Success

flashback friday: the world’s still shrinking

[This was originally posted on February 14, 2012 and seemed like a fitting flashback for Black Friday.]

More and more we are playing on a global scale. Even when buying from the shop on the corner, there’s nothing to prevent that corner from being in a different state, country, or hemisphere.

With a smart phone in hand consumers can quickly and easily compare prices while in the store. Love the product, but hesitant on the price? A quick picture of the barcode will turn up the best prices available. I’ve recently been seeing concern that people will use local stores to find the perfect item, size, etc. and then order from elsewhere. This has always happened, it’s just easier than ever now.

I recently upgraded the brakes on my mountain bike. I purchased an American brand of brakes (buy American!) made in Taiwan (buy American?) from a store in the UK (wait a minute…). This was the first time I’d purchased from a store outside the country, but I believe we’ll be seeing more and more of it. There were no currency issues  –  their website showed prices in US Dollars based on the current exchange rate and the credit card works everywhere. Unlike the big box store that made it seem like a major hassle to order an out of stock laptop they were running a special on, this store made it as easy as possible to purchase. Finally, on top of a great price, they shipped for free and it only took a week to get it once it shipped.

Yes, there are downsides. It would be a pain if I had to return anything, it took a little longer to get than if I’d ordered from somewhere in the States (in fairness, the holidays probably slowed things down a bit), and I’m not supporting a local business (but then, I still wouldn’t be if I’d ordered from an internet retailer in the US).

Would I purchase from them again? Probably. I enjoy variety and having access to quality brands that are uncommon in the US. I’m amused by the idea of shopping in a foreign store. More important, they are getting it right. Even five years ago it would have been a real pain to order internationally. Today it’s as easy as any internet purchase. Where other businesses would shy away from international business – dealing with currency, taxes, shipping, and customs on top of long-distance customer service – this business decided to become the largest internet bicycle retailer. They have the volume to offer better pricing and invested in the effort to sort the customer service side of things.

This isn’t about bicycle parts, foreign stores, or my desire to be a little quirky. This is where the world is heading. Competing on price is difficult because there is always someone cheaper somewhere. For most businesses, especially local ones, the differentiator is really understanding the customers’ needs, service, follow-up, convenience, a cool vibe or good feeling, great people, extensive knowledge, problem solving focus, etc.

Your business is now competing with every other business on the planet. You probably won’t win on price (though you do need to be in the ballpark), but what makes your business stand out is simply: 1) how easy and pleasant is it to shop and purchase from you; and 2) how good are your people at solving the customer’s problems? It all comes down to processes and people. What is your business investing in?

 

make it easy

Doug Shaw over at Stop Doing Dumb Things to Customers ran a post yesterday called “A Little Enthusiasm…” about his frustrations with businesses that didn’t seem to care when he was trying to pay them. It clearly struck a nerve with folks and generated plenty of comments as people joined in and shared similar frustrations.

It’s a shrinking world and the consumer can buy from almost anywhere. I discussed this back in February after purchasing mountain bike parts from a shop in the UK.

We all know the world is getting smaller, so it’s interesting how many businesses haven’t gotten the message yet. My wife and I both purchased cars in the past couple of months and had very different experiences. The dealer I bought from did ok, but was still stuck in the mindset that their cars are somehow special. I live within three hours of two of the biggest metropolitan areas in the US – no car is so unique that I can’t find it sitting on a lot relatively close or have it ordered in. When my wife was looking, they irritated her so much she kept right on looking.

My wife eventually purchased from a small town car dealer about an hour away. Here’s what they did right: they were patient as she test drove at least six cars, they were low pressure, they called back when they said they would, and when she told them that it would be several days before she could return to complete the deal they brought the car to her with all the correct paperwork including a generous trade-in on her old car made sight unseen. She signed some papers, swapped cars, and was on with her life in less than 30 minutes. They made the deal happen by making it as simple as possible for her to buy.

