Monthly Archives: January 2009

Google is Just Like Everyone Else…

Posted on by
1

 

Leadership Lessons from Google – When a Giant Makes a Giant Mistake

Google announced last week that they would close three offices and lay off 100 full-time recruiters. Even though these are the first Google-hired employees ever to lose their jobs in a workforce reduction, it’s not news… not in this economy. In fact, 100 employees is nothing, right?

Wrong. How big could it have been for Google if they would have announced they were not going to lay anyone off, ever? Instead of layoffs, they were going to find new jobs for these 100 people at Google?

100 employees is nothing, right?

With a ninety-billion dollar market capitalization and over 20,000 worldwide positions, Google could have easily absorbed these 100 humans in other areas of the company. They could have used the non-event of not laying off 100 employees as a chance to score a coup with the American media. They would have been the darling of the new administration: An American company; devoted to full employment despite the economic downturn.


We’re not naïve. We’re not suggesting Google not lose the 100 jobs, just not the 100 humans. Through attrition and everyday hiring, Google will surely add these positions in the next two weeks. With some on-the-job training and evening classes, these 100 recruiters could easily be ready to tackle many other jobs at the search giant. It would take a little work, but everything worthwhile does.

Google Could Have Been Someone; They Could Have Been a Contender…

Google could have been different. Google could have been the only giant American company to never, ever lay off a full-time employee. In the process, they would enjoy a more loyal workforce and great press. The positive feelings created by this move in this economy would have been worth 100 times more than Google would pay those 100 employees this year. They really could have played this to the hilt.

To be fair, Google has technically cut jobs before. In 2008 they laid off over 300 employees at their Double-Click subsidiary. This is somehow different; these were Google employees, hired as Google employees.

As my buddy Niall puts it, “in reality, Google is just like everyone else.”

Niall’s right; and it’s sad when you think about it. Google had a chance to make a statement, and instead chose to take the easy way out. Google is just like everyone else.

This begs the question: When will Google fall? If they’re not different, then they must be susceptible to the same market forces as every other business. Inevitably, they will be overtaken in their own field, and then they will be acquired. Then, the layoffs will really flow.

 

Circuit City, Where Service Was Never State of the Art

Posted on by
Reply

Circuit City – We Told You So…

In what was probably the easiest call in the last ten years, we told you Circuit City was going to go all the way (read our November 12, 2008 post if you don’t believe us). Back then we said you shouldn’t “be fooled by their reorganization plans; Circuit City is down for the count and not getting up. Lousy leadership is lousy leadership, and court protections will change nothing.

“While Chapter 11 might provide a short-term reprieve and allow them to stock their stores for Black Friday 2008, they’ll not be around for Black Friday 2009. (Heck, they probably won’t make it to Good Friday.)”

We were right, and we just want to gloat.

Circuit City, unable to work out a sale of the company, said Friday it will close its 567 U.S. stores and cut 34,000 jobs. Nice going, guys. Please don’t blame this on the economy. You were the nation’s second-biggest consumer electronics retailer and you failed to build a sustainable business. There’s no excuse.




What’s amazing about the retail bankruptcies during this recession: KB Toys, Mervyns, Linens ‘N Things and now Circuit City; is that none of them are surprising to us. If you ever stepped foot in one of these stores and compared them to their biggest competitor (Toys R Us; Macy’s; Bed Bath and Beyond; and Best Buy, respectively) you’d know who was the best and who was not. You’d understand that it would not take much to cripple these also-rans.

Whether it was another big box selling the same goods or Wal-Mart, Circuit City never stood a chance. They could not be expected to survive even a slight downturn if their leadership was unwilling to have the singular goal of building a sustainable business. Their selection was inferior, their prices appeared non-competitive, and their salespeople were clearly on commission. It was never “fun” to shop at Circuit City, and the leadership should have recognized this.

That was their job. Of course, the employees could have told them… if they bothered to ask.

Online at 30,000 Feet? Welcome to the World Wide Mile High Club

Posted on by
2

 

Delta-a-GoGo: Wi-Fi in the Sky – Good, Bad, Right, Wrong? It’s Here

When I first read about Delta’s plans to add wi-fi networking on some flights I was appalled. Under no circumstances did I want this one last bastion of freedom from emails to escape my personal dead zone. I truly enjoyed my twice-weekly vacation from the Internet, and I’ve always used this time wisely. Generally, I read, listen to music, read and listen to music, or work on various documents offline (and listen to music).

