Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Dear High-Tech Employers: Sorry About Those Missing Skills [Edu_RSS] 8:34:01 PM    comment [] Kaiser Permanente patient data exposed online. Kaiser Permanente, a California HMO, acknowledged that the personal information of 140 patients was accessed by a former employee online. The former worker said the data was posted on the Web for all to see. The company disagrees. [Computerworld News] Looks like Kaiser needs to get someone on damage control and crisis management REAL fast.  This woman has a decent case for whistleblower protection and instead of trying to trying to send their time talking about how she is disgruntled, they need to deal with the issue she is bringing up.   Doesn't anyone remember the Johnson and Johnson Tylenol strategy anymore? You'd think they would given today's climate, drive toward transparency and of course, the blogsphere. 8:31:26 PM    comment [] Excerpts from an Executive Lexicon(c) Claradigm -.... Excerpts from an Executive Lexicon(c) Claradigm -- See Clara Peller, Actress; Wendy's Hamburgers: "Where's the Beef?â„¢" Crampion -- Throbbing pain you get after being told you're heading up the internal morale initiative following the recent layoffs. Cross-disciplinarian -- A person, usually management, with a strong aversion to departmental collaboration but no qualms about public floggings. Disintermediaryexpialidocious -- Medical term: Excision of puss-filled lesion. (Colloquial: Fire a consultant.) Dreamline -- The result of a 1st year MBA's efforts to Pareto-ize your supply chain so as to schedule-compress your resource-constrained mission-critical methodologies. (Usually presented in the form of a Flower Point.) Flan -- The Plan that results from the decison to execute a Frydea. FlowerPointâ„¢ -- Presenter (or presentation) oblivious to an audience sniggering at repeated uses of "agreeance," "paradigm," "synergy," or "bucketize." Frenchmarking -- the process of comparing practices within your company to those of the very best organizations and then insisting they got lucky, aren't as unique as you, don't have your challenges or vision. Frownsize -- Number of "personal days" after announcing "There will be no bonuses this year due to the economy." Frydea (Frydealist; frydealism) -- A concept or idea that a decisionmaker thinks is deeply insightful or useful, and one that those responsible for executing believe could easily have come from a high-schooler who works at McDonalds. Jingo! -- What somebody shouts when their CRM, SCM, SRM, PDM, ESM are in full agreeance validating the ASP. Extra points if your CAGR, NPV, ROI and resultant C-Level salaries are in exceedance of best practice forecasts. Loss Liter -- Unit of measure. Amount of alcohol consumed upon learning the brown-nose down the hall got your raise/promotion/office. Low-hanging flute -- Person who wildly brags on their abilities based on a few gimme sales or a virgin territory. Mentorture -- The experience of being assigned to a more senior associate to learn the ropes, only to find their primary skill is bitching about the company. Mr. Rogers -- Company Morale Officer. Parody Pricing -- Charging what the competition charges for a comparable offering, except yours doesn't work when customers get it home. Permission Marketing -- Asking people if it's okay to bug them with your company's inane marketing boilerplate so as not to piss them off by ambushing them with your company's inane marketing boilerplate. Peter Principal[sic] -- Indicator that certain small businesses shall remain so. Forever. Poutsource -- A cherry job that goes outside the firm. You really wanted it, but know that you're so busy you'd screw it up. You want it anyway. Pro Formation -- Finance. Latin for "Making Shit Up" Sayback -- The sometimes not so subtle hints to customers that "maybe you shouldn't hope for too much from this new [insert product, initiative, merger etc]." Shad & Freud -- The eyerolling that begins when a Leader annouces a new intiative. Combines the concepts of "egg on the face" and "fish stinks from the head down." Shamnesia -- Mandating something as "all hands on deck,' then getting pissed-off when your people aren't at their desks. Shempowerment -- Yielding just enough "authority" to individuals who complain that the thing that prevents them from tackling the status quo is the "permission" to take a stand. Shrimplementation -- tackling a labor intensive task with little chance of it being noticed or remembered. (See: Shamnesia.) Shyhole -- Chairman's pet project that continues on long past its useful life and drain on resources out of deference to the old man. Smassion (Smassionate) -- The perverse joy some people take in crushing the enthusiasm of others. Squishion --- A mission built out of compromise and bits of Wision. Skunk Costs -- The lingering odor that kills any new idea since somebody in marketing got a deal on that truckload of Hawaiian shirts for casual friday. Tom Collins -- 1. A a fizzy, tart alcoholic mixed drink. 