But wait, there’s more… My wife’s car is the same brand as mine. Guess where my car’s getting serviced from now on? So, my dealer screwed up selling to a RETURN customer, lost out on a SECOND sale, and lost out on all FUTURE maintenance/service business (where the profit margins are much higher than in car sales).

Businesses scream and yell for innovation, yet ignore that some of the most innovative products and services simply make it easy to buy and make it easy to pay. Strive for the example set by Amazon.com. Intuitive site, one click purchasing. It doesn’t get easier.

HR spin

How easy is it for HR’s customers to complete transactions? How simple and painless is it to submit an application? How easy is it for hiring managers to understand the process and have all necessary paperwork in hand? Do document instructions make sense? Etc. etc. etc.

If your HR department’s customers had to pay money for HR’s products and services, would they? Could they? Would your HR department be the vendor of choice or would your customers get frustrated and go elsewhere?

quick book review: how to SELF-DESTRUCT

Written by Jason Seiden, this book wins the longest title award. The full title is: how to SELF-DESTRUCT: making the least of what’s left of your career (and what to do if you fail at failing)

The short version: I really enjoyed it. It’s funny, off-beat, and spot on career advice. A quick and useful read.

The longer version: There are a lot of career success books on the market, but this is the only one I’ve seen that makes its point by describing how to completely prevent success. I find this most powerful with the little things that we tend to think of as quirky or not that big of deal. By flipping them around, Jason makes it obvious how damaging they could be.

Three quick examples:

1. On appearance…

Nothing says “No more promotions for me, thank you!” like a pair of khakis and an oxford. The unpressed, only-work-once-since-you-washed-it-last Banana Republic uniform is still the most subtle,  yet effective way to keep yourself off everyone’s “next in line for the presidency” radars.

2. On long job titles…

There is an inverse relationship between the length of someone’s title and her status within the corporate hierarchy. If your job title can be abbreviated into three letters, you’re not failing hard enough. On the other hand, if your title must be abbreviated in order to fit on your business card – and especially if it requires additional explanation before it makes sense to anyone outside your immediate department – kudos to you, you are well on your way to being overlooked by just about everyone.

3. On stalling your forward progress…

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Well, this one’s easy: venture nothing!

Chapter titles include:

Falling Down of Your First Job

Making the Least of Junior Management

Frittering Away a Business Education

Alienating Your Friends & Family

Squandering Your Money.

Just in case you “fail at failing” (that is, you actually want to succeed), Jason also includes the straightforward take on each subject at the end of the chapters (on red pages so you can’t miss it).

How to SELF-DESTRUCT offers a unique perspective and a funny take on a serious subject. This isn’t a new book – it was published in 2008 – but just came across my radar and lept to the top of my “need to read” stack after I spent a few minutes flipping through it. It’s also a quick read, perfect for a two or so hour flight. Enjoyable and practical – a tough combination to beat.

punk rock HR worksluts

I’ve got punk rock and HR on the brain this week, so let’s build on it. A little while back, Laurie Ruettimann over at The Cynical Girl ran a great post on 5 Lessons from Henry Rollins. Tons of great stuff in there (go read it!), but the lesson that really stuck with me was “Don’t be a workaholic, be a workslut.”

As Laurie says:

Henry Rollins works hard, but he doesn’t have one job that defines him. He speaks, he writes and he plays music. He works in media, he travels and he volunteers. He doesn’t say no to opportunities that can lead to more opportunities. What’s the alternative? Sit at home and let your muscles (and your brain) atrophy?

I love this. As a jack of all trades with too many interests and too short of attention span, I’ve struggled with being defined by one job, one category, one field. How freeing to open things up and embrace it all!

We tend to over-define ourselves through our jobs and under-define ourselves through our interests and passions. Remember, there is no such thing as work/life balance. There is only Life and work is but one (significant) component of it. Every aspect of our life is a potential outlet for our passions and interests.

