The Information Resistance Paradox

Ominous sounding name, but it is a concept that we all know: We'd like to be cutting edge thinkers, breaking new barriers, leading the vanguard of change in our companies and industries, but gee, I kinda have a meeting, some phone calls to return and then I have to go drop off a proposal and. . .

Such is life. But if we are all too busy for business, when does "progress" get done? When and how do new, valuable ideas for our companies and clients get thought up, passed around, adjusted, tested and implemented? When do OUR parades come, instead of us simply following behind someone else's fiesta with a shovel and a bucket?

Well, we're all busy. But somehow, we're never too busy to make time for that which we love or are deeply engaged with. Learning can be that way. Oddly enough, in this time we call the Information Age, there are more facts, discoveries, theories and new opportunities for learning than at any time in the history of anybody.

And that's the problem. Too many choices, not enough filters or grading systems to help us prioritize our focus or energy in the face of the onslaught. We're busy. We're suspicious. We're all tired.

Until... the "right" thing comes along.

Let's break it down:

We want "new," but we don't want to be taught. Advertising and marketing for example, at their core, are teaching. As practiced by 90% of the world, it's teaching done poorly. It offers all the excitement and interest we recall from our 11th grade reading and discussion of the old English classic, Beowulf. Zzzzzzz.

As business leaders, we find ourselves endorsing--make that mandating--the equivalent of insisting our customers eat their spinach when we offer education in the form of advertising.

* We're awash in opinions and information--alternatives and challenges to our assumptions of how things work. The more information, the higher our mental sanity/sentry wall.

* Teaching/sharing of information is viewed with suspicion by all thanks to its co-option by commerce. We've all been victims of educatinal bait and switch, resulting in the disappointing revelation at some point that, "oh....damn, they're just trying to sell me something."

* Dilemma - a reflexive, baby-with-the-bathwater protective response, yet, a reality nonetheless: good products remain undiscovered, helpful messages go unheard.

* Challenge - Overcoming the mental sentry wall requires an understanding that it's built with three different kinds of "bricks":

BRICK 1. A presumption that "I already know most of what I need to know to function effectively." Another way this idea gets circulated is "It may not be perfect, it may be ugly, but if it aint broke, don't fix it."

BRICK 2. A self-reinforcing "perception/reality" loop: I resist --> I acquiesce --> I buy (or buy into) --> I'm disappointed --> Therefore, I resist again-->

BRICK 3. Finally, there is a "Complexity/Personality" loop: "Simple is easier-->simple is more effective-->I'm not good at hard things-->Therefore, complexity/nuance is wasteful.

IF:

There is no "useful" new information; if new ideas are viewed with suspicion as being only commercially motivated and only beneficial to the deliverer, not the receiver; if prescriptive thought is an absent skill or one we don't have the time or inclination to practice...

SO:

How does progress occur?
How does innovation get accepted?
How do we become parents or portents of beneficial and profitable change if we're not even willing to date?

THEN:

Remove the bricks, perhaps starting backwards, Number 3 first.

Entertain the idea that "simple" is not easier, just more intuitive. It's just more obvious on its face--once you *really* know what corporate anatomy and musculature supports that face. It is natural, it "fits". But we only learn this through the process of discovery. "Simple" often reveals itself after years of trying. We finally get "the point." This can take a nanosecond--the "click", the moment of recognition--or, it can take years. Since action is what we're looking for in business, let's focus on the former.

What, exacly, is a "click" moment? It's that time when your mental and emotional picture of something aligns perfectly over the top of someone else's worldview. You're sympatico on the levels that matter to you both. (Two, or 258 million.)

All well and good, but how do you replicate something as nebulous as that?

Well, since this is about connecting in a meaningful, profitable way with your fellow man, why not start by asking what does meaningful mean? How do they judge people, places, events and things? (Yes, your product or service is a "thing" but lets not get ahead of ourselves.)

Meaning, for many, is just by a set of ethical benchmarks that vary from person to person in their weight, but carry a common credibility for us all. Psychiatrists call them ethical norms; philosophers call them intrinsic goods, theologians call them virtues (and sins).

Truth, justice, faith, beauty, merit, compassion, inspiration are all things we wish for ourselves and admire in others. Although they are high-minded (and what's so dumb about exploring that in our businesses?), you'll notice omnipotence, perfection and the ability to fly like Superman weren't in the group. That's because these are real, deep, personal perceptions for realistic people. These ideals are ingrained as elements of character to shoot for and to judge the actions and statements of others by.

As realists, busy ones, these same people are often frustrated in achieving these things by their circumstances or surroundings, but that doesn't make them any less salient or vital to their inner lives and dreams. Just the opposite, it makes these things more powerful. If a person, place or thing demonstrates to our satisfaction that they share our “values sliderule”, then trust results--and those bricks begin falling away.

In their place, this confirmation of shared purpose resulting from real conversations about the building blocks of purpose--ideals--leads to the formation of bonds. And bonds are the only rare commodity in this world. Perhaps that makes them an anti-commodity, which, relative to business is another valuable reason to take them seriously. And bonds, as we've noted elsewhere, generate communities. And, another word for community is company. Or city. Or brand.

Company. City. Brand.

For the better balanced ones at least, our perception of those three seemingly separate entities, our reverence and jealous protection, care and feeding of them comes from the same place in our hearts and in our brains: They matter to us, because in large ways or small, they demonstrate another rarity: Truth. In ways simple, continued and authentic, they show that we matter to them by measuring and representing themselves with the only metric that matters to us: Encouragement.

Truth and Encouragement. Character bundled within Humanity. A proxy for You.

"The right thing" that comes along and knocks down walls. And rekindles belief and renews energy.

Who knows, sometimes, it may even be brought to you by Company ABC or City XYZ.

No fair: was unfair.

First things first: Wow, you're very kind and I'm glad you enjoy reading. Thanks! Seriously.

Next things next: Ever heard the advice about never going grocery shopping when you're hungry? Mega mea culpa. I think I broke the "never post after a difficult week while feeling shagged out and beat up" commandment. I guess I was really wondering--out loud and impolitely--"if a tree falls in the woods..." or something like that. So, sorry for that, and again, thanks for the kind words of support and shared ambition. [/Wingeing mode]

And that, funnily enough, brings me to another, sunnier, first:

Maybe it was harmonic convergence or synchronicity or something, but Sunday found me bound for Harrisburg, PA, home of our mutual friend and fellow blogger, Jon Strande of Business Evolutionist fame. Jon and his lovely wife, Lisa, graciously hosted and showed me the sights of Greater Harrisburg (lots of graffitoed cows, cool architecture, CHOCOLATE, great food and Three Mile Island!). In between all of us comparing thoughts on pets, kids, candy, world domination, and world peace, Jon and I had a great chance to share how each of us do our thing and why. Oddly enough, we kept finding ourselves at bookstores drinking coffee, or at coffee shops talking ideas, with even more ideas flying to fill in the transit time between. Needless to say, quite a pleasure, and yes, he's even cooler and smarter than he lets on. I'm sure we'll both be sharing more about stuff we're working on in the near future.

