that an exclusive focus might bring.
I found this fascinating. I wonder if it’s a generalizable statistical truth that (on average) people with variety in their lives are happier. If so, does it apply at all ages?
What do you all think?
post # 285 — January 16, 2007 — a Strategy post
There’s a really good article by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams in the December 2006 issue of the Harvard Business Review called “Lift Outs: How to Acquire a High-Functioning Team.†It provides advice to professional businesses whose strategy is to grow not organically, but by attracting whole departments out of competing firms.
The desire to do this is huge. In a lot of my consulting work in a variety of professions, across the globe, it is amazingly common to find that the core strategy for getting into new markets, locations, disciplines and specialties is to go and raid effective groups that, for one reason or another, are less than completely happy in their current firm and can be “lifted out†to the new firm. Building capabilities organically is something that many firms have lost either the patience for or the ability to do.
When “doing strategy,†many prominent firms are not really scheming less about how to win clients, nor about how to win in the war for junior talent (who can be subsequently nurtured). What they are REALLY worried about is winning the competition for warlords.
I analogize it to the emerging formation of nation states in mediaeval times, when the barons and warlords throughout had to decide which coalitions they would join, and which emperor they would (temporarily) swear fealty to. In the modern situation, the firm is the (relatively unstable) nation-state. The real power is with the warlords who have the “following.â€
So, the main question firms are asking themselves nowadays is: How can we make OUR firm the firm that the best warlords (those with the established reputations and existing book of business) will find the most attractive?
It’s proving to be an interesting question.
There’s a lot of firms out there hoping that their strategic problem will be solved by a white knight coming in from the outside and solving the firm’s problems without the current citizens having to change much.
However, ask any headhunter and he or she will tell you that one of the major concerns of warlords is that they do not want the surplus that they generate (or at least that they think they generate) siphoned off, so they don’t like to join firms that don’t have tough discipline throughout the rest of the firm. Powerful warlords don’t want to join a firm of unenergetic underperformers.
But notice a degree of circularity here. If the rest of the population begins to “raise its game†to make the firm a more attractive place for the new warlords, maybe the current population doesn’t NEED the warlords! Maybe they can succeed themselves.
But the core question remains: what makes an emerging nation-state (i.e., a firm) an attractive place for the best warlords? Assuming it does (indeed) want to attract these “lift outs,†what’s the best way to run your firm so that the warriors want to come with you?
post # 284 — January 15, 2007 — a General post
No matter what stage of your career you are at, your progress will depend upon whether or not you are trusted by your boss, your colleagues inside and outside your own group, your clients and/ or your subordinates. And the only way to be trusted is being truly trustworthy and showing it through your behavior.
My latest podcast episode, entitled Earning Trust, explores how to cultivate trust by mastering the four main components that communicate trustworthiness.
Timeline
03:14 — The four main components of trustworthiness
05:59 — Intimacy: The most common failure in trust-building
09:16 — Harness control over your self-orientation
11:08 — Personal examples of trust building
You can download Earning Trust or sign up to receive new Business Masterclass seminars automatically with iTunes or other podcast players. (Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to subscribe.) My seminars are always available for download at no cost.
post # 283 — January 14, 2007 — a General post
I will be hosting the Carnival of the Capitalists, the preeminent business blog carnival, this coming Monday, January 22, and I encourage my readers to send in your own articles for inclusion.
A blog carnival is a regular collection of links to blog posts, on a particular theme or area of interest. The Carnival of the Capitalists is a weekly blog carnival on the wide-ranging topics of business and economics offering readers a compilation of some of the best writing in the business blogosphere.
I hope my fellow bloggers here will consider sharing your best recent business and economics writing, and I look forward to sharing the results with everyone on Monday.
Carnival of the Capitalists Submission Guidelines
- Deadline for submission is 3:00 EST on Sunday, January 21.
- I greatly appreciate if you can send your submissions well before the deadline!
- You are welcome and encouraged to submit blog posts by other people which you’d like to recommend as well as your own writing.
- Articles on business strategy, managing, client relations and career development are especially welcome.
- Click on this Carnival of the Capitalists Submission Form link to submit your article.
Carnival of the Capitalists Frequently Asked Questions
With your support, I look forward to showcasing your writing and presenting readers here as well as the Carnival of the Capitalists regulars with an excellent roundup of business blog articles.
post # 282 — — a General post
As an author, or as a speaker, you never know the influence you may or may not have had. Here are two emails I received this week which are immensely gratifying.