Some (including me) will point out there are opportunity costs to everything you say “yes” to so you need to be selective. Absolutely. But how much fun is it to be engaged it things that really jazz you. Being too focused on any one thing creates burnout – you tire of it. Slipping back and forth between interests builds stimulation and ideas and recharges. Exercise provides a great example: if you only do one exercise you set yourself up for injury, boredom, lack of interest, and diminishing returns. But if you keep changing it up, the routine stays fresh, challenging, invigorating, and your results don’t plateau.

My 11 year old daughter recently demonstrated all this beautifully (and made me feel like a no talent slacker). The world will need to step it up in a big way if we’re going to keep up with her. I recently mentioned that she wrote a short book for National Novel Writing Month last year and she’s back at it for this year. Saturday morning, I got up at 6:30 and she was already typing away before she had to get ready to compete in a horse show where she won High Point for the day and the season before leaving to go do a final evening performance in a school play (where she also sold several copies of her book to other kids) before coming home and getting in trouble for staying up too late working on the new book. Start to finish, it was a 16+ hour day of focused effort. An unusually long day for her, but a great demonstration of how to be successful in several arenas without becoming overly defined by any one.

What do I take from my daughter, Henry Rollins, and Laurie’s insights?

1. Passion is the heart to motivation. I could never-in-a-million-years get anyone to put forth the effort my daughter does willingly and without a paycheck.

2. Having several interests is good. Over-commitment is a real risk, but mixing it up keeps the spark alive. When we’re tiring of one thing we can fluidly shift to another. Also, creativity, innovation, and inspiration are ignited when we pull disparate concepts together (some refer to this as being at the intersections of ideas). From my experience, the most innovative people have wide ranging interests and experiences to pull from.

3. There is a huge difference between saying yes to all things asked of you and saying yes to the things that excite you. The first prevents you from doing the things you’re passionate about; the second keeps you focused on them.

4. You never know where the opportunity is going to come from. Pour enough passionate effort into the world and it will come back – even if it’s not from where you expect it. Name one other punk with Henry Rollins’ longevity, credibility, and vibrancy.

5. Define yourself before the world does it for you. Authenticity is a doubled edged sword, but a key advantage when used well. When we allow others to define us by their narrow perspective of who they think we are, we get typecast and stuck. Look at all the musicians, writers, and actors unable to move beyond their past success. They are damned to recreate the past over and over and over.

6. All work and no play is no good at all. But when we can hit the sweet spot of working really stinkin’ hard on “play” – our areas of passion – really amazing things can happen. I use the phrase “play bigger” to describe this. Changing the world, denting the universe, being the difference we want to see in the world is hard work and big fun.

The title of this post is Punk Rock HR Worksluts, so how can we apply these lessons to HR?

1. How broadly have you let HR in your company be defined? Are you the “payroll people” or the “policy police” or are you the place employees and leaders go to make better decisions about careers and leadership? Do people only see you when they have been called to HR (ugh!) or is HR a strong and continual presence throughout the company? Is HR involved in non-HR committees and task forces (you know, beyond the Christmas party) or is HR isolated, barricaded, siloed, and remote?

2. Do you like HR; are you passionate about it? Were you drawn to it or did you just sort of end up here? Are you passionate about people and business or did you just need a job and HR seemed as good as any?

3. Can you understand and talk all aspects of the business? You don’t need to be a CFO, but can you understand the income statement? Does the marketing strategy make sense? Can you explain your company’s core business and competitive advantage? Do you know the most important company goals for next year (and how your job supports them)?

4. What projects are coming up that you are really excited about? What new skills are you fired up about learning? What are you actively doing to make next year 2X better than this one?

5. Who shows up at work – you or the plastic worker drone persona so many of us have perfected? Are you playing safe or playing to win?

6. As an HR professional, do you like you? Are you proud of who you are, what you do, and how you do it?

Your thoughts?

really real: a short book review that isn’t

My daughter came home distraught one day when she was in the second grade. Over the previous weekend her class had an assignment to make a turkey out of construction paper and decorate it. She was upset because she felt hers looked terrible compared to all the other kids’ turkeys. She has always hated doing a poor job and it tore her up.