2. A presentation that giddily mixes metaphors and business prescriptives from the likes of Tom Peters (In Search of Excellence; Thriving on Chaos) and Jim Collins (Built To Last; Good to Great). Tumbleweeds -- The wildly enthusiastic employees who embrace an initial idea only to cool on the concept after discovering it is heavy on the "work" requirement and light on the "cheerleader " element. Tuttlebutt -- When Sayback has become sufficiently pervasive that people have had a chance to make up their minds -- and start speaking openly about passive or active sabotage. (See: Film Brazil; Tuttle, Harry) Value-Chain Letter -- Mass-notice to all departments, suppliers, contractors, distributors et al that "There's no pie in TEAM: Cut costs or you won't be 'retained'." Visiot -- One familiar with but not facile in Microsoft Visioâ„¢ whose process maps read like the Seven Rings of Hell. (See Dante: Change Agent.) Wetworking -- 1. The "non-structured" portion of out-of-town Professional Development opportunities. 2. A process yielding the largest number of crumpled business cards with names you don't recognize. Whiffle Ball -- Company-wide gathering to announce a "significant event". Often accompanied by cold plate or bad hors d'oeurves. Wision -- Wishing for an outcome or future when you know your people don't give a rat's ass. World-klass -- Your heart's in the right place, it's your execution that sucks. Youthenasia -- The belief that any idea deriving from anyone younger or less senior than you deserves to die, on principle. Zero Defective - Company TQM/Six Sigma Guru. By null. [∞Fouroboros] 8:20:24 AM    comment [] Change! How? Had a conversation this weekend--sev.... Change! How? Had a conversation this weekend--several, actually--about how one goes about changing an organization. In the course of chatting I realized something simple: You can't change organizations. You can only reveal them to themselves. And they like what they see. Or not. If they follow the "or not" path, you can offer suggestions as to the alternatives that fit for them, and for what they believe. If they haven't evolved to the point of knowing what they believe, you start there and the rest reveals itself. It is really that simple. The rest consists of removing spackle and years of self-deception. By null. [∞Fouroboros] 8:08:29 AM    comment [] Too. Few. Real. Circumstance. Am I nutty? Am I c.... Too. Few. Real. Circumstance. Am I nutty? Am I crazy to suspect that my my cohorts might share their ideas and efforts? Do I misunderstand this "blog" thing? Do I trust you too much? Hello? Family-run: Publicly Traded. Risk: Fun Brave: Conservative If you read the trade press, XXXXXXX Corporation is a study in the successful marriage of seeming opposites. Or is it? Where does one find it written that embracing risk need be anxiety-inducing or boring? Is it really gospel that public companies have to be hidebound in their bureaucracy, or wedded to the idea that any sense of “familyâ€� has no place in business? Why can’t one laugh and be stable at the same time? No good reason: these seeming contradictions are false. In a topsy-turvy world where last year’s business heroes are this year’s goats, there’s plenty of cause and reminder to be leery of conventional wisdom. Of course, many aren’t and so they steer by the course of their neighbors or professional cohorts. They guide their efforts not based on their own character and judgement, perhaps out of fear or insecurity, but probably because they don’t “knowâ€� in any useful way who they are and what they want. In this context, using this approach, companies and individuals become in-authentic and unsustainable. In contrast, a company like XXXXXXX steers against the winds of conventional wisdom: by “holding [and encouraging] the individual’s right to self-determination in the highest light.