Today, at 9:14 AM I boarded a Tampa-bound flight in Atlanta and heard the terrifying announcement that Delta was launching a new service on this flight, GoGo (or is it Gogo?): a wireless Internet service for flyers. No way was I falling for this invasion of privacy. I’m too strong; too focused.

My Transition to the Dark Side: A Timeline

9:42:08 AM EST – The lead Delta Flight Attendant announces that Delta is proud to offer wireless Internet access on today’s flight. I find myself offended by the very thought and I decide that there is no price low enough to temp me to interrupt my Internet-free time with a Mile High Web Surf. I decide to stand firm: No Sky-High Wi-Fi for me.

9:42:25 AM EST – The lead Delta Flight Attendant further explains that there is a forty percent discount available for anyone wanting to try the GoGo (or is it go-go?) Wi-Fi today. While I despise the idea of working online at 30,000 feet, I hate the idea of missing a discount even more. (To learn why I hate missing discounts, read Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely – the third to the last book I read on a plane before this latest attempt to ensure I occupy 100% of my time on the Internet.)

9:42:26 AM EST – 40% off? I’m sold; let’s give this whole Web 2.0 a run for its money.


9:51 AM EST – After an excruciatingly long nine minutes since hearing of the forty percent discount offer, the plane is finally above 10,000 feet and we are free to use our approved electronic devices. A list of approved electronic devices can be found in the Delta Sky magazine located in the seat pocket in front of me. I release my laptop from its case in record time.

9:51:12 AM EST – I wonder why it takes so long to boot up my laptop. Could it be the altitude?

9:54 AM EST – After a brief enrollment in GoGo (or is it gogo?) that included offering up my Amex number, I am off and surfing.

9:55 AM EST – First, I attack Outlook and feverishly drive through the thirty or so emails that have accumulated in the forty-nine minutes since I last shut down.

9:56 AM EST – Hey, there’s the receipt from GoGo (or is it GOGO?) in my inbox.

10:03 AM EST – I click through on a balance reminder email from American Express and spend the next couple of minutes verifying my charges for the last week. Did I really spend $238.62 at CostCo on Saturday? How many four-gallon cans of pork ‘n beans can one family eat?

10:09 AM EST – I’m on Digg.com reading, Digging, and re-Shouting a Digg “Shout” for a blog post from a great sales writer, Skip Anderson. (The post is titled Selling Yourself for Success and it deserves your attention.) I wonder to myself if Skip has a clue that someone is reading his post five and a half miles above Florida.

10:14 AM EST – I’ve run through my original inbox messages and now find myself replying to the replies of those messages. I am in Internet Heaven: I have discovered approximately one hundred fifty-two minutes each week during which I previously had no Internet access.

10:17 AM EST – An instant message pops in from a coworker using Yahoo! Messenger. Weird – it feels like they’re invading my personal space; like they’re standing in my bedroom or something. After a brief hesitation, I answer uncomfortably. I feel a little ashamed that I’m online at 30,000 feet, so I don’t bother to tell them.

10:26 AM EST – I’m reading Google News. It seems the Golden Globes were televised last night. Hmm, I wasn’t aware. Not sure I missed much, to be honest.

10:31 AM EST – The markets have been open for more than an hour, so I check my stock positions at CNBC.com. Even though my portfolio has not recovered in the forty-two minutes since we departed the gate, this Internet-in-the-air is starting to feel really, really good.

10:34 AM EST – Back to email. My inbox seems to fill quickest when I’m out of the office.

10:41 AM EST – I’m looking at my blog, AskTheManager.com, and admiring the cool post I wrote on New Year’s Eve. (I’ve had two drinks, and I think I’m feeling a little too good about my writing.)

10:43 AM EST – Back to email. Don’t these crazy @$#&?!s know I’m on an airplane?

10:49:03 AM EST – Are you kidding me? We’re landing already? Just thirty seconds more and then I’ll shut down, okay?

10:49:22 AM EST – Oh, you’re serious? I have to shut down now? The flight attendant is explaining some crazy rule about 10,000 feet or something.

10:50:12 AM EST – After learning about the possible Federal penalties that can be assessed on someone who disobeys the instructions of a member of the flight crew (flight attendants are members of the flight crew?); I decide it’s best to shut down the laptop and the accompanying wi-fi Internet access.