We now return you to our regular yards of text programming.

No fair

I know you're reading. I know you come back.

I know you have ideas and opinions.

So where the hell are they?

I'm feeling rambunctious. This blog is a way for me to think out loud. To share what I'm thinking and doing. This stuff tracks the information I'm paid to give and sworn to create. This is the good shit.

Where are you in this Equation?

I'm gonna stop sharing billable thoughts if we don't get the comments thing going.

I know you're reading. I know you come back. I know you have ideas and opinions.

Share them.

"Climb ev'ry mountain" Cliff Notes version

...The entrepreneur's dilemma: We are allowed to make it very personal, to actualize ourselves in the extreme through our business efforts. For us it's not business, it is personal. But the structures we then create, unless we're very careful, suck the very same passion we crave out of the efforts of similarly needy humans, those who work for and represent us. Those we count on to promote and execute our vision.

Notice, that "our vision" snippet? Usually that means: "your vision." We often impute our beliefs, values and commitment to those who merely sign on for a "A paycheck." Bad move -- not a collective and thrice-checked, "Us."

Easily fixable, but management has "real" business to attend to.

We then demand of our people "Where's the commitment!? Where's the magic, the stretch?!" Once we're done huffing, we then unleash them on unsuspecting customers who somehow sense from these employees: "Gee, it's all business with this guy. He doesn't care. He doesn't know. Where's the humanity and flexibility and can-do? Where's the power? Where's the personal?"

Ladies and germs, real difference and competitive advantage come when we allow more than a casual relationship with our motives and emotions. Real profit comes when understand those of others.

Management is necessary because people don't get the point, not because they don't know what to do. Management is often necessary because leaders don't lead. They don't provide the motivating story.

More from Fouro's Executive Lexicon and BIG Book of Business Wisdom^©

Loss Liter -- Unit of measure. Amount of alcohol consumed upon learning the brown-nose down the hall got your raise/promotion/office.

Mentorture -- The New-hire's experience of being assigned to a more senior associate to learn the ropes, only to find their primary skill is bitching about the company.

Parody Pricing -- Charging what the competition charges for a comparable offering, except yours doesn't work when customers get it home.

Peter Principal -- Indicator that certain small businesses shall remain so. Forever.

Pro Formation -- Finance. Latin for "Making Shit Up"

Youthenasia -- The belief that any idea deriving from anyone younger or less senior than you deserves to die, on principle.

Zero Defective - Company TQM Guru.

For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction

Translation: "Tommy looked at me. So I punched him."

Off to King's Dominion for Math & Science Day With Fisher 3rd & 4th Graders. Woohoo - the Physics of rollercoasters, the Biology of upchucked hotdogs, soda and cotton candy!

And the study of working groups of [junior] humans jostling to get their jollies at any cost, minus the mahogany panelling and leather chairs. Reports from the field to follow.

Dispatches from the Climb Ev’ry Mountain department

Boy, there sure is a lot of jostle and champing at the bit out there in blogville. A disturbance in The Force. I love it! Yesterday afternoon, I was pointed to Seth Godin’s post on Alpha Credit Card Execs and Beta CPAs (Fair characterization, Seth? Probably not.):

I just finished giving a talk to a group of 400 high-powered (high-leverage, high-paid) credit card execs. As I left the hotel, I passed a much smaller room, where a seminar for local CPAs was going on...

The difference, i think, was that a long time ago, the people in the second room had made a decision about what they deserved, or what they were capable of, or what they were going to stick with. And it was a bad decision.

Then, I find Business Pundit lamenting the lack of ambition and rambunction in companies:

Talk is cheap. I guess that is why so many people talk about being great but never do anything about it.... I. Don't. Understand. Sometimes I think we benchmark not to see if we are better than our competitors, but to make sure we are all doing the same things so that we can feel comfortable.... I think most companies are confined to mediocrity because they want to do what everyone else is doing. It gives them a sense of confidence that they are on the right track when in truth they are just playing follow the leader.

And, in comments, vinod has this:

Generally, there are only 2 [opportunties] to get out of "Chasing Taillights" mode -

1) at the VERY START of the venture - before any revenue commitments are made, employee orgs are designed, relationships with external firms are constructed, etc. This is the "having sex" part of new venture creation ;-) You've got a blank slate.

2) AFTER the company is profitable / out of the woods - when the short / medium term health is secure, and you've got enough time / $$$ to fund exploration.

Fair enough. But relative to what Seth, Rob and vinod are saying is this point: many of these people are only following the rules as they’ve been set out for them. Set out wrongly. In my estimation, we see the tail wagging the dog of what Business is really about: Allowing men and women to exercise their creativity and energy, with profit as proof of their success, not a ring through their noses.

In that vein, let's add another, third bullet, to vinod's above--one I think has far more probability of occurring than his "#2":

Henry Kissinger once said "A lack of choices clears the mind marvelously." When companies are against the wall, when every available arrow in their quiver has been shot and missed, their "sliderules" are failing them, they then become open to new ideas; teachable, as it were.

Large scale case: Chrysler was in the dumper several times in the last few decades. In many instances their problems stemmed from a lack of leading their market and getting stodgy and bureaucratic, causing finance/senior management to dictate strategic risk choices due to their lesser size relative to competitiors. This led finance to go to the only bag of tricks they knew and felt comfortable with. Messy, wrong acquisitions and projects as silver bullets and "leapfrog " moves--Lamborghini, for instance. I'm simplifying for space, but these suit-centric choices, if you will, got them in holes and delivered them to death's door. At this point, many traditionalist auto-types gave up on Chrysler and bailed for another "host". Suits gone, guys like Bob Lutz, were allowed a "What the F*ck," last ditch effort. In other words, freer reign.

("Whadawegot to lose?" Who was watching to say, "NO"? )

What did Lutz do? He raided design schools and foreign and unusual sources and shipped in a hot rod culture and let them go to it... Cars built for love of curve and metal, for love of cars. Bing bang boom, Viper. Using a V10 development people in finance hated because of parts economics of scale, and because it wasn't their idea in the first place. Next: Prowler. Next PTs. Next: Curvy-fendered Ram pick-ups when the trend was to GM's boxy longbed frame and body of the 1500s and Suburban genre.

They were designing cars people suddenly "had to have." Lotta craft, lotta love, lotta intuition, and Bob Lutz out front running interference with his "First law": The customer is not always right. In this case, he meant designing to the customers desires, ahead of them, not to the customers specifications, which was what previous management had done with focus groups and market testing concepts to death--not one, but three! cupholders as "design breakthrough!" He let people exercise their love and skill, used some unususal research models like cultural anthropology and resurrected a winner. Even Daimler-Benz got interested, not for Chrysler's sexy balance sheet--it still wasn't all that sexy, yet--but for their ideas.