A few days later we got to see all the turkeys during a parent/teacher conference. My daughter’s looked like it was hastily made by a second grader at 7:15pm the night before it was due (and for good reason). The other turkeys looked like they had been painstakingly crafted by 35 year olds with serious scrapbooking technology and skills at their disposal. Not that I’m judging or bitter.

Actually, it provided the opportunity for some great life lessons about the value of doing your best and comparing your results to your own individual efforts, skills, and potential versus setting your self-worth based on the results of others.

Fast forward to November of 2011 and she was very excited about participating National Novel Writing Month. She was at the computer for a month straight, typing away at six in the morning before she had to get ready for school, in the evenings, on weekends, and begging to stay up late so she could keep working on it. I love to write and it would have been all too easy to take over so I stayed out of it almost entirely, answering questions when asked, but not much more. She did get some help from a 20-something family friend, mainly around formatting and getting it uploaded onto a self-publishing site. The story was all hers.*

I was proud of her perseverance, drive, and passion. It was pretty cool that she had written a 40+ page story. How many 5th graders could say that? How many adults could?  Good stuff.

Then we received several proof copies and that changed everything. It went from being a words on the computer to a glossy cover, paper and ink, honest-to-goodness ISBN coded book. It was real. Authentically real. Really real. She had written a BOOK! Something I had always wanted to do, but never done. She did it at 10 years old.

And then it went live on amazon.com. Not just a really real book, but a really real book that others can purchase – just as authentic as all the other books. Don’t know why that makes it more real, but it does. I’ve shifted from pride to outright awe. A very, very cool achievement.

Lots of leadership and HR related lessons in all this:

  • She’s a great writer. Far better than anyone her age has a right to be. Why? She loves to read and she loves to write. Her skill is not by accident. She’s exposed herself to good writing and she’s practised it. A lot.
  • Commitment matters. Results happen when you are dedicated to achieving getting it done come Hell or high water.
  • Likewise, self-motivation trumps all. I could not have forced, cajoled, commanded, or bribed the amount of dedication forged by her internal fires.
  • She’s more enthusiastic about writing than, say, spelling. As much as she strives to do great work, she never lets perfectionism get in her way. Consequently, she gets stuff done.
  • She cares more about her results than anyone’s opinion. She’s a fearless writer (and public speaker) so she makes it happen.
  • It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you don’t know what you’re not supposed to be able to do. No one ever told her that kids don’t write and publish books. Please don’t tell her now – she’s too busy preparing to write the next one.
  • Physically holding the results – or a symbol of the results – is very, very powerful. It transforms ideas to reality. It makes the ephemeral SOLID.
  • Confidence and self-esteem comes from effort not cheerleading. Trophies don’t matter. The bloodied-but-unbowed effort behind them does.

Your thoughts?

*In case you’re wondering… It’s called “Bo”. Here’s the description from the back cover: Horses are going missing left and right. Nobody’s doing anything. The sheriff is “dealing with other matters.” One morning, ten year old Lucy sees smoke coming out of the canyon. That night, she and her German Sheppard decide to check it out but as they leave the house they find two men stealing THEIR HORSES. What follows is the start of a great adventure.

the good news about disengagement

“Stereotype fools, playing the game. Nothing unique, they all look the same. In this Sea of Mediocrity, I can be anything – anything I want to be.” ~ Arch Enemy

The Bad News:

People everywhere are disengaged from work. The statistics, if accurate, are horrifying. Within just the past year or two, Gallup indicated that 72% of US workers were not engaged in their work. This disengagement ranges from just going through the motions and getting through the day to actively undermining the efforts of co-workers and the company. Gallup also reports that the lost productivity from actively disengaged employees puts a $370,000,000,000 drag on the economy each year. Other research and news outlets consistently report similar findings.

That’s bad news for the economy, bad news for the average company, and not much fun for the majority of workers.

The Good News:

There is actually so good news that comes with so many people setting such a low bar for themselves and the world.

