The High Price Of Effing Up

I think it's safe to say that a Harvard MBA and a pedigree education have absolutely no correlation with the quality of decision making among our country's so-called elite leaders.

Witness:

A president who can't seem to pick people for his cabinet who have the basic math skills to figure out that they owe money in taxes;

CEOs of....dare I try to name them all?...AIG, Lehman Bros., Bear Stearns, GM, Ford, ad nauseum, who seem to have no trouble or shame with being rewarded for rank incompetence and for running their businesses into the ground;

Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, who seem to have developed sudden amnesia over their roles in aiding and abetting the country's (and world's) financial catastrophe;

Wall Street, for awarding millions in bonuses not tied to performance or value creation after accepting tax-payer handouts

These are the people who supposedly have the smarts to manage our major businesses and our government?

God help us!

It All Makes For Great Theater

Last evening I watched Gov. Sarah Palin deliver her coming out speech at the Republican National Convention. In the speech (which was one of the better ones of the two conventions), she lampooned Sen. Barack Obama’s community organization experience and suggested that it was less worthy than a job that “actually makes decisions”. The Whisperer believes this "those who can't, teach" argument falls flat. Why is being governor of a state that is half a world away from Washington superior to learning the problems of the working and unworking poor on the south side of Chicago?

If I remember my American history, Abraham Lincoln was an Illinois state senator (which Obama was) and a member of the House of Representatives (not an executive position) before being elected the 16th president of the United States. John F. Kennedy was a senator and not a governor. Jimmy Carter was a governor and we all know how ineffective he was. And the current President of the United States certainly does not prove that having been a governor qualifies someone to be an effective president.

The fact is, we have had presidents who rose to the occasion during times of national strife, and we have had presidents who were barely more effective than the local dogcatcher. Whether someone was a mayor, a governor, a senator, or a janitor has nothing to do with being an effective president of the country. Knowing how to build consensus and how not to be handicapped by ideology are more indicative of success in the highest office in the land.

Be well.
--TMW

It’s Time To Kill The “S Word” Once And For All!

Today I got another one of those pieces in the mail from a nearby hospital—you know, the one with the vanilla husband and wife, both frolicking on the beach, he in is tan swim trunks and full head of shocking white hair, she in her one -piece bathing suit, her capped teeth gleaming in the bright sunlight.

Hospitals are looking to “align” with what they believe are the wealthier market segment—those 50 years and older (of course, the hospital’s brochure, in its unintended patronizing way, refers to them as “50 years and better”). The hospital marketing department’s thought process is to solicit folks in this age group to join its“senior membership” program. Get discounts at neighborhood retailers by flashing them your telltale membership card. Partake in free “seniorcize” classes at the hospital’s health and fitness center, where silver-haired warriors can get their blood pressures checked and the hospital can ultimately get a few heart procedures.

Honestly, I have no issue with programs that are set up to attract older individuals approaching or already in retirement. Banks do this all the time. And hospitals are not just trying to improve their payer mix and volume of patients with these membership programs. The material is educationally important and the programs provide excellent socializiation opportunities in addition to healthy living habits thatmany people in their advancing years need. But what really irks me is that people 55 years of age or older are still being called “seniors”. People in their thirties and forties aren’t called “juniors”, are they? I’m not aware of any “juniorcize” exercise programs out there. Every other market group rails when it is stereotyped. Why are we, the growing bald and bunion market segment, letting society get away with this??

Rather than refer to us as seniors, why not just call us “smart shoppers”? We know a good deal when we see one, and we know when marketers are really just after our money (which we don’t have a lot of anyway). So please, no more commercials with Wilford Brimley droning on about spending our golden years on some crappy insurance plan. And no more cheesy brochures with that lady with the pearly whites.

Be well.
--TMW

The Flexible Workplace: Hardly Working, Or Working Hardly?

A lot is being written these days about flexibility in the workplace. Is the traditional five day a week, eight-hour work-week relevant in today's marketplace? I am not aware of any study that definitively proves that the forty-hour work week yields maximum productivity for employers. Quite to the contrary, my hypothesis is that, at best, the average non-self employed individual produces five quality hours in a workday, if that. The other three hours are just not as productive, and are filled with personal phone calls, furtive use of the internet, day-dreaming, and worst of all, sitting through endlessly boring meetings. Of course, this brings into question: what does productive mean?

Are we talking efficiency or effectiveness? Or both?

If I, Joe Employee, can accomplish my widgeting in four hours instead of eight, am I 200% productive, even though my widgeting results in a significant number of errors? Or suppose I take longer than eight hours to achieve the targeted widgeting, but with great results?

A good example that illustrates the difference between the two is the opposing quarterbacks in a football game. One team’s quarterback may complete 75% of his passes (he is highly efficient) yet never score a touchdown (he is highly in-effective). Conversely, the other team’s quarterback may complete only 45% of his passes (he is very inefficient), but four of his completed passes result in touchdowns (he is highly effective). Of course, each quarterback’s efficiency and effectiveness ratings are dependent on the ability of his wide receiver to catch the ball—which is where team productivity comes into play (no pun intended).

I recall once reading in one of my graduate school management classes about a consultant who was supposedly hired by a company that developed a recipe for a soft drink to give it recommendations on how it could build market share. The consultant's report comprised two words: "bottle it". Those two words resulted in millions of dollars in sales. Would the consultant have been more productive if he had issued a one-hundred page report listing dozens of recommendations? Should he have been paid more for that two- word report than if he had issued the one-hundred page report?

I also recently read that Google has been cited as a workplace that offers flexibility, but even Google generally follows a traditional eight-hour workday. Free food during the day, and maybe a nap, but all to basically squeeze as much ingenuity and "productivity" out of a happier workforce.