And that brings us to the prologue. Once craft and goofy passion had generated the new appeal, guess who got re-interested and re-exerted their control? Yes, the suits. Cat's away the mice will play. The suits then went to their "craft" and engineered a very dumb M&A with D-B, two different DNA streams, poorly imagined and merged. Not impossible, but poorly understood and intuited. And now, the indigestion is getting worse. Germany and the US are at each others throats. Again, an arranged marriage signed in differing blood types, on a balance sheet, not--NOT--on a dogeared 1969 copy of a Le Mans month Autoweek, after a suitable period living in sin to learn and blend each others quirks, as it should have been.

Now, race back to the 1920-30s when car manufacturers were everywhere. Look at a PT cruiser or Ram. Shape remind you of anything? A Packard, Ford, Doble, Velie, Studebaker, Hudson or Dodge of the era? Of course it does. Car designers didn't have CADCAM or statistical sampling or one way mirrors with customers behind them to guide ideas. They had their gut, their art and their craft.

Now go back further: Adam Smith. Division of Labor. 1776. Wealth of Nations. Smith knew he was onto something good. But, while he may not have seen all the effects of his newly new minted economic description, he recognized one: It’s stifling potential on people’s minds and ambition….

“if man is not asked of his work to exert his understanding, or his invention when presented with challenges, then he generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become.

Funny how most of us business types gloss over that one for the more soul-crushing but "actionable" examples of mass production Smith used in his Pin Factory example, eh?

And herein lies the entrepreneur's dilemma: We are allowed to make it very personal, to actualize ourselves in the extreme through our business efforts. For us it's not business, it is personal. But the structures we then create, unless we're very careful, suck the very same passion we crave out of the efforts of those who work for and represent us. We then demand of our people "Where's the commitment!? Where's the magic?!" Once we're done huffing, we then unleash them on unsuspecting customers who somehow sense from these employees: "Gee, it's all business with this guy. Where's the humanity and flexibility and can do? Where's the power? Where's the personal?"

Ladies and gents, Seth and Rob and Vinod are right to wonder. They're just right. It doesn't have to be that way. This way.

You have the Pole.

[Test marketing ad, Telco-client, 1997]

...I can take my tool, a hammer say, and build a chair with it. Nice service. That helps people. Or, I can take my tool, my hammer, and bash someone's kneecaps with it.... The insults to psyche and the resulting overload stands to soon tilt things on their axis. It must. Turbocharged entropy will do that to systems. They get manic. They generate shrapnel.

Hmmm. Looks like Ad Age, of all people, has been pondering "shrapnel":

Why Public Sentiment Is Rising Against Relentlessly Intrusive Marketing

According to a new Yankelovich Partners poll, 65% of Americans say they are "constantly bombarded with too much" advertising; 61% think the quantity of advertising and marketing they are exposed to "is out of control"; 60% report that their view of advertising is "much more negative than just a few years ago."

Popular protests

Responding to sports fans' disgust over the sale of naming rights, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors restored the name Candlestick Park to its baseball stadium, which became the first pro sports arena to return to its popular name because of popular protest. In Denver, Mayor John Hickenlooper rose to prominence as the lead opponent to the sale of naming rights to Mile High Stadium. The placement of ads on pro baseball uniforms and batting helmets drew a spate of negative news coverage this month, a letter from a U.S. senator and a New York Times editorial.

Advertisers are being expelled from schools in droves. Channel One, the in-school advertising service, was removed last school year from Nashville, and will soon be kicked out of Seattle. New restrictions on the marketing or sale of soda or junk food in school have been approved in places such as California, Texas, New York City and Philadelphia.

Formidable opponents

These are just a few flashpoints. I could list many more. The point is that the advertising industry is growing a formidable list of opponents. It would do the industry some good to ponder why this is happening. The main reason, I suspect, is that the industry abides no limits or boundaries. There seems to be almost nowhere that the industry won't stick an ad...

Lack of respect

The industry's implicit message is a total lack of respect for our time, our privacy, our attention, our peace of mind, and not least for our concerns about our kids. "Your attention is ours," the industry says, in effect. "We are entitled to it at every moment." This implicit disrespect for consumers is starting to overwhelm the explicit messages that each advertiser is trying to get across.

The industry's disrespect is obvious in the spread of coercive advertising. If advertising were popular, why would the industry force us to watch it? But it does; the industry takes advantage of captive audiences in schools, colleges, movie theaters, airport lounges, mass transit and at ATMs, gas pumps and doctors' offices, among other places...

Good and sensible article, from a business and a public policy angle: if advertising doesn't stop throwing spaghetti at the wall, they're gonna be forced to behave. As noted above, turbocharged entropy, borne of desperation. A lack of original thinking and a cost benefit analysis leaving consumers transparently on the short end shows that a business built on winning friends and loyalty is has been seriously upside down. Another case of numbers winning over sensing. Too bad.

[update: Looks like Johnnie Moore has been noodling the Yankelovich Study and "Reciprocity"...

I don't want to live in a world of mere transactional efficiency. When I go to a shop I don't want the staff merely to cow tow in an effort to make my life fractionally more efficient. I don't want every communication I receive to conform merely to some anxious guess as to what I might want to hear. I am willing to be suprised, provoked, and engaged... I don't expect to be placated. I don't expect to be treated with precision by a company as I'm not a cog in a machine but flesh and blood. I don't want to be the cause of unnecessary anxiety... I'd quite like to be treated as the fallible human being that I am, by others who are willing to admit some fallibility.

Yeah, me neither. Now, what's the metric that allows a pressured telemarketer to leave well enough alone before burning their bridges? What's the imperative that encourages a marketer to help me find solutions to my challenge, even if their product isn't it?

Inflation Rises
as Oil Prices Soar

Gwyneth Paltrow
has New Baby

Jockey Takes New
Fame in Stride



Google NewsMap

Newsmap is an application that visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the Google News news aggregator. A treemap visualization algorithm helps display the enormous amount of information gathered by the aggregator. Treemaps are traditionally space-constrained visualizations of information. Newsmap's objective takes that goal a step further and provides a tool to divide information into quickly recognizable bands which, when presented together, reveal underlying patterns in news reporting across cultures and within news segments in constant change around the globe.

Newsmap does not pretend to replace the googlenews aggregator. It's objective is to simply demonstrate visually the relationships between data and the unseen patterns in news media. It is not thought to display an unbiased view of the news, on the contrary it is thought to ironically accentuate the bias of it.

Link: Tacitus

Brain, Metaphor, Archetype, Brand. Part 2.5

Well, of all the posts in this jumble of non-billable hours, the series on my (or, rather, my company's) take on what makes people tick seems to have a life of it's own. Part III, likewise, is morphing into a book unto itself. But to those who've been patient in their emails asking, "Where the hell is part III?!", a little fix to tide you over.

Some are still hazy as to why brand matters beyond marketing, or how brands are really a misunderstood place holder for deeper meaning. Or why brand and leadership, or the lack of either, are intricately entwined. Phew.

And then, happily, some are coming along for the ride, putting the pieces together and whomping their heads, saying, "Wow, I could have had A V-8!" Or something like that. Okay. Let's try and start tying this together.