At the leadership / company level, there is a very effective and nearly uncopyable competitive advantage for those who can attract, develop, and retain people who care. [Here’s a little secret: people who care want to be around other people who care. Use this information to your advantage.]

At the individual level, the more others are disengaged, the easier it is for you to stand out as a superstar. Show up, smile, do a good job, do right by the customer and the company, and you’ll be looking good. Have some enthusiasm, give a damn, strive to go the extra mile, and you’ll be a full on rock star.

perspectives

The BBC recently posted an article about John Taylor, the bass player from the ‘80s group Duran Duran, and how his perspective has changed from 1985 to now. He had one comment in particular that really hit home:

“I made a very definite decision a couple of years ago [when he was 50 – ed] that I was now middle aged. And it was actually a really good decision to make, because I’d been feeling like a very tired young man for quite a few years, and making that acknowledgement, suddenly I felt like a very sprightly and hip middle aged guy.“ [emphasis added]

Here’s what I really appreciate about this: he’s the same guy. Nothing has changed, except how he views himself and his corresponding expectations of himself. He’s not doing wishful thinking and clinging to the past and he hasn’t turned himself into an old man before his time. He got rid of his delusions of youth and was able to look at his reality and define it in a way that really works for him.

The great and incomparable Zig Ziglar also spoke of a similar transformation. He grew up poor in a small town in Mississippi and talked about thinking about himself as a little guy from a little town when he started out as a salesman. Then, after encouraging words from a hero/mentor, he saw himself differently. He shifted his perspective and began thinking of himself as a salesman with the potential to be one of the greats. Same guy, same skill set, different perspective, different attitude, different approach, and different results.

Our perspectives and beliefs can inspire us to grow or turn us into our own worst enemies by shrinking, confining, and crushing our potential. There’s a lot in this world we can’t control, but one of the things we have full power over is how we look at ourselves.

What perspectives are you choosing?

the not-so-secret secret to achieving more

I was recently chatting with another fellow at the gym and he was telling me about his daughter’s experience with cross-country track. “My daughter normally finishes 3rd or 4th from last in her cross-country practices. Yesterday, she finished 4th from the front. I asked her how she got so much better. She said she decided to run faster.”

Deep wisdom from a 12 year old.

That’s really the secret, isn’t it? Decide what we want, decide we’re going to get it, and then give more effort.

We generally operate far below our true, focused capacity. We tell ourselves we’re going all out, but often we’re going too fast on the wrong things and too far below our potential on the things that truly matter. We go hard but we often hold back from our absolute best, replacing too much scattered activity for too few focused results.

We can decide to better use the knowledge and skills we already have. Decide to fulfil that potential. And, once we reach the edge, our capacities will grow and expand. We can gain more knowledge, more skill, and make even better use of our abilities.

We can be better, but we have to decide to.

At least, that’s what I see in my own life. Your mileage may vary.

we like to talk

We like to talk about innovation, but hate to talk about change.

We like to talk about taking risks, but hate to talk about failing.

We like to talk about learning from mistakes, but hate to talk about making mistakes.

We like to talk about learning and growing, but hate to talk about what we can do better.

We like to talk about diversity, but hate to talk about differing ideas and perspectives.

We like to talk about shareholders, but hate to talk about the connection to stakeholders.

We like to talk about today’s stock prices, but hate to talk about sustainability.

We like to talk about the bad economy, but hate to talk about budgets and opportunity costs.

We like to talk about all that’s wrong, but hate to talk about everything we can be grateful for.

We like to talk about what others should do, but hate to talk about what we will do.

We like to talk about what went wrong in the past, but hate to talk about what we’ll make right in the future.

We like to talk about blame, but hate to talk about our personal responsibility.

We like to talk about all the differences between those we disagree with and ourselves, but hate to talk about all the similarities we share with them.

We like to talk about the things we can’t control, but hate to talk about the things within our control that we have let slide.

We like to talk about what we would do, but hate to take the actions that would back those words.