The Whisperer would be interested in hearing from those of you out there in the 9 to 5 crowd. Take the poll and register your opinion.

Work Smart. Not Hard.
--TMW

Can Failure Really Be Your Friend?

There’s an outdoor billboard near General Mitchell International Airport (Milwaukee’s major airport) with a picture of Abraham Lincoln. The caption reads: “Failed. Failed. Failed. And Then…….”. Underneath this phrase appears one word: “Persistence.” This billboard, produced by the Foundation For A Better Life, has appeared in cities and states around the country as part of a series of uplifting, inspirational themes.

Because I was curious to learn more behind the campaign, I went to the Foundation’s web page: www.forbetterlife.org.There I saw a series of billboards featuring a variety of famous and not so famous individuals who represented values such as Albert Einstein (confidence), Shaquille Oneal (perseverance) Winston Churchill (commitment), and Christopher Reeves (strength). All of these people faced incredible odds in their quests to succeed in their chosen fields: Einstein was a poor student who failed math; Shaquile Oneal earned his college diploma in the off-seasons when he wasn’t playing basketball; Churchill was considered a poor communicator early in his life; Reeves was thought to be just a Hollywood lightweight by many of his peers, until he showed a level of courage that many people with his tragic condition wouldn’t find in themselves.

In today's email, I found more on failure that further supports last week's blog on why so many people are reluctant to take any chances in life. A message from Marketing Profs entitled: "Make Failure Your Friend". The message cites a quote from Marketing Safari by Hjörtur Smárason:

"Mistakes are a necessary part of learning, development and innovation..... "There's a lot you don't understand until you try it on yourself. And if you let the fear of failure stop you from trying something new, you'll face nothing but stagnation."

"One mistake doesn't mean that the next attempt is more likely to fail," says Smárason. "Actually, it should be the contrary. It should be more likely to succeed as that person hopefully learned something from the mistakes (see the full article: http://blog.scope.is/marketing_safari/2008/05/are-you-never-t.html

To be sure, risks must be calculated and carefully vetted. But one must keep in mind that nothing worthwhile on the face of the earth came about because of a reluctance to take on risk.

So get out there and swing for the fences--unless you never want to cross home plate.

The Law Of The (Work) Jungle

Thousands of miles from here,deep in the heart of the Serengetti National Park in northeastern Tanzania,the wildebeest run as a pack to make it harder for the attacking hyenas to pull any one of them down. The luckier of the herd are in the middle-- the best place to be for survival, whereas the ones on the outer flanks are the most vulnerable to being caught and eaten by their savage predators. They live a fast life, these flankers. They know that one slip and they’re a goner. Yet they also know that a hyena can only catch one wildebeest at a time, so the odds are good that they won’t be the one that fattens a hyena’s belly. Eventually, some of the middlers will find themselves out on the flanks. Those that have grown soft and slow from too much time in the middle will suffer the consequences of not having kept themselves in shape.

This got me wondering about how many of us get up every day and go to work to thrive rather than just survive? Indeed, how many of our workplaces today encourage people to push themselves, to take on challenges that could result in great success? People are reluctant to try something new for fear that, if not successful, they will lose stature in the organization and be held personally accountable for failing . Thus, individual initiative is subordinated to “groupthink”, and innovative ideas are stifled in the interest of “teamwork” (which is often code for “don’t rock the boat”). True, there are those companies where employees are rewarded for looking for ways to improve customer service, productivity, and sales. But even in these environments, employees still perceive that it is safer to “stay in the middle”.

In an era of global competition, it seems we are becoming a nation of middlers when we so desperately need more flankers. The false security of the bi-weekly paycheck will not protect us from being laid off. Even if we are excellent at what we do, there will always be a hyena out there looking for our job—someone who is faster, hungrier, and who will accomplish twice as much as we do at the same or lower salary.

With that thought, The Whisperer urges you to always stay nimble and creative in your thinking. It’s good hyena insurance.

Be well.
--TMW

My Head Hurts, Herr Doktor

This week a Belgian company, InBev, purchased Annheuser Busch for $52 million. Hearing about this got me to thinking: why couldn’t a European country, particularly one that has had a long history of managing health care for its citizens, run our health care system? Why not totally outsource our third party quasi- government/private health care-financed miasma to a country like Germany, which has been in the social security business since Otto von Bismarck designed the first modern public welfare system in the mid 1800’s?

Before you conclude that I have had one too many Bud (er, excuse me, InBev) lites, consider that many of the western European countries, including Germany, France, and Spain, have high-speed intra- and inter-country rail service. Europeans drive more gas-efficient automobiles and get their health care taken care of in technologically up-to-date and clean facilities.While still small in number, more and more Americans are traveling for medical care to western (and eastern) Europe, as well as to Thailand and India, because out of pocket costs are lower, even including the travel portion. And it’s a well-established fact that western countries with standards of living similar to ours have better morbidity and mortality statistics than our own in many of the leading health care indicators.

According to the travel web site www.justlanded.com:

“The German health care system has the reputation of being one of the best in the world. There is an extensive network of hospitals and doctors covering even the remotest areas of Germany. Waiting lists for treatments are rare. Medical facilities are equipped with the latest technology and the statutory health insurance scheme provides nearly full cover for most medical treatments and medicines. Almost everybody in Germany has access to this system, irrespective of income or social status.”

This by no means is to say that Germany and countries like it have solved the problem of financing health care. In fact, according to justlanded.com, Germany’s medical costs are among the most expensive in the world. The difference is that more of the dollars spent on health care go toward the provision of care as opposed to paying for the bloated overhead and administrative costs associated with our crazy-quilt third party payment “system”.

Oktoberfest is just around the corner, so hoist one high, all you consumers of 16% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. This one’s for you!

--Be well. TMW