I’m In – Count Me Among the Mile High Club of Web Access

Sold. Charge me whatever you want, GoGo (or is it gOgO?), and I’ll pay it. I want my Internet access 24/7, and I was only fooling myself when I assumed I was happiest on a plane, insulated from the online world.

 

Sales – Why Do Some Salespeople Take It Personally When They Lose An Account?

Posted on by
2

 

Sales: It’s Nothing Personal

A salesperson who works for one of my company’s primary vendors – someone who happens to be a former coworker and a person I considered to be a friend – just lost a bid with my company. The vendor had held this business for the past several years and we were nearing the end of the latest multi-year agreement.

While the successful bidder’s price was a 20% discount to what we were paying (and a 35% discount to the incumbent’s best and final offer for the proposed agreement), the primary reason we decided to make a change was the deteriorating level of support and innovation the incumbent has been providing over the course of this latest contract.

It’s nothing personal. It’s just business.

By rejecting the incumbent’s bid, we were not rejecting the salesperson (we’ll call him Rich). Interestingly, Rich is taking it personally. In fact, he’s become an invisible man since the day we made our decision. Why is he taking it so personally? I ran into Rich a couple of days ago (we live in the same town) and even though it’s been a month since we chose his competitor, Rich was short and cold with me. What happened to the warm friendship we had as coworkers and as buyer/seller?

Why I Became a Sales Manager

When I was a commissioned salesperson, I rocked. Not to brag, but I routinely sold double what the second best salesperson at my company sold. I sold like crazy and I made a whole bunch of money… and I was miserable. I was miserable, because even if I had a 50% closing ratio, which I generally did not, half of all my prospects told me “no.”




I took it personally. I’ve always believed in my product so much that when someone rejected it, it must mean that I had done a lousy job of explaining it to them. “How could anyone not buy this?” I would wonder. I decided that if I was going to stay in sales, I would have to move to management.

It takes a special kind of person to be a happy and successful salesperson. You have to be smart, quick-witted (not the same as smart), ballsy, lack a certain amount of pride and be willing to taste defeat more often than victory. Most importantly, you cannot take it personally when someone tells you “no.”

I assume it will take a few months, but eventually this former friend will become a friend again. I’ll have to set a reminder in my calendar to be sure and tell Rich what an ass he was back when he lost our business, and how he shouldn’t take it personally – it’s just business.

 

The Death of Data-Based Decision Making

Posted on by
Reply

Why Does My Industry Refuse to Use Data?

True story – of course, whenever anyone says or writes this it generally means that everything else they’ve ever told you is BS – anyway, true story: a highly compensated colleague wrote to a group of fellow highly compensated colleagues and asked “does anyone have any data on whether this widget produces results?”

The emailed responses from two of his highly compensated colleagues were shocking:

  • “I understand they’ve shown good results in Orlando and Tampa.”
  • “This widget really moves the needle in Dallas.”

These were their complete responses. Did I miss something? Where is the data?

This brief exchange of emails is merely a sample of what’s happening in my industry (and probably happening in other industries, though I don’t have any data to back up this claim): We’ve decided that actual data is unimportant.

This is sad, especially as technology has provided us easy, quick and painless avenues to gather data about nearly every aspect of our business. Gathering data and making data-based decisions (AKA: using business intelligence reports) should be one of the greatest benefits of technology we enjoy, yet we still rely heavily on gut feelings and opinions to determine where we spend our money, whom we hire, and what initiatives we pursue.

Data vs. Opinion

Having had my fill of opinion-based decision making where good data is available, I challenged the two highly compensated colleagues to send me some proof to back up their claims about the effectiveness of this particular widget:

“Sounds great, can you send me the data to back this up?” I replied, and waited.

And waited, and waited, and waited. After two days of waiting, I sent a follow-up email copying their direct supervisors:

“I know the Northeast Region really wants to get moving on this widget, and they’re excited to hear about the results you’re seeing in your markets. Can you send me some data that can prove the ROI? We’re struggling to show good numbers everywhere else with this widget and some good results would help save the project.” I wrote, and waited.

Amazingly, with their bosses copied and everyone on high alert to justify expenses, I received the following two messages from the highly compensated colleagues within 30 minutes:

  • “When we looked at the data, it seems it was inconclusive in Dallas. We’re thinking of canceling it.”
  • “Nobody in Orlando or Tampa could prove it works, but they’re sure it was helping sales. They’re going to measure the results this month and then make a decision.”




