Monthly Archives: April 2009

Lazy Kids and the End of Entrepreneurship in America

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The Future of Entrepreneurship in America

I noticed something strange while sitting on my front porch today: A professional landscaping crew of seven had descended on my cul-de-sac to industriously cut the lawns and trim the bushes at my home and the homes of my neighbors on either side.

While this same event happens twice each week during this time of year, it finally struck me as odd today when I realized that there were children of lawn-mowing-age living under our very roofs. In fact, of the eight kids occupying our three homes, five of them are old enough to mow lawns. (While I began mowing neighborhood lawns for cash at 9, I am only counting those kids 11 and above as being of lawn-mowing-age.)


Help Wanted: Lawn Mowing Tweens and Teens

It’s not like we never offered to let our children mow our lawns for cash. I have offered, begged, cajoled and even pleaded with both of my sons of lawn-mowing-age to let me keep the cash in the family. My oldest mowed twice last year, though once he had earned enough cash to acquire whatever video game he simply had to have at the moment, he lost interest. (We “allowed” him to lose interest because he seemed unwilling or unable to edge or trim; a feature we enjoy with our current professional landscapers.) Likewise, my neighbors have used every tactic known to mankind to see their kids on the business end of a lawnmower, all with no luck.

Something has changed over the past few decades. While I’d prefer not to sound like my father or grandfather and lament about how “this generation blah, blah, blah;” it’s important to mention that my current neighbors and I literally fought with kids in our respective neighborhoods to mow the lawns, trim the bushes or shovel the snow of childless homeowners back in the 1970’s and 80’s.

What does all of this mean?

The End of Entrepreneurship in America

American fathers and mothers of school-aged children should sit down when they read this: Your kids are destined to lead a life of indentured servitude. They don’t share the American Dream that made Gates a billionaire and Obama a President. They want everything handed to them, and that simply will not happen in the real world.

I wish the news was better, but it seems they are lazy and they are ungrateful and they’ve lost the Great American Spirit and innate entrepreneurship that built such lasting companies as Lehman Brothers, WorldCom and Enron.

The good news is that they can always get jobs as landscapers.

Proper Filenames are Critical to Proper Business Etiquette

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Sometimes You Have to be a Prick to Those Outside of Your Company

 

I just received the March 2009 purchase report from one of our company’s 50+ vendors who provide such recaps. This particular vendor chose to name the file MyCompanyMarch.xls. By “MyCompanyMarch,” I mean he put the name of my company and the month in the filename… and nothing else. I could scream. What in the world was he thinking? Clearly, he was not.

 

Imagine if all of the vendors we dealt with used the same filename nomenclature as this self-centered simpleton. If that were the case, I’d have more than fifty files on my laptop all named MyCompanyMarch.xls. Now imagine if we’d been doing business with these fifty-odd companies for a number of years; I could potentially have hundreds of files all named MyCompanyMarch.xls. Suppose I needed to find the March 2006 recap from Vendor Z; could I easily locate this file? Of course it would be cumbersome, because this vendor wasn’t thinking of the audience when he named his file, just himself.

 

Yeah, But the Vendor Can Find the File

 

When this vendor peruses through his files, he’ll easily spot the one he sent me this week. The data will be at his fingertips and he can look like a hero to anyone who asks him to retrieve it. He named the file for himself, not me. Of course, if he plans to keep his job longer than 12 months he should add the year to his filenames. Though I doubt he’ll still be employed next April. On the off chance he is, I wonder if his March 2010 recap to me will be named MyCompanyMarch2010.xls. Probably not; it’s likely that someone this unthinking will never bother to change the way they do something as meaningless as naming files.

 

(Of course, naming files is not meaningless. I just wrote that to see if you were paying attention.)


 

Using Proper Filenames is Critical to Maintaining a Free Society

 

Filenames on your computer, whether they are monthly recaps for your customers or your resume for a prospective employer, should reflect not only what you want to know about the file, but more importantly, what the intended audience wants to know about the file. Here are some examples of bad filenames (all of which I have received) and better alternatives:

 

  • Bad filename: MyResume.doc. Good filename: Smith.John.Resume.doc.
  • Bad filename: CustomerNameMonth.xls. Good filename: VendorName.CustomerName.Description.MMYYYY.xls (for example: AcmeWidgets.WidgetRetailer.OrderHistory.032009.xls).
  • Bad filename: CustomerNameProposal.ppt. Good filename VendorName.CustomerName.Proposal.MMYYY.ppt.

 

Is There a Leadership Lesson Here?

 

Not everything on AskTheManager.com comes with a leadership lesson. Sometimes, we just like to rant. Though it’s a little bit of stretch, we do think there is something leaders can learn from this.