We left things in Part II, promising some examples of archetypes in brand-motion... and to explain why "Survivor", "American Idol", "The Apprentice" and "Junkyard Wars" have some of the most brand-loyal viewerships going.

R-Complex boredom.

Education author Eric Jensen, in Arts with the Brain in Mind reveals that "America is a feeling-phobic society." This goes in spades for subgroups filled with "Professional Adults" called corporations. Of course, the feelings are still there and very active. They're just non-sanctioned, unofficial "elephants" taking up space and sapping oxygen. And this reveals a paradox for most businesses interested in moving product: many have no firm idea what moves people. Nor do they have processes to share this knowledge. That's hardly surprising. Most organizations are configured to hard facts, heavy analysis, and predictable results. Bureaucracies define themselves by their aim for consistency. What is surprising is that that bland paste of "consistency" equates to figurative "death" to our R-complexes. If there is no challenge "I am dead and useless" goes the brain imprint. And people shut down. Or they move on. Or they fight.


click to enlarge

Our brains--at least the parts willing to exert for ambition and spend for affirmation of identity, these parts recoil at spadework and predictability. And they have unique ways of showing themselves, depending on the circumstance. For example, have you ever asked yourself why "Survivor" or "Junkyard Wars", "American Idol" or "The Apprentice" or even Extreme Sports blasted so powerfully onto the American scene?

R-Complex boredom. These shows or activities feed our primal need to face and identify with challenge. Notice that some are solo efforts, some are teams, but all are ensembles. Each has conflict, alliance and resolution. Each has winners and losers. Each is personal, not abstract. Each is simple in its outcome.

That's because simplicity and rigid black and white choices--the R-complex's definition of Authenticity--is what's missing from modern life. For some of us, watching a TV show is enough of a fix. But most need more... [Continued Here]

Dispatches from The Bullet Points We Respect Department

• Number of seconds that the average American can wait for an elevator before becoming visibly agitated : 40

• Rank of “Education” among priorities of new parents: 1

• Average number of U.S. Public-schoolchildren per PTA member: 7

• Chance that U.S. parents require that children do their homework before watching TV: 1 in 12

• Rank of “listening to other students” among classroom activities that schoolchildren find the most boring : 1


Source: Harper's Index

Culled this and some other stats for a recent project. I left out all the sourcing here, but Harper's footnotes every stat in case you're not familiar with The Index.

We think we know...

Who we are selling to. And what we are selling. And when.

We say "people." Or, "People matter." Or "people buy on emotion and justify on logic."

Those things are all true. Very true. Definitively true. In who, what, and where senses.

Now, how often do we spend time discussing "people" as opposed to "TPS reports"?

Where's your "Why?"

Have you defined a dictionary of "People Attributes" that guide your conversations and the resulting actions?

Do finance people, the number counters, get a chance to share air with HR and similar "people counters", in order to find congruent leverage between numbers and flesh? Seriously. Congruence. LEVERAGE. Are you finding reason that this should occur and leveraging your reputation and power that this should happen?

Wanna know a goofy secret? Passion, plumbed and permitted, are the answer. People, not process, plan or Pert Chart are the answer.

Deeper, but not harder; different, but not difficult answers are the answer. Patience (not: unknowing hasty action) propels.

HR deeply wants to be respected by R&D. R&D knows they're not people people--and know that's their weakness. Sales and Marketing respects what Finance is capable of doing. Finance "gets" that without sales they have nothing to count. Everybody knows that production is the engine, just like everybody knows that armies are really run by sergeants, not generals.

Another?

CEOs don't "know" what they're doing. They just make it up on the fly.

Know what? That's their job. Managing unpredictability, I mean. Dealing with "sh*t happens." Important point. When they forget it, that's when they start to say and do stupid stuff. Mahogany paneling will make you do that. Stupid stuff.

Stupid, like forgetting you're one of the "guys." And, that ALL the guys -- providing and buying the product -- want to be Spartacus.

Tigers and pyschopaths and companies, oh my

Ain't irony great? In the post prior to this one I streamed a bit on Tigers as metaphor for ambitious people and letting them run in organizations. Then, I check out one of my favorite blogs, BusinessPundit, and the proprietor, Rob, has a piece on the new film, The Corporation.

I have a feeling I won't like this movie.

.... People on both sides of the globalisation debate should pay attention. Unlike much of the soggy thinking peddled by too many anti-globalisers, “The Corporation” is a surprisingly rational and coherent attack on capitalism's most important institution.

Its central premise is that Corporations are afforded the rights of "people," and that they then exercise their peoplehood in the form of the Pyschopath. There's even a checklist of red flag behaviors and, yep, Corps fit them all.

Rob's comments box is filling with the usual yeas and nays, from the expected points of view, predominantly business-person-centric, but sage. Commenter Jonathan had this:

The Wall Street Journal covered this as well, part of what they had to say:

.... Soon, all the boxes are checked off--from 'callous unconcern for the feelings of others' to 'an incapacity to maintain enduring relationships.' On screen, Robert Hare, a psychiatrist who consults on psychopaths for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, concludes: 'In many respects, corporations are the prototypical psychopath.'"

Back to the "irony." After reading Jonathan's snippet I realized that, viewed a certain way, Tigers are psychopaths too. "Callous unconcern for the feelings of others." "An incapacity to maintain enduring relationships." Tigers are eating, procreating Sharks of the land. They're biological machines whose prime directive is to survive. Since they're animals, we don't call them psychopaths though, yes? They just are. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly. Tigers hafta hunt you down and kill you.

But we're animals too. I know this because I read it in a book somewhere. We eat, we procreate, we attack, we defend. And, like some animals, we use tools. But unlike the rock an otter uses to bash open a mussel--aah, psychopath! Murder!--our tools increasingly come with warning labels. Usually, the result of someone with the brain of an otter deciding that, oh, I dunno, blow drying your hair while still in the tub was smart time-management.

So remember: No otters, tigers or blow dryers while you're still in the tub.

How about corporations?

Seriously, the corporation is a device, a tool, a machine operated by sentient things called people, isn't it? I can take my tool, a hammer say, and build a chair with it. Nice service. That helps people. Or, I can take my tool, my hammer, and bash someone's kneecaps with it.

Now, I can say "a hammer is just a hammer, birds gotta sing, hammer's gotta swing." I can say "in the course of swinging my hammer to drive the final nail in my beautiful chair, I didn't see the gentleman behind me who's now wearing the tang of that hammer in his skull."

Ladies and gents (NRA members especially), tools don't kill people, careless people with tools kill people. Sure. We ask our kids to beware of the swing as they "help" us make their treehouse. We warily observe and cautiously guide as they try swinging themselves. To yield craft, not good-intended but negligent wreckage, tools require maturity, skill, foresight, knowledge and conscience.

These elements are not check boxes on any business licence I've seen posted lately. Nor any 10k. They require self-policing virtues like fortitude, justice, charity, hope, patience....