“You spoke at my (large) law firm retreat some time ago. I won’t embarrass anyone by saying which one, where or when. I thought you would be interested in the result. As you predicted, most of the firm was supportive of what you said but both unwilling to truly commit the firm and unwilling to proceed without the few financially powerful partners who were against the ideas. So things muddled along pretty much as before. I realized it was not going to happen so if it was important to me, I had some hard choices to make. I made them and left after a long partnership to form a small firm of like-minded people. I can’t understate the value of the change in my life. I have gone from someone playing out his career without enthusiasm or enjoyment (and being very well-paid to do it), to actually caring about what I do, who I do it with and who I do it for. “I know that you are in business to make a living and when you talk to firms the goal is to help the firm do better. But I wanted you to know that you are as well talking to each person that listens to you. And in my case anyway, what you said had a profound impact. So thank you very much. Bob”
That was the first one. The second was from Russia:
“Dear M-r Maister! Great interest, intellectual amusement and deep YESSS! – that’s what I’ve felt reading the Russian translation of your The Trusted Advisor”. (Written with Charles Green and Robert Galford.) 15 years of psychotherapy and psychological consulting – dysfunctional families, drug addicts, co-dependency – have lead me to the very similar proposals; but you and your colleagues formulate it (and help me to formulate my own experience) with the elegance of gathered Rubik’s cube. You see – psychological consulting have some specific nature: client’s business there is just his personal, very and only personal area. But the question of trust, the stages and technology” of it’s establishing, danger of methodical occupation” instead of personality-oriented approach and many other aspects, underlined in your remarkable book, are quite the same (and even more important) as in other areas of consulting.
Thank you for your deep and consistent humanism. Adler can have some rest (as Russians say) – his ideas of contradiction between the neurotic behavior and cooperation finds in your book very practical actualization. What a joy for me was to see, that the main principle of my practice – each problem of client is the challenge, opportunity for personality (not onlyprofessional!) growth of advisor, and if the last miss this opportunity and doesn’t grow – he can’t help the client – is one of the main points of your book; it is not formulated, but each line affirms that!
Once again thank you; I wish you, your friends and your families more successes, joyful opportunities, new horizons and grateful readers!
Konstantin Levitskij, Russia.
P.S. I sincerely hope, that the remarks about my professional experience is not the trespass of demonstrating competence; that pointed parallels doesn’t look like as inadequate self-orientation; that underlined principle is not a demonstration of value-intervention”; and that the whole letter is not the trespass of compliments. And sorry for my, may be,terrible English!”
Wow! I’m going to keep those two in my folder for “down days” when it all feels like too much of an uphill struggle. It’s nice to know there are such honorable people out there, willing to continue the struggle to do what’s meaningful and not just what’s pragmatic.
post # 281 — January 12, 2007 — a Strategy post
If you HAD to put them in order, what do you think are the most important key ingredients for a company (or an organization)?
- A Mission?
- A Vision?
- Values?
- A Direction?
- A Culture?
- A Set of “Rules and Obligations” for membership?
- A Purpose?
Lots of writers play around with these concepts and each has its fans. Which do YOU think are worth spending time on (in which order) if you were trying to help an organization succeed?)
post # 280 — January 11, 2007 — a Client Relations post
I was digging around in my old “Q&A†files and found this question from 2003:
David, One of my clients’ has become accustomed to operating in crisis mode. They are constantly in reactive mode vs. proactive. I have not been asked to help fix this, my firm is involved in other projects. I feel like I am watching a train crash about to happen. How can I get them to see that reactive mode and crisis is not a normal way of conducting business, when they have not asked for help? Thanks.
Here’s my (modified) reply:
One of my rules is: don’t give your opinion until it’s asked for – it will just be resented. First, you must build a relationship and earn the right to comment. Second, there’s no point commenting to someone who isn’t empowered to change things. So, you must ask “If they were to change this mode of operating, who would have to lead that change? Who is the key decision-maker here?”
By the way, I don’t completely accept your premise that a “reactive mode and crisis is not a normal way of conducting business.” It may not be a good idea, but it’s remarkably common. Mentally, imagine this: you observe that this person in your social circle that you’ve met (not a close friend) is overweight and unfit. You think it’s not healthy to live that way. They haven’t asked your opinion. But you want them to understand that there’s a better way. How would you approach THAT???
You’ll probably have to guess that you are not the first person to point out to them that their are fat and unfit. They’ve heard it before, in all probability. So what’s going to be different about your approach?
(By the way, you wouldn’t tell someone they were ugly and had terrible dress sense, would you? So why would you point out to them they were fat and unfit? Aren’t both equally unkind? Maybe there’s a business equivalent. Some things you just SHOULDN’T point out.)
The first thing I’d observe is that it won’t be the logic of your argument that will prevail. Whatever the process is will mostly be about emotions: creating the desire for the benefits that fitness can bring, helping boost their confidence and courage that, yes, they CAN change, quelling their fears about dropping their past habits, and understanding the group psychodynamics that led to why they operate this way now. You’ll need to be a skilled counselor, psychotherapist and corporate politician to pull it off.
So, to do this well, you have to scheme (at least) WHO, WHEN, WHERE, HOW and WHY.
WHO do you approach? Your current contact? The person causing the problem? The person with the power to solve the problem? The person who’s bearing the brunt of the problem?
WHEN do you approach that person? At the end of you current project (when you have earned some credibility) or as soon as possible?
WHERE do you do it? Ask for a private meeting? Take them out for a beer or a meal to get them away from the office?
HOW do you phrase the words?
And, of course, you have to ask yourself WHY you are doing it. Are you really doing it to help, or do you just want to cross-sell something or develop a follow-on assignment?
Anyone got any advice to offer? What DO you do if you’re working with a client and see things that urgently need change but which they don’t seem to want to tackle? For all of you out there whose firms want you to grow business (or grow “relationships”) this should be an important topic. And, of course, those in the business of giving out marketing advice should join in!