 

Jimmy Dugan was a good leader. Despite his alcoholism and apathy, he was able to get the most out of his team. And although his team lost the AAPGL Championship (of course he was missing his best player, Dottie Hinson), his leadership helped turn a bunch of girls into accomplished ballplayers… not an easy task, even in a fictional world.

 

The next time you’re faced with a vendor, an applicant or a prospective vendor-partner who provides you with a file that includes an inconsiderate or idiotic filename, you need to take a deep breath and a page out of Jimmy Dugan’s book. I suggest using Jimmy’s words of wisdom that he provided to right fielder Evelyn Gardner: “Start using your head. That’s the lump that’s three feet above your ass.”

 

Sometimes you have to be a prick.

Secretary Duncan Should Wear a Dunce Cap

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Lessons on Leadership and Humanity from Arne Duncan

 

As we wrote last month in our post about local school administrators: “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t teach, become administrators.” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is the administrator of all administrators.

 

On Tuesday, Secretary Duncan was in Denver proclaiming that American children should attend school more hours each day, six or seven days each week and eleven or twelve months each year. For those of you who didn’t attend enough school to understand what that means, that’s roughly equal to at least 85% more classroom time for every child between the ages of five and eighteen. (Did Duncan bother to do the math before he made these statements? It’s hard to believe that the former head of the mediocre Chicago Public Schools really intended to propose that we increase the amount of classroom time by 85%.)

 

As the parent of three school-age children, I can tell you that more education does not equal better education. But that, my friends, is an argument for another day. (And let’s not even try to find out who is going to pay for 85% more schooling.)


 

China and India and Bears, Oh My!

 

“You’re competing for jobs with kids from India and China. I think schools should be open six, seven days a week; eleven, twelve months a year,” Duncan told a bored group of middle-schoolers in Denver.

 

His statement begs three questions: 1) What jobs? 2) Is more K-12 education the key to landing these mysterious jobs? And 3) Is this what life is all about?  

 

What Jobs?

 

Exactly what jobs are our children competing for with kids from India and China? Thirty-five cents per hour sweatshop jobs in China, or the $10,000 per year programming jobs in India? Perhaps Duncan was referring to the outflow of call center jobs to Indian companies that pay upwards of $5,000 per year. We can’t be sure, but we are fairly certain that you can’t even get an uneducated American to work for those wages.

 

Is More K-12 Education the Key to Landing These Mysterious Jobs?

 

Let’s give Arne Duncan the benefit of the doubt for a moment and say that there are indeed American jobs that can be saved. Is more education the key to landing these jobs? Can Duncan provide any guarantees that subjecting our children to 85% more schooling before they turn eighteen will have any effect on their ability to perform these jobs?

 

As someone with a public education (from elementary school through college) and a pretty good day job, I can tell you that I have interacted with hundreds of people (foreign and domestic) with more education than me who couldn’t perform my job with twice the training I’ve had. What I bring to my company (and what millions of others across the globe bring to theirs) cannot be taught with more hours of primary education – you either get it or you don’t. What counts in my job are business acumen, deductive reasoning and a high I.Q. – these are likely not going to be part of Duncan’s super-sized curriculum.

 

Is This What Life is All About?

 

Assuming Duncan is 100% right about everything; I have to know if this is what life is all about. Are we meant to be cogs fighting for national supremacy? Should we all start wearing our country’s colors and chant anti-globalization slogans? Do we want our kids to become over-educated automatons? Do we care at all about their personal, social and/or spiritual growth?

 

Duncan’s poorly planned proposal leaves no room for afterschool activities like the Mock Trial Club (which could help make some kid a great attorney), the Fashion Club (which could help make some kid a top designer), or the Operation Smile Club (which could help make some kid a terrific human being). (Yes, these clubs and millions like them exist in our schools today. We found these three at the Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School right around the corner from Duncan’s D.C. office.)

 

Duncan’s plan leaves no room for summer vacations to the Grand Canyon, Gettysburg or even Disney World. It leaves no room for summer camps or overseas trips. In other words, Duncan’s Folly leaves no room for discovery or wonder or life; it only leaves room for books.

 

I really don’t care if my kids land great jobs or if children in India and China get those gigs; I just want my kids to be satisfied with who they become and the choices they make. Of course, I’m especially hopeful they’ll make a difference in this world.

 

Taking away their childhood and everything that makes America a great place to live is not the answer, and shoving their nose in a book for eleven months a year will not help them do anything meaningful.

 

 

The Tazie Effect – Turning Life’s Defining Moments Into Personal and Professional Greatness

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TheManager’s Leadership Book Review

In what may become a regular feature of AskTheManager.com, we tackle the sometimes thankless task of reviewing the work of a published author. While you could argue that we’ve provided book reviews in the past with our Ten Best Leadership Books or our Ten Best Decision Making Books lists, this time it’s different… this time it’s about a single book: whether we love it or hate it, you’ll know where we stand.