One claimed they examined the data (Dallas) and one still relied on opinion for now (Tampa/Orlando), but promised to examine the data next month. In the meantime, we’ve potentially wasted more than $100,000 over the past year because no one bothered to look at the data. This was just one product covering a small part of our business. What would we find if we stopped allowing opinions and held everyone to a “just the facts” dictum? Scary…

Data-Based Decisions are Easy

Our industry is one that has had to be pulled (kicking and screaming) into accepting that the Web is an important marketing channel. Now that we’re there, we refuse to demand data, information or business intelligence to help us make decisions. We rely on our collective gut, because our gut was good enough ten years ago, so it’s good enough today.

It’s a shame, really, because using only your gut to make decisions might appear to save you time. While using your gut to make a decision keeps you from having to gather data, it also requires that you continually reconsider the decision: using additional time to determine if you made the correct assessment. When you use your gut, you spend additional time second-, third- and fourth-guessing yourself. You are never certain you made the best decision.

When you use data, like an ROI report, you can quickly and easily decide to eliminate the low ROI widgets and increase your usage of the high ROI widgets. Then, you can put the data away until the next set of numbers (quarterly, monthly, weekly) becomes available. Give these new numbers a “once over” to validate you made a great decision last time or use these numbers to tweak your earlier decision, and move on. Nothing could be easier.

You Were Hired for Your Gut

The best part about using data to help you make decisions is that the data will never care if you also sneak in your opinion here and there. In fact, if not for your gut, your company could just hire a computer to do your job. It is precisely your experiences, history and opinions that make you a valuable commodity. You begin to lose your value, however, as soon as you fail to utilize all the tools (including data) made available to you to do your job.

 

Management Training Blogwatch – January 5, 2009

Posted on by
Reply

Management Training Blogwatch – Best of the Blogs

We scoured and we scrubbed and we were left with just few posts and articles worthy of making it into your reading rotation for all things Management Training.

Perhaps it was the holidays and everyone was taking off between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, but we simply struggled to find more than just a handful of very good posts from the past five weeks. (The pickings were so slim we even had to include two of our posts into the mix.)

Although not from a traditional Management Training Blog, we recommend the first post below: excerpts from a great interview with Dilbert creator Scott Adams. A worthy read.


We’re Dilbert Fans
That inspired him to join a management training program. Adams left banking when his then-boss “told me the company already had too many generic white guys in senior management, and promoting me would only make things worse. …

Leadership Management Training
Corporate executives often book leadership management training courses for their employees in order to boost the workers’ skill sets and effectiveness when dealing with subordinates.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
A strong understanding of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs should be incorporated into any management training program. Understanding the hierarchy will help managers to understand the behaviors of their employees as they move through life. …

Management and Ethical Responsibility
Think about what you can do the next day to improve yourself. Are you setting a positive example for your employees?…

Epic Living – Leadership Development Career Management Training …
In times of crisis (economic or otherwise) organizations begin to think about leadership. Actually, they think of it often. What they do about it is another thing. I feel for those organizations that neglected growing leaders when …

Real Estate Blog – Lessons in Management – Lesson II
Here is the second installment of 6 of the Management Training. Read Lesson I before reading this one. This is an important one, so don’t miss a word. Lesson #2 A priest offered a Nun a lift. She got in and crossed her legs, …

Great Leadership: Successful Succession Management
EffortlessHR Blog · Time to vote – Bloggers Choice Awards 2009. 1 week ago. Epic Living – Leadership Development Career Management Training Executive Life Coaching Author …

Delta Airlines – Not Sweating the Small Stuff – Leadership Lessons …
Leadership Development & Management Training Resources and Topics. More Leadership Lessons from the Airline Industry – Delta Stubs Their Toe (Again) · TheManager

Brett “Cuatro” Favre and the Leadership Lesson of Humility
Leadership Development & Management Training Resources and Topics. An Update to our Leadership Lessons from Brett Favre · TheManager…

Secret Tips For Delivering a Persuasive Sales Speech …
Business Management, Training. If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! Delivering a persuasive sales speech is not really as difficult as it seems once you …

 

NY Times Hardcover Business Best Sellers – January 2009

Posted on by
Reply

 

New York Times – Hardcover Business Best Sellers – January 2009

 

A quick review of the January 2009 New York Times Hardcover Business Best Sellers list and you wouldn’t know we were in a recession. Where are all the financial survival guides? Where are all the “end is near” and Nostradamus tomes?