â€� This, joined with a unique optimism about an ever-unknowable future and a keen belief in merit and achievement, explains why XXXXXXX enjoys the success it does, and how it can create and sustain the loyal communities it fosters both inside and out. For surface thinkers, this is an unconventional approach. We think they are wrong. And, in the following pages, we’d like to briefly share how we at XXXXXXX and XXXXXX agree with your outlook: It is precisely this deeper thought and consideration of personal and professional need which allows meaningful and profitable workplace communities to thrive, advance and win. By null. [∞Fouroboros] 8:07:46 AM    comment [] Bond is why we are. Brand is who we are. Busines.... Bond is why we are. Brand is who we are. Business is simply how we do. Product is only a thing. Needs change. Circumstances change. The things that address need also change. We don't notice the change. We still have our thing. We haven't considered bonds. Now we have a thing nobody wants. But no reason why. We never looked. Or we forgot. Because we had a thing! But no bonds. This is the story of the railroads. They were in the "Railroad Business." Then their product ran into circumstance. Airplanes. People seek to create and affirm bonds. With other people. As quickly as possible. Because bonding is like a drug. Quicker and more is better. Train? Or Airplane? Thing? Or more, better, faster bonding? This is why there is no Union Pacific Airways. And why there's a Southwest Airlines. Not because of trains or planes. Not the things. Because of people. Because of bonds. --------- Update: Sloppy me. Meant to offer some context and say the above is a bit of stuff bouncing around the office on the molecular nature of brands/identities/ambitions and the communities they beget or, that begat them. By null. [∞Fouroboros] 8:06:10 AM    comment [] Whither Comparative Advantage? Washington Monthly.... Whither Comparative Advantage? Washington Monthly “We no longer have a lock on technology,â€� David Baltimore, a Nobel laureate and the current president of the California Institute of Technology, wrote recently in the Los Angeles Times. “Europe is increasingly competitive, and Asia has the potential to blow us out of the water.â€� What worriers like Baltimore are beginning to grasp is that these changes are emerging just as the American economy is being made more vulnerable by the movement of manufacturing and service jobs overseas. As a result, we've become increasingly dependent on maintaining our edge in discovering the new technologies and applications that create whole new industries—just as other countries are closing that gap. This is an excellent read. And here's a nice comaparative reason why... On an overcast day in mid-December, President Bush assembled a group of CEOs at the Reagan Building—a behemoth of a federal office complex that has become the favorite venue for small-government conservatives—for a conference to promote his economic agenda. The tone of the conference, so soon after a winning election, was upbeat, cheery, back-slapping, the happy Chamber of Commerce banter of executives who have recognized a problem that they know how to fix. At the end of the day, the president himself took the stage. He said the economy was fundamentally strong and that government's role would be to “create an environment that encourages capital flows and job creation through wise fiscal policy.â€� To do this, he said, he would ask for Congress to privatize Social Security and make his tax cuts permanent. He compared himself favorably to Franklin Roosevelt. He left the stage. During the same conference, two floors up in the very same building, a group called the Council on Competitiveness held another event for the press, in which it laid out a very different vision. This group, comprised of 400 blue-chip business executives (the CEOs of IBM, Pepsi, and General Motors, among others) and university presidents—as rough an approximation of the American establishment as you could fit in a single room—was nearly as downbeat as the president was buoyant. The astonishingly fast rise of international competitors, they warned, has meant that the American economy has reached an “inflection point,â€� a “unique and delicate historic junctureâ€� at which America, “for the first time in our history…is confronting the prospect of a reverse brain drain.â€�... Lots more here. Go check it out. Funnily enough, covered this syndrome a year ago January. Aww, what the heck, I'll quote myself.... The Creative Class rises, then emigrates to Bondi beach. From How the GOPs Anti-elitism could ruin America's economy: ...the lion’s share of benefits from The Lord of the Rings is likely to accrue not to the United States but to New Zealand. Next, with a rather devastating symbolism, Jackson will remake King Kong in Wellington, with a budget running into upwards of $150 million. Peter Jackson’s power play hasn’t been mentioned by any of the current candidates running for president. Yet the loss of U.S. jobs to overseas competitors is shaping up to be one of the defining issues of the 2004 campaign. And for good reason. Voters are seeing not just a decline in manufacturing jobs, but also the outsourcing of hundreds