The Tazie Effect, by Heather Whittaker

The first thing you realize when you are about to crack open The Tazie Effect is its incredible lack of girth. Just 66 pages separate the beginning of the first chapter and the end of the last – and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Too often leadership books are written for the glorification of the writer, not the education of the reader. The Tazie Effect focuses concisely on nine specific areas where leaders can develop their craft. More pages would be unnecessary.

Written with the belief that we can learn much about leadership from a six-pound blind dog who is called, among other things, Tazie Roo, The Tazie Effect attempts to weave solid leadership advice with examples about how this pooch lives her life. This, unfortunately, is where the book barks up the wrong tree. (Fortunately, this is the only place where it falters.) The connections between this little dog and the leadership advice doled out by Ms. Whittaker are tenuous at best. At worst, those who don’t love dogs the way the author does might be turned off by the amount of attention paid to and credit given this pup. In some ways it’s like the tail wagging the dog.




Stop Dogging this Book!

Okay, now let me throw the author a bone… Once I got past the precious Tazie Roo’s inability to teach me real leadership skills and simply read the material provided, I was impressed. Ms. Whittaker is clearly a gifted leader and a gifted writer, and her book deserves the attention it will surely receive.

Whittaker weaves in real world (human) leadership examples very well and provides lessons that any leader – young or old – can easily understand and incorporate into their work lives. Her words are well chosen and the advice she provides is solid. The Tazie Effect is void of unnecessary magic bullets, tips or tricks, and instead focuses on long term, life changing principles in the simplest form.

While The Tazie Effect is not the next One Minute Manager, I can see the value organizations will likely place on this book as a housebreaking tool for new managers and as a reinforcement of the skill sets of their senior leaders. (You can’t, obviously, teach an old dog new tricks.) It also seems likely that progressive companies could build their leadership development programs around its concepts, using the book as a cornerstone of their efforts.

The Recommendation

If you are a canine-loving leader who can’t resist speaking baby talk every time you come face-to-face with a four-legged friend, then this book is definitely for you. If you’re like most managers in the American workplace, and you’re more concerned about what happens to you than to some little dog, then this book is… still for you.

Let’s face it, with so much psychobabble BS passing itself off as leadership development; it’s nice to find a quick, effective read that meets the needs of its intended audience – even if they’re not all dog lovers. With that, I can confidently and doggedly recommend this book to anyone looking to improve their leadership skills.

(To order The Tazie Effect, visit Amazon.com.)

NY Times Business Hardcover Best Sellers – April 2009

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New York Times – Hardcover Business Best Sellers – April 2009

 

It’s déjà vu all over again as the April 2009 New York Times Hardcover Business Best Sellers list looks a lot like what we saw in March and February. Just as those months revealed America’s concern over the economy through our reading choices, April continues this trend. In fact, both of the newcomers to the April Top Five deal specifically with the current financial turmoil; making Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers the only outlier on the list.

 

Besides Gladwell and the newbies, The Great Depression Ahead, by Harry Dent and Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover round out the Top Five. We, of course, recommend neither of these books, so we find it quite strange that they remain in the Top Five. Perhaps if we quit pointing out what we dislike about them, they will just go away.

 

Outside of the Top 5, we feel compelled to highlight Jonathan Lehrer’s How We Decide at Number 6. This terrific read is moving the NY Times list likely because we named it to our Ten Best Decision Making Books Ever list last month.

 

How We Decide, as we revealed last month, introduces the reader to many concepts surrounding behavioral psychology and economics, and how these affect our decision making. This book is loaded with entertaining information that will stimulate your thoughts about how we think and make decisions in response to the complex situations we face. Although this book is enjoyable, it falls a little short in helping the reader uncover clear rules for making better decisions. (Still a recommended read, however.)

 




The Top Five – NY Times Business Hardcover Best Sellers April 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

HOUSE OF CARDS, by William D. Cohan. (Doubleday, $27.95.) The fall of Bear Stearns and the beginning of the Wall Street collapse.

 

3

THE GREAT DEPRESSION AHEAD, by Harry S. Dent Jr. (Free Press, $27.) A financial prognosticator anticipates further market crashes and an extended downturn, but sees a way for savvy investors to prosper.

2

4

PEAKS AND VALLEYS, by Spencer Johnson. (Atria, $19.95.) Making both good and bad times work for you personally and pro­fessionally. (†)

 

5

THE TOTAL MONEY MAKEOVER, by Dave Ramsey (Thomas Nelson, $24.99.) Debt reduction and fiscal fitness for families, by the radio talk-show host. (†)

4