[click]

They require effort. They require character. Since these things are not standard on your typical P&L alongside Cost of Goods Sold, it seems they require official encouragement. So we get prescriptives like Sarbox Governance (Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002). What we know about communities, that they need laws and cops because people cut corners when left to their own devices, somehow seems onerous to virtual people like Corporations. And so Sarbox is but another crude leash grudgingly submitted to and externally applied on a habitual bad actor who wants restraint for others, but free reign for itself. Anti-social people suffer this necessary indignity all the time. It keeps the streets safer. But a reckless and crazy man is not hard to define. A crazy company, however.... well, I refer you to the above table again.

Corporations are not psychopaths. They are schizophrenics. At once bullies and Florence Nightingale. They are collective personalities that, like humans under stress, revert to their shadow, baser personalities of self-preservation at any cost. (Remember R-Complex?) It's funny, but 100s of billions are spent on refinement of collective standards of excellence and reward for collective entities, virtual people, called corporations. But bring up a collective corporate conscience to your average business leader and you might as well suggest jump starting a car with a fish. That would be their take. Not because they don't "get" the import of humane behavior. Hell, they demand it of their spouse, their kids, their neigbor and their tailor. They may even mandate and enforce its liberal application towards their own customers. But what about those doing the applying, providing the human customer service face for the virtual person called "work"? More and more they're asked to check their personal conscience at the elevator. Their values still matter, they just have to visit them on weekends like the children of divorce.

Big trouble. Because, in an era of accelerating fluidity, our hunger for humanity, for something--anything--that's not subject to drastic revision or obsolescence next week, or next year will be the only differentiator of sustainable business models or engines of profit. I know this because I feel it in my gut, hear it in mail rooms and board rooms, and because Rolf Jensen, Director of the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies told me so:

We are in the twilight of a society based on data. As information and intelligence become the domain of computers, society will place a new value on the one human ability that can't be automated: Emotion

That is the problem. As-built, companies are amoral tools amongst moral beings. This is not news. But the frequency, reach and signal-to-noise of corporations trumpeting their virtue while failing at the internal act is now deafening within business. It puts their modus operandi at odds with those it needs, and from whom it needs favor. That IS news. Our great-great grandparents interacted with, in a whole year, the number of people we now bump into in a single day. Those added people, being fallible people, are no more polite or perfect in their execution, just more polished in their presentation. But they and their official mistakes and oversights, excused by systemic, inert officialdom and firewalls of deniability feel like a hailstorm. The insults to psyche and the resulting overload stands to soon tilt things on their axis. It must. Turbocharged entropy will do that to systems. They get manic. They generate shrapnel.

Corporations are collective entities that through branding and PR try to appear like, and accrue, the trust, feeling, grace and goodwill accorded between fellow human beings. But, these branded entities, the false selves with factual rights, insist on claiming their ad-hoc need to freely wield dangerous implements in the presence of unarmed others. I know this because I have eyes and ears, and hang out in places with "Inc" and "Co" after their names.

In exalting the frontier, and the gold piece, while leaving the compass of empathy back East with Grandma, we get lost. We turn into the wrong kind of tigers. We get frontier injustice. We get tigers who, just like the real thing, sometimes eat their young.

Let's face it: free markets, like tigers, are not known for their humanity. Nor should they be. They wouldn't be free or be tigers otherwise. In the free-market wild, where the tigers like to play, we never leave home without our American Express card. And our gun. Amongst polite company, alongside our fellow zoo-goers, we still have the credit card, but a cage substitutes for the gun. Either-or. But definitely, something.

Oddly, the suggestion that Tigers are Nature's eating machine-tools, doesn't get people pondering your liberalness or conservatism. Warnings about tiger-safety and healthy, vigorous suspicion don't elicit yelps of "Kitty Hater!" or "Anti-animal."

We don't feel the urge to debate the need or logic of a cage or a gun in the precence of stripey carnivores, animals whose biological mission statement is "Hey, it's not personal, it's Tiger business." Perhaps most interestingly, Tiger handlers (they laugh at "tamer") have no illusions about the creatures they steward. And brave folks they are, no "paper tigers" there.

Aha. "Paper Tiger." that's a term for ineffectualness, like "All hat no cattle," "All show, no go."

Not any more. Corporations, as amoral, virtual and legal pad entities, are paper tigers of a different sort. They have all the tools--virtual teeth, claws, and far more killing weight--than the real thing. Unlike the real thing, they more and more invasively populate our daily lives and previously safe, off-limits, private areas. And, unlike the real thing, they get a voice, the loudest and most arresting roar, on the makeup of their restraints.

They usually opt for a paper cage or a pop gun.

Remember Schizophrenia? Bullies who think they're Florence Nightingale? They opt for quixotic: Idealistic without regard to practicality.

But "hope is not a plan."

As a parent, I wouldn't take my children to a zoo that demonstrates that lack of seriousness and care for its patrons' safety and comfort. I would be delusional if I did. Wouldn't I? As workers in the zoo, as builders of Paper Cages, as confiscators of guns, pop or otherwise, we'd be criminally negligent. Wouldn't we?

And, as the zookeeper, if I hushed you to hear the wonders of Nature at work as my animals mowed down the visitors, well, now that would be Pyschopathic. Wouldn't it?

Feed the tigers, ride the horses, shoot the dogs.

If you want tiger quality output, you must feed them. It doesn't say poke the tigers. Or, complain when they roar. Feed them. Not horse chow. Not dog chow. Not kitty chow. Tiger chow. You can't complain that tiger chow is more expensive or rarer or harder to dole out. You can't remind the tigers how lucky they are to have a generous tiger lover around. Don't parade them about. Don't pet them on the head and say, "Good tiger," or "Look at my Tigers." Just feed them. By finding more Tiger things for them to do. Tigers intuit by actions and opportunity. They master awareness and opportunity cost. They measure by ambience and tone; by pattern and inflection, not by words themselves. Tigers are Tigers. Your job is to prevent other people from mistaking them for an orange-striped horse. And, to keep the Tiger food fresh. Portions growing. Your job is to collect the tickets. And count the box office.


[next: Horses are not shiny mules]

Harvard Business School To Honor Bush With New Degree

In honor of the "CEO President," and in recognition of the fine advances he has brought to modern management techniques, the Harvard Business School will offer a new degree, called the "M.B.A.": Master Of Bush Administration.

Professor Stephen Hambone, Ph.D.Th. (Doctor of Thinkology), explained, "President Bush has taken delegation to an entirely new level. We used to teach that you should delegate to the most competent and intelligent individuals in your organization. But President Bush has taught us that you can delegate to anyone, as long as you don't read their reports."

Professor Hambone also lauded the President for cutting down on executive reading: "You don't have to read critical documents anymore -- or any documents, really -- and in fact, it's preferable. Cuts down on the likelihood of shareholder litigation or impeachment."

Professor Hambone was effusive in his praise of Bush's "no-minute management style," and related other Bush lessons: "Always call the work of top supervisors 'superb,' even when they've endangered a core mission. When you say your supervisors look good, you look good. And blameless."