of thousands of white-collar brain jobs—everything from software coders to financial analysts for investment banks. These were supposed to be the “safeâ€� jobs, for which high school guidance counselors steered the children of blue-collar workers into college to avoid their parents’ fate. But the loss of some of these jobs is only the most obvious—and not even the most worrying—aspect of a much bigger problem. Other countries are now encroaching more directly and successfully on what has been, for almost two decades, the heartland of our economic success — the creative economy. Very good article encapsulating the folly of traditional economic and business thinking in the face of a world fast learning the lessons of growth and ambition--and in many cases, walking the talk better than we do. Read it, it's about much more than the movie business. Richard Florida is an Economic Development specialist whose 2001 book, Rise of the Creative Class, factually and in great detail finally took the knees out from under the traditional urban revitalization view: Build it and they will come. They didn't, don't, can't, won't come. You've seen the syndrome: Big stadia, gallerias, Biotech parks and incubators, big-box blackfields (Wal-Mart-ish aircraft hangars for retail, surrounded by acres of asphalt desert with shopping cart tumbleweeds). These, and similar Frydeas* are the embodiment of the shortsighted "crown-jewel", "silver bullet" mentality of urban politicians and developers without opposable thumbs. And they fail with depressing regularity while siphoning off tax revenue and small business bases, thereby strangling community viability. You might call them the ultimate triumph of ego over any understanding of the food chain that is economic systems: Lions get the pampering. Gazelles, rabbits, mice and ants get bupkis because they aren't "sexy" [and can't roar]. In the end, the lions die of starvation too.... Okay, on second thought, go read the Washington Monthly article. It has fewer goofy analogies. By null. [∞Fouroboros] 8:02:42 AM    comment [] Take it easy. You're making us look bad. "We ha.... Take it easy. You're making us look bad. "We have to walk before we can run." Overheard that nugget being used to flog a really smart person today. Bullshit. Infants have to walk before they run. But they only run if their parents let them; only if those parents remember that falling and getting a boo-boo is part of growth and ambition. But "walk before we can run" gets used by 45-year olds overseeing 30-year olds all working for 75-year old companies. Not too many diapers in those boardrooms. Just plenty of "wubbies." No, "We" don't run because those who can grant permission--encourage the running--prefer to walk. Walking is a higher percentage endeavor in their eyes. A lower exertion one, too. Running is not their ambition, exposure makes them anxious. Horizons make them squint. Problem is, people are hard-wired to run. And to admire the fleet of foot. And to follow them. In business and evolution, running is a primary adaptation that allowed man to climb to the top of the heap. Running ahead too far has it's dangers certainly, but those are issues of direction and purpose, not speed--running just to run, to feel or look busy, not to get somewhere. Too bad Darwin proves the "walk before we run" business people wrong. Too bad, for all of us, that what "walk before we run" people really usually mean is: I prefer camouflage to speed. And average over ambition. Run. As soon as you can walk. You'll encounter more numerous useful experiences. You won't get eaten as easily. And you'll like who you become. By null. [∞Fouroboros] 8:00:49 AM    comment [] Steve Neiderhauser knows p3 + What / How = Why! .... Steve Neiderhauser knows p3 + What / How = Why! Well, it's always nice when, after launching a daisy cutter (TM - Spooky Action) like this previous post, one of your grumblings is echoed by a nice piece of higher powered big-time consultant research. The assertion was: ... in the pursuit of lean, all we get is mean. As we lop off 10 one-thousandths from the sheet metal we use to make our microwave ovens to squeeze 10 million out of our Cost of Goods Sold, we know what is happening. It is mated with management naivete born of hurry, pressure or boredom that drains 100 million from another line on the P&L. The Big time consultant? BoozAllenHamilton. Take it away, Steve... 