 

Instead of the expected flight to junk journalism full of the “how to” books that actually apply to no one, this month’s list is surprisingly loaded with many decent biographies, smart historical perspectives and controversial statistical analyses that require a deeper level of thought than we need for, say, Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover (Number 8 this month).

 

Of the quality highlights on January’s list, Outliers at Number 1 could be one of the best books released in 2008. In this great read author Malcolm Gladwell poses the question: why do some people succeed, while those with more talent/brains/brawn never reach their potential? For those of us who still think we can grow up to be anything we want, Gladwell’s challenge of our belief in the self-made man is as uncomfortable as it is depressing. Like we do with the rest of Gladwell’s work, the editors of AskTheManager highly recommend this book.

 

Another January highlight can be found in a great Warren Buffet biography by Alice Schroeder at Number 2. In fact, The Snowball is not only in the Top 5 on the NY Times list, it was also named to our list of the Ten Best Warren Buffet Books of All Time. Why would we release a list of the Top 10 Buffet Books? At last count, there were forty-seven Warren Buffet biographies currently in print, so we felt you needed a guide to decide which ones are worthy of your time. (To see our list of the 10 Best Warren Buffet Biographies, follow this link.)


 

The overall best read on this month’s list (showing its staying power more than three years after its release) is Number 11’s Freakonomics. As loyal readers of this blog know, Freakonomics is expected be released as a feature-length documentary later this year. (To read our recent interview with Freakonomics producer Chad Troutwine, follow this link.)

 

The Top Five – NY Times Business Hardcover Best Sellers January 2009 (to view the entire list, follow this link):

 

This
Month

 

Last
Month

1

OUTLIERS, by Malcolm Gladwell. (Little, Brown, $27.99.) Why some people succeed — it has to do with luck and opportunities as well as talent — from the author of “Blink” and “The Tipping Point.”

1

2

THE SNOWBALL, by Alice Schroeder. (Bantam, $35.) The life of Warren Buffett.

2

3

HOT, FLAT, AND CROWDED, by Thomas L. Friedman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.95.) How a green revolution can renew America, by the New York Times columnist.

3

4

THE ASCENT OF MONEY, by Niall Ferguson. (Penguin Press, $29.95.) A financial history of the world, stressing the link between politics and economics.

5

5

CALL ME TED, by Ted Turner with Bill Burke. (Grand Central, $30.) The entrepreneur’s personal story.

4

 

Catch Your Limit: Management Consultancy, Leadership Blog and Fish Cleaning Service

Posted on by
1

 

Great Leadership Blog Worthy of Special Mention – CatchYourLimit.com

As our regular readers know, we produce four semi-regular Blogwatch series covering Time Management, Sales Management, Management Training and Leadership Development. In these series we attempt to help you cut through the clutter and discover great writing and great advice.

While we think we do a pretty good job of culling the crud, we sometimes overlook great blogs. When we do, we’re excited when readers bring these wonderful sites to our attention.

One of our readers turned us on to a great Leadership Development website that had not been a part of our Blogwatch series, called CatchYourLimit.com. This site and its accompanying blog are the brainchild of an innovative leadership consulting company known as Catch Your Limit.

What makes Catch Your Limit so innovative is their approach to management and leadership consulting that moves away from the starched shirts and toward what really matters: coaching; accountability; consistency and cleaning fish. (Long story, you have to read their About Us page to understand.)




Based on what we learned about this innovative consultancy and their great blog, we hereby amend yesterday’s Leadership Development Blogwatch and add the following post:

Transparency is to Employee Engagement as Failure is to Innovation

Leaders will never gain the trust of their employees, especially in uncertain times without a significant level of transparency. As innovation needs experimentation and failure, employees need transparency from leadership for engagement to take place.

One of the difficulties many organizations are facing is transitioning from a “corporate memo” top down communication culture to having honest and candid conversations with their employees. The former creates an environment of rumors, gossip and anxiety while the latter allows employees to feel a certain level of security remaining engaged and productive.

Like improving the economy it’s easier said than done. It isn’t easy to tell people they may lose their job. It isn’t easy to discuss a negative financial outlook…

(To read the rest of this article and other great posts on CatchYourLimit.com, please follow this link.)