The school will be taking applications only from those nominally serving in the National Guard, starting this July.

From Opinions you should have. Of course, they're not The Onion...

Seth Poole's employee-identification card is a revealing indicator of the toll that two years of work at Blue Juice, Inc. has taken on the internal auditor's appearance and overall health, sources close to the 37-year-old revealed Monday....


Before. [After]

Blue Juice, whose sales topped $50 million last year, is one of the fastest-growing organic-juice brands in the country. Hired by Blue Juice CEO Benjamin Valdavia, Poole said he was initially excited to join the small but rapidly expanding company.

....Keefer estimated that, every time Valdavia says "vision can't be charted on spreadsheets," Poole loses 75 hairs.

....Leo Drake, president of Safeguard Solutions, the security-consultant firm that sold Blue Juice its ID-card machine, recommends that companies update their employees' photo IDs annually to prevent a "reverse Dorian Gray" effect.

"Regularly renewed IDs will reflect the subject's likeness with greater accuracy, improving the ID's functionality as a tool for identity verification," Drake said. "In addition, employees won't be confronted every day with proof of their ongoing personal decline."

Drake added: "By no means should employees be allowed to keep their old IDs, lest they make the connection between their workplace struggles and their unnaturally aged appearances."

Once overheard at a company-mandated "Wellness Initiative" orientation. "Uhh, ma'am? ...liquor, coffee and cigarettes is the only way I continue to work here.

Plato's Cave. (A/K/A: The Places We Work. And how.)

The allegory pictures an underground cave with its mouth open toward the light of a blazing fire. Within the cave are people chained so that they cannot move. They can see only the cave wall directly in front of them. This is illuminated by the light of the fire, which throws shadows of people and objects onto the wall. The cave dwellers equate the shadows with reality, naming them, talking about them, and even linking sounds from outside the cave with the movements on the wall. Truth and reality for the prisoners rest in this shadowy world, because they have no knowledge of any other.

However, as Socrates relates, if one of the inhabitants were allowed to leave the cave, he would realize that the shadows are but dark reflections of a more complex reality, and that the knowledge and perceptions of his fellow cave dwellers are distorted and flawed. If he were then to return to the cave, he would never be able to live in the old way, since for him the world would be a very different place. No doubt he would find difficulty in accepting his confinement, and would pity the plight of his fellows. However, if he were to try and share his new knowledge with them, he would probably be ridiculed for his views.

For the cave prisoners, the familiar images of the cave would be much more meaningful than any story about a world they had never seen. Moreover, since the person espousing this new knowledge would now no longer be able to function in the old way, since he would no longer be able to act with conviction in relation to the shadows, his fellow inmates would no doubt view his knowledge as being extremely dangerous. They would probably regard the world outside the cave as a potential source of danger, to be avoided rather than embraced as a source of wisdom and insight. The experience of the person who left the cave could thus actually lead the cave dwellers to tighten their grip on their familiar way of seeing.

The cave stands for the world of appearances and the journey outside stands for the ascent to knowledge. People in everyday life are trapped by illusions, hence the way they understand reality is limited and flawed. By appreciating this, and by making a determined effort to see beyond the superficial, people have an ability to free themselves from imperfect ways of seeing. However, as the allegory suggests, many of us often resist or ridicule efforts at enlightenment, preferring to remain in the dark rather than to risk exposure to a new world and its threat to the old ways.

The above is from Gareth Morgan's Images of Organization, a book that changes the view of companies, and their power, and their innovative potential for pretty much anyone I know who has read it.

And published too late for some of these cave dwellers?

"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."
-- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

"But what ... is it good for?"
-- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
-- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us."
-- Western Union internal memo, 1876.

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"
-- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible."
-- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face not Gary Cooper."
-- Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind."

"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make."
-- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields'Cookies.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
-- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
-- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this."
-- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads.

More predictions

Ladies and Germs, Synchronicity defined...














Link

Great find by Jon Strande.

Bumper Sticker Culture II

I'm enjoying Bumper Sticker Week--what, you didn't know it was Bumper Sticker Week? Sure it is. [Bumper-sticker I]

Anyway, BSW, and several conversations with Jon at Business Evolutionist have got me examining the stream of words that make up this blog. It seems there's a consistent theme:

[You are] the change you want to see in the world.

Goofy huh? Nah. It's really as simple as that. If you decide that change is what you want, you set out to make it happen. You go through walls to make it happen. You use whatever you find along the way. Materials, and allies. Mostly, because you want, not because you need. Mostly, because you believe. Pure. And simple.

That's not news is it? And it's not what we want to hear. Sounds too simple. Where's the plan? "Where are your bullet points?"

And that's just it. "My" bullet points are mine. You have to craft your own. From what you know and believe to be true: What you want, what you can do, who else wants it, and why they should care. We refine our own ideas about the way things ought to be. And then, we each help our customer discover their own unique set of bullet points, a process made easier thanks to the knowledge we gained in searching out and refining our own. We repeat for others what we've legitimately done for ourselves. Otherwise, we're just playing doctor, aren't we?

I recently got an email from a fellow blogger interested in how my company does what it does. You know what? What my company does, how and why, as well as more than a few examples of the work product, the result... they're all here, going all the way back through the archives to October of last year. Sure we have a process, but that could change tomorrow. What we have, what we share, what we recreate for others is a sensibility. Of possibility. That is constant.

If assigned the task, someone could reasonably go though even only the linked stuff to the right, and intuit and assemble a fair facsimile of a business approach that yields stuff like this:



[click to enlarge in popup]
On the blog, one can find ads we've done, spaces we've designed, advice we've gotten paid to give, holes we've dug clients out of, speeches made, and most important, a fair representation of the kinds of attitudes and personalities you'd be dealing with. We've laid it all out. Well, almost all. And don't wonder that we didn't talk long and hard about doing so. My argument amongst my partners was that we should share to build our brand. Their prerequisite was that we would not chop it up, ladle it onto a plate, and spoon feed it. At least not for free. Worked for me. Seems to work for a few others.

We're firm believers in the 80/20 rule here and I've noticed Pareto poking his head up in our visitor makeup. Our stats show there are repeat visitors, and they repeat a lot. Some might call them heavy users. Not me, I call them fellow explorers. I know, sounds cheesy? I don't care. You are probably not one of them. And that's fine. Probably a sensible approach too. The world needs it's sensible people. It's just not something we particularly exalt around here. We can't. It would have killed every idea we're known for. It would stop the phone ringing. People call for our passion and curiosity and humility and confidence. They've seen it in action. Their friends told them to call. They want to hire it, maybe learn it. I'm glad.

An example: A very kind visitor took note of a recent post

Man on Fire

Check out ... "Burning Desires." In it, he riffs on the responsbilities assigned to us not only as writers, but readers as well....It set me right on my tail with its message to both ends of the reader-writer spectrum. On fire, indeed!

Michele, thanks again. Your check's in the mail.

Seriously, I wonder what Michele's return on investment would have been after reading the same post, rendered in bulletese?