8 Simple Rules for managing a wayward company What's a bigger disaster than all the combined corporate scandals of the last five years? Why, it's incompetent management, of course. Bob Prosen, the executive director of the UTD Prosen Center for Business Advancement, cites an analysis by Booz Allen Hamilton -- Management ineptness, over the past five years, has cost shareholders seven times the lost equity value from corporate scandals. In an interview (registration required) with Dallas Morning News columnist Cheryl Hall, Prosen talks of a survey that he created -- 64 top Dallas-Fort Worth executives responded to questions about leadership. Then he surveyed their employees. The results? The two groups are on different pages, maybe on different books. Among the most serious disconnects: 70 percent of the executives felt they clearly communicated their top business objectives. But more than half of the employees couldn't articulate them. "When you walk the cubicles and ask employees what are the company's top two or three objectives, many say, 'I don't know,' or possibly 'I don't care,' which is a bigger systemic issue of culture and morale," Mr. Prosen says. Gee.Shocking. More folks who don't know, haven't been told clearly, couldn't care less: What?" and "Why?" (Secret: If you know why, you don't have to have all the answers to "what?") Steve has more on Prosen's 8 Simple rules derived from MBWA (management by walking around. Check it out. By null. [∞Fouroboros] 8:00:28 AM    comment [] Go ahead, make them look bad. I've been enjoying Mark Brady's Fouroboros for a while now. Here he gets at some important truths about those who propose change inside organizations. There was a time when I thought this kind of response was appropriate even when I was upset by it. Now, it simply annoys me and Mark provides some ammunition to address the underlying fear it ultimately represents. When you do decide to run anyway, might as well run with scissors as well. Take it easy. You're making us look bad. "We ha... Take it easy. You're making us look bad. "We have to walk before we can run." Overheard that nugget being used to flog a really smart person today. Bullshit. Infants have to walk before they run. But they only run if their parents let them; only if those parents remember that falling and getting a boo-boo is part of growth and ambition. But "walk before we can run" gets used by 45-year olds overseeing 30-year olds all working for 75-year old companies. Not too many diapers in those boardrooms. Just plenty of "wubbies." No, "We" don't run because those who can grant permission--encourage the running--prefer to walk. Walking is a higher percentage endeavor in their eyes. A lower exertion one, too. Running is not their ambition, exposure makes them anxious. Horizons make them squint. Problem is, people are hard-wired to run. And to admire the fleet of foot. And to follow them. In business and evolution, running is a primary adaptation that allowed man to climb to the top of the heap. Running ahead too far has it's dangers certainly, but those are issues of direction and purpose, not speed--running just to run, to feel or look busy, not to get somewhere. Too bad Darwin proves the "walk before we run" business people wrong. Too bad, for all of us, that what "walk before we run" people really usually mean is: I prefer camouflage to speed. And average over ambition. Run. As soon as you can walk. You'll encounter more numerous useful experiences. You won't get eaten as easily. And you'll like who you become. [8Fouroboros] [McGee's Musings] 7:34:19 AM    comment [] Church of the Risen Elvis. Because Atlanta courtroom killer Brian Nichols was read parts of The Purpose-Driven Life by his last hostage, CNN is republishing an interview the book's author did last November on Larry King Live. The book sounds like 336 pages of merciless flogging, based on the simplistic platitudes that the author, Rev. Rick Warren, inflicts on King ("The middle letter of pride is I, and the middle letter of sin is I"). The middle letter of tripe is I, too, reverend. But I'm linking to call attention to this comment (emphasis mine): The problem today, Larry, is not unbelief. The problem is today everyone wants to believe everything. They want to believe it all. I want to believe in reincarnation and heaven. Those are mutually exclusive things. I want to believe in Elvis, and I want to believe in Jesus -- those are mutually exclusive. One of my favorite science fiction novels, Dreamships by Melissa Scott, is set in a future in which Elvis Presley fandom has shifted from adulation to idolatry. The Church of the Risen Elvis is an established denomination and "Elvis Christ!" a common curse. As a longtime resident of the South, I could see the King eventually becoming a challenge to the King of Kings, but I didn't know that true believers already had to pick sides. [Workbench] Dorothy would have loved this! 7:22:38 AM    comment []

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