• There are lots of books out there.
• Most say the same things.
• Some are kindling, some light the match.
• Pick one that lights your fire.
• Ask why it does
• Remember the fire, burn the books.
• Now go do business.

There's a great line in "The Hunt For Red October." Maybe you remember it. Jack Ryan, looking at a radar screen, asks "What are those destroyers doing?" The Captain says "They're listening with sonar, looking for the Red October. Funny thing though--they're moving so fast, they could run over my daughter's stereo and not catch it."

They're listening. But moving fast. So they can't hear.

Do I really want to burn books? Of course not. Not unless that action generates a further and useful higher-value reaction. Hey, I'd burn my merit badges if it served a higher purpose. They're both just things. But the knowledge I gained reading the books, earning the merit badges, taking factory tours, or asking questions I had no right to ask is still with me, pooled up in my head, intermingling and generating new combinations everyday. That's the key. Facts are just kindling, you have to rub them together to get heat. If you don't feel friction, you're not doing it vigorously enough. Rub them together to generate new facts and better questions. And you can't be miserly about it. There's always more kindling or more resources or more opportunities to be found.

But still, we hoard them. We presume and prejudge. We want others to package them. Because we don't believe. In our power to create. In ourselves.

But, we believe in bullets. Now that is goofy. Big mistake.

---

Bumper-sticker I

Seth-Jam. The Free Prize-a-palooza

Seth Godin's great new book, 'Free Prize Inside' is the Guest of Honor for May's Business Blog Book Tour. You can check out all the details of the tour at a penny for.

Where do you start with this book? It's short, eminently readable, and counter-intuitive. I put Empahasis there for a reason. In today's evironment, intuitive, yet slingshot simple powerful ideas that survive and flourish are deemed counter-intuitive. Silly. Luckily, much of what Free Prize covers and teaches is how to overcome conventional wisdom and follow your intuition: How to harvest, manage, and leverage your briliant idea and it's hope. If the word "resourceful" floats your admiration, this book is for you.

Since it's Bullet Point Week in BizBlogovia, here's mine

1. Don't curse the darkness, light a candle.
2. Execute the idea, not yourself.
3. Tis better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.
4. A "Free Prize" is a Daisy in the concrete

I need a neck brace from all the nodding and laughing out loud I was doing. Ahm, what the heck, go check out the sites below, you'll get the gist of it.

I'm late, the tour started May 3rd and runs through May 14th.

• May 3rd - A Penny For...
  
  
• May 4th - Brand Autopsy
  
  
• May 5th - Decent Marketing
  
  
• May 6th - Dana's Blog
  
  
• May 7th - Brand Mantra
  
  
• May 10th - Ensight
  
  
• May 11th - WonderBranding
  
  
• May 12th - Business Evolutionist
  
  
• May 13th - Branding Blog
  
  
• May 14th - Thinking by Peter
  

Bumper Sticker Culture

Zoinks! Jon at Business Evolutionist is dogging my flabby keyboardature and general tendency to overpopulate some posts with nouns, gerunds, participles and other grammar thingies. Yeah, exactly, like that last sentence.

To wit:

I've been joking back and forth with Fouroboros ... that I'm going to start a new business by offering the cliff notes version of his posts... so, with that in mind, and his permission... here is the first installment:

Courage needs a companion...[*]

*Insert a whole bunch of stuff here about a TV spot on Courage, then some on exploring, and rollercoasters, then sound waves, cheap radios, Norah Jones chewing rocks, football penalties, rhythm, Mount Everest, Garbage, Schoolmarms, more Rhythm, Cinderella's favorite rodent, breadcrumbs, California, DNA, a pendulum, soul crushing, business fads, business hopes, lonely hyperactive neurotic courage, dragons, leaders, followers, and courage's sidekick, conscience.

Phew. Back to Jon:

My shortened version:

• Business needs a purpose
• Purpose takes courage
• You don't get purpose or courage from a set of bullet points.

While I do agree, and appreciate Jon's gracious offer and bulletin, maybe he's being a tad stingy:

• Business needs people
• People want purpose
• Purpose needs courage
• Courage is driven by conscience
• Your organization has a shared conscience
• It's a feedback loop, go back to point #1

Hmm. Okay I suppose, but we could shorten the word count even more, perhaps capturing some of the kicky insouciance that was intended:

• People want growth
• Growth requires courage
• Courage is having balls
• Balls needs a Conscience
• Conscientious balls propagate legitimate growth

Yeah, that's better.

Oh. Should I point out that balls is a gender neutral gift? Nah, didn't think so.

I know you are, but what am I... Mr. Chairman?

BusinessWeek

That these highly rational, utterly left-brained executives are delving into their pasts illustrates a new strain of organizational therapy coursing through the inner sanctums of corporate power. The basic concept: that people tend to recreate their family dynamics at the office. The idea is being fanned by organizational experts, who say that corporate strivers can at times behave a bit like thumb-suckers in knee pants, yearning for pats on the back from boss "daddies and mommies" and wishing those scene-stealing co-worker "siblings" would, well, die. Boardroom arguments can parallel spats at the family dinner table. Office politics can take on the dimensions of Icarus blowing off his Dad -- or Hamlet offing Uncle Claudius....

For Bert Whitehead, CEO of Cambridge Connection, a financial-planning company in Franklin Village, Mich., the epiphany came when, after announcing he would be away on a business trip, he noticed a stealthy rejoicing rippling through his offices. Today, he knows why. "Nobody was ever quite good enough," says Whitehead, who refers to himself as a moody stress-generator. "I had a mother I could never get approval from, and I had unknowingly really adopted that into my management style."

HERO, SCAPEGOAT, MARTYR. This may seem like so much EST-era drivel, but by performing psychological X-rays on clients' pasts, coaches have helped executives at companies as diverse as the Los Angeles Times, State Farm Insurance, and American Express (AXP ) understand their own and others' dysfunctional behavior. They learn how to recognize the shadowy emotional subtext that drives many encounters, deconstructing how they may be subconsciously sabotaging themselves, shying from authority figures, or engaging in hypercritical judgments of subordinates. Or why they may unwittingly play the role of the hero, scapegoat, or martyr. "I'm not suggesting that our employees are our kids," says Kenneth Sole, a consulting social psychologist who has worked with Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL ) and the U.N. "But the psychology is parallel."

Indeed, brain research over the past decade has shown that during stress -- when people's need to feel included, competent, and liked is thwarted -- their minds are hardwired to default to defensive family scripts. "We project onto others the conflicts we experienced growing up," says Robert Pasick, president of LeadersConnect in Ann Arbor, Mich. He teaches a course at the University of Michigan Business School on how family dynamics affect teams.

Such corporate headshrinking is gaining more ground in part because of how much interdependence companies face on the global stage. In the manual economy, work was a regimented, militaristic affair in which it was easier to subsume personality differences. Today, success hinges on teams performing as seamlessly as the flawless machinery in a showcase Six Sigma plant.

Six Sigma? SiX SIGMA? Where's my bat?!

All together now:

I read the brochure
I did what you said
I was jazzed by the speeches
And Hey, now I'm dead.
©fouro ASCAP, WGA, BSA RIAA


BusinessWeek

The Costco Way: Higher wages mean higher profits. But try telling Wall Street

Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST ) handily beat Wall Street expectations on Mar. 3, posting a 25% profit gain in its most recent quarter on top of a 14% sales hike. The warehouse club even nudged up its profit forecast for the rest of 2004. So how did the market respond? By driving the Issaquah (Wash.) company's stock down by 4%. One problem for Wall Street is that Costco pays its workers much better than archrival Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT ) does and analysts worry that Costco's operating expenses could get out of hand. "At Costco, it's better to be an employee or a customer than a shareholder," says Deutsche Bank (DB ) analyst Bill Dreher.

...Costco actually keeps its labor costs lower than Wal-Mart's as a percentage of sales, and its 68,000 hourly workers in the U.S. sell more per square foot. Put another way, the 102,000 Sam's employees in the U.S. generated some $35 billion in sales last year, while Costco did $34 billion with one-third fewer employees.

Bottom line: Costco pulled in $13,647 in U.S. operating profit per hourly employee last year, vs. $11,039 at Sam's. Over the past five years, Costco's operating income grew at an average of 10.1% annually, slightly besting Sam's 9.8%. Most of Wall Street doesn't see the broader picture, though, and only focuses on the up-front savings Costco would gain if it paid workers less....

Sam's America!^™ Yay, Team!

Man, what's up with @%#$! public schools?


The Detroit News

Poll: Parent, teacher contact limited

...The poll found a wide gap in how parents and teachers perceive school involvement. Parents say they want to be included, but don’t always have the chance. And teachers — uniformly, across all grades — said they want more direct interaction with parents.

Of parents with children in the first or second grade, 40 percent said they communicate directly with the teacher at least once per week. That number dropped to 38 percent for parents of fifth- and six- graders, and to 26 percent for parents of seventh- and eighth- graders. Just 20 percent of parents of ninth- and 10th-graders interact weekly with teachers. And by 11th and 12th grade, just 17 percent of parents said they communicate with teachers regularly.

So, 6 of 10 parents don't communicate directly with the teacher at least once per week for grades 1-6. (Same for 3 & 4 presumably). By 9th grade, it's down to 2 in 10. Can you say Pareto's Law?

I wonder how I would feel if I was forced to hire every applicant that approached me for a job? No critical evaluation allowed, no screening, no firing. Then, as the recipient of that bell-curved bundle of pathologies, bad habits, poor parenting, ethnic tension, sub-par nutrition and health, I was also required to attempt to ameliorate all those deficits while still trying to maintain a profit. ("Growth" seems a tad optimistic in this scenario.) In addition, once a month, my boardroom gets filled to overflowing with hordes of people--parents, workers, interested parties and social gadflies, government types, other business people--all come to tell me what I'm doing wrong. While noshing my hors d'oeurves and O.J., they scream at me: You're a leech. A cultural reprobate and a failure. Do it better for less money. Luckily, once all the free food is gone, they leave. But not before they toss me an additional list of things to tackle when I'm done handling the last 600 monthly lists they left me.

Why 600? 50 years X 12 months. Read on:

The Challenge of Change, [PDF] from Ian Jukes and Anita Dosaj, InfoSavvy Group

Our schools have tried to adapt to massive social change over the course of the past 50 years, and in doing so, they have become very confused. For hundreds of years all that our schools were responsible for was teaching reading, writing and arithmetic. Then we began to add things to the list

1900
* reading
* writing
* arithmetic

1900-1910
* immunization
* nutrition
* health

1910-1920
* citizenship

1920-1940
* vocational arts
* practical arts
* physical education
* school lunch

1950‘s
* safety education
* driver’s education
* foreign language education
* sex education

1960‘s
* consumer education
* career education
* peace education
* traffic safety education
* leisure education

1970‘s
* special education mandated
* drug & alcohol abuse education
* electrical safety education
* parent education
* character education
* environmental education
* school breakfasts

1980‘s
* keyboarding
* computer education
* global education, ethnic education
* multicultural education
* non-sexist education
* ESL education
* full day kindergarten
* pre-school programs for at-risk students
* after school programs for children of working parents
* stranger danger education
* sexual abuse prevention education
* child abuse monitoring.....

1990‘s
* state standards
· career education
· HIV AIDS education
* bus safety education
* gang education
· death education

2000+ ?

Yet it’s the same school day and school year as 1950. When America had the longest school day and school year in the entire Industrial World – now in the new millennium, we have the shortest. We’ve not added a single minute to the school day or school year in decades. Consequently schools can’t do it. Schools were not designed to rear America’s children.

And yet, in even our best towns, we know that there are parents who are parenting by remote control. They drop them off for Pre-K or Kindergarten and expect to pick up 13 years later and find fully developed human beings. But they didn’t play a role in the process.

What’s the problem?

The system is trying to be all things to all people and it can’t work. It must be changed. And if you say to me "change to what?" we suggest that part of the conversation with the community is just that question:

What is the role of school in the new millennium?

Indeed. Please submit your answer in 25 words or less.

Note: It seems Haloscan is down... They're back up

Courage needs a companion.

There's an ad out there, about the need for a Chief Courage Officer. In it, they ask a key question: Is Corporate America becoming too risk averse? Implicit in their question: Is that risk aversion oddly damaging the integrity and capacity of business for profit and good? The ad is from Price Waterhouse Coopers and it's a work of motivational art. I'd be proud to have it on my reel.



But I wonder. I wonder what that spot's journey was like, up, and through the bowels of several organizations? I think of the moments of doubt, overcome by inspiration, powered by belief in the message. I can hear people in a position to say "Go ahead," or "kill it," say exactly those words. I can imagine a Creative Group, suits and writers and art directors, circling the wagons on more than one occasion. And I could scribble the dialogue because I've been there. Doing the circling, I mean.

In that journey, to tell a story about courage, one that needs urgently to be told, I would hazard that there were several, perhaps legions of people saying "I dunno, seems risky." Or, "Who are we to say?" These people probably had reams of information implying as much, if interpreted just so. The idea of courage, that it's required for business to succeed, to blaze trails, to stretch and reach the potential we all want it to have was, I bet, "A good idea" in their minds. But still, "I dunno, seems risky." It still wasn't a compelling idea. Maybe it had all the elements of "we could do this", but perhaps none of what compels, impels a response of "should" or "must."

Something moves us across the bridge from could or maybe to should and must. But what? Courage is a yang to a yin, an act in service of something else. But to what?

Maybe the noble idea of Courage requires a second Job, a second admission that the hole Price Waterhouse is trying to point out, and to fill, is double-wide.

Courage needs a friend. ...Courage needs counsel: a Chief Conscience Officer.

[More why courage may slay the business dragons, yet seldom spots them, and often, creates them. But hey, all is not lost.]

[edit: 5.3.04 6:25. Yes, this is the ever-evolving